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Rating:  -
This is has to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen . It ranks up there with Godzilla 2000 ...
Rating:  -
After seeying the for me quite dissapointing "Romeo Must Die", I saw this film: Kiss of the Dragon. This film I found way better than "Romeo must Die" and it was very entertaining. It is a very serious and dark film with an energetic Li who shows what he's got!
The story follows a Chinese Agent (Jet Li) who is sent to Paris, France to help the local cops there with an ivestigation. When on the mission he finds out that he is in a web of traitors who will try to kill him at any costs. Now, with the prove of a crime on a cassettetape, he has to run for his life!
Kiss of the Draghon features 5 energetic and well choreographed action sequences that gets the adrenaline pumping. Li is absolutely fantastic and kicks and punches his way through the movie with great speed. There is one scene where Li has to fight with about 25 men, which is a may it be short but spectacular scene to see. Next to being good in the fighting, he also succeeds in giving his caracther some dramatic depth. He acts good and gives a satisfying performance.
Bridget Fonda stars next to Li as the hooker with the golden heart. She acts good as well. She manages to stay on her feet and knows how to play the dramatic scenes well.
As the bad guy there is Tchéky Karyo, who plays his character with such evil and anger that you just can't wait till Li gets the chance to kick his butt good!
So overall, Kiss of the Dragon is a good film with good acting performances and great action. Action fans will not be dissapointed and Jet Li fans will love this film. So, an absolute must for Jet Li fans and a good film to see for action fans.
Rating:  -
I really enjoyed Jet Li's performance in this movie. It's always refreshing to see unadulterated martial art. There were a few slow moments, but I liked the story line and Jet Li is always easy to watch.
Rating: -
Based on a story written by star Jet Li (Romeo Must Die, Fearless) and adapted for the silver screen by Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) and Robert Mark Kamen (The Transporter), Kiss of the Dragon (2001) was directed by Chris Nahon, in his film debut. Also appearing in the film, along with Jet Li, is Bridget Fonda (Point of No Return), Tcheky Karyo (Bad Boys, The Core), Vincent Wong (Die Another Day, Batman Begins), and Burt Kwouk, probably best known from his past, reoccurring character role as the manservant Cato Fong from the various Pink Panther features.
Jet Li plays a character named Liu Jian, a highly decorated police officer/acupuncturist from Hong Kong who has recently arrived in France to assist local officials in capturing a Chinese criminal overlord. Upon arriving Liu hooks up with a French police official named Inspector Richard (Karyo), who's in charge of the sting operation, which is currently in surveillance mode at some swanky hotel. Here's the thing...turns out Inspector Richard is seriously bent and has ties to the criminal he's supposedly after, so much so he arranges for things to go down badly. Liu gets caught up in the middle of things resulting in some martial arts action as Liu battles Inspector Richard's corrupt police squad goons, but manages to escape with a key piece of evidence. Inspector Richard, who's about as oily as they come, twists everything around to make it appear Liu was responsible for the debacle, and brands him a killer. In an effort to clear his name, Liu finds himself saddled with a greasy, junkie prostitute named Jessica (Fonda), who's connected with Inspector Richard in that he's holding her young daughter, the intent being to maintain leverage to keep Jessica on the streets...which seemed an awful lot of trouble given she was the least productive member of the group of street tramps apparently controlled by Inspector Richard (through various intermediaries, of course)...anyway, things get progressively messy as Inspector Richard and his goons tear the city apart trying to find Liu. Eventually things come to a head as Liu battles his way into the belly of the beast in a final confrontation between Inspector Richard and his men at the police station in an effort to rescue Jessica's daughter.
While I enjoyed the action sequences immensely, I thought the story not so hot, overall. The main problem I had was with Bridget Fonda's character in that I thought she was unnecessary, and her only reason for being in the film was to add a female element to the story. I found myself cringing somewhat anytime her character related various bits and pieces of her sob story as it all seems just so pathetic and manufactured. I suppose I was supposed to feel all sympathetic to her plight but I found it hard to do since so much of it was the result of her own actions (or inactions, as the case may be). Another thing...I've seen a number of real life, strung out street walkers and I can say not a one of them ever looked as good as Bridget Fonda (most of the time they looked like twenty miles of bad road). Now, the filmmakers did `dirty' Fonda up a bit, making her appear all greasy and such, but still, she relatively looked attractive, which made it hard for me to believe she was one of the least producing girls (in terms of turning tricks) of her group, especially given some of the lice infested street skags she was competing against. Another element of the story that sort of bothered me was Inspector Richard and his crew, all of whom were corrupt, and the fact they had a free hand to do just about whatever they wanted, including shooting up hotels, sightseeing buffet boats, and orphanages, regardless of the toll in terms of casualties or property damage (their motto seemed to be shoot first, shoot again, and then ask questions). Seems to me someone, at some point, would hold him and his flunkies responsible for their grossly negligent actions, but perhaps things are different, in this respect, in France than they are in other places...oh well...so what did I like about the film? Well, I thought the action was excellent as Jet Li displays why he's one of the best and most proficient martial artists performing in film today. Now I haven't seen many of his foreign made features, but of the western films I've seen him in, I think I liked this one the best in terms of displaying hand to hand and weapon based combat. The martial arts sequences are staggered throughout the film, but know the last fifteen minutes or so is all action, as this is when Li's character takes it to the Man by walking directly into the police station where Inspector Richard is located and begins meting out the punishment. There are a lot of great sequences here, but I think my favorite was where he accidentally walked into a room containing about 25 to 30 officers training in martial arts. The subsequent fight sequence is amazing, albeit kind of short. The extensive effort of the choreography, orchestrated by Corey Yuen, involved in this scene boggles the brain. As far as the performances I thought most were decent enough, although I thought Tcheky Karyo, who played the main villain Inspector Richard, was a little over the top, but memorable (seemed more often than not he kept trying to one up himself on showing us just how evil, rotten, and just generally despicable he was). Overall the story didn't do much for me except drag things down a little, but the intense martial artistry saved the day, making this a generally entertaining feature worth checking out if you're in need of an action fix. One last thing, I didn't necessarily appreciate the gratuitous rap music used during the fight sequences. It's not that I don't like rap (some of it is all right), but it just felt like it was stuck in there to be trendy, and not because it was appropriate.
The widescreen anamorphic (2.35:1) video on this DVD comes across strong and clean, and the audio, available in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround comes through very well. There's quite a few extras available including an audio commentary track with director Chris Nahon, and actors Jet Li and Bridget Fonda, along with four featurettes, some of which focus on Li's fighting philosophy and the martial arts sequences in the film. Also thrown in are storyboard to film comparisons, action gallery production stills, television spots, and the original theatrical trailer, as well as ones for the features Behind Enemy Lines (2001) and Planet of the Apes (2001).
Cookieman108
Rating: -
The Blu-ray Disc is supposed to have 5 times more memory than standard DVD. So why can't they release ALL the special features (and more if possible) that the standard DVD has? The Standard DVD of this movie has running commentary, a Jet Li featurette, a Featurette from Cory Yuen, the fight choreographer, martial arts demos, storyboard to film comparisons, a production featurette, and more. All that is included on this Blu-ray is the Theatrical trailer. Blu-ray so far has done this with "The Devil Wears Prada" "Saw" "The Transporter" "Transporter 2" "Black Hawk Down" "House of Flying Daggers" and probably much more. The HD DVD has never done this. And, the blu-ray is supposed to have MORE memory than HD DVD, so why isn't it happening. I don't know if it's a product, money, or copyright issue, but it's really stupid!
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