Movie Review: Dragon Lord (1982) directed by Jackie Chan
Dragon (Jackie Chan) is a boy in his late teens who is a talented but undisciplined martial artist, and disappoints his wealthy father (Feng Tien) by blowing off his literature studies to hang out with his buddy “Cowboy” Wa (Mars). Cowboy’s father (Paul Chang Chung) is also wealthy, and a bit foolish with his money, buying expensive items for his collection without thinking of utility. The boys like participating in sports (four-team rugby and shuttlecock soccer) and have an interest in pretty girls, though they are inexperienced at interacting with the latter.
When Dragon and Cowboy fall for the same girl, this causes friction between the two and damages their friendship. While they are engaging in romantic comedy shenanigans, a band of rebels is stealing cultural artifacts from the local temple to sell to Mr. Wa so that they can then buy weapons to overthrow the government. Naturally, these two plot threads collide, so that Dragon and Cowboy must fight the rebel leader (Ing-Sik Whang) to protect themselves and others.
Good: Fun stunts and action throughout, especially the brutal fight in a barn at the climax. Jackie’s ability to play a skilled martial artist who is also a goofball is always appreciated. Some good foreshadowing.
Less good: Jackie Chan was still in the early stages of learning to direct, and it shows. The rugby match was originally written for the end of the movie, to show the repaired relationship of Dragon and Cowboy, but was moved to the beginning so the story could start with an action scene, where it just kind of sits there with no characterization or plot and if you didn’t know who Jackie Chan was, you would have no idea who to root for.
The girls in the movie are there to be pursued, and have little characterization beyond “hard to get”, and for all their plot relevance could have been replaced with any other desirable group. Several of the comedy beats don’t land properly.
Content note: martial arts violence, a little blood. Early body function humor. Slapstick of girls hitting boys for being jerks.
This is relatively low grade Jackie Chan, but like pizza, low grade Jackie Chan is still pretty good. Worth checking out if you’ve run out of the top Jackie movies.
