I am convinced that comic-to-film adaptations are possibly the single most difficult movies to make. There have been countless failures in Hollywood and Hong Kong over the years. It may have to do with audience expectations not being met, a colossal misinterpretation of the source material or just plain old bad filmmaking. Hollywood finally got wise to an extent by pairing talented filmmakers with both obscure and mainstream comic book heroes. They have been riding high on a string of successes that began with BLADE and looks to continue with 300. But as the recent release of GHOST RIDER has proven, there is no magic formula and for every success there are at least two critical, if not commercial flops. Unfortunately, Hong Kong’s DRAGON TIGER GATE falls into this latter category.
The film marks the second pairing of action director and martial arts star Donnie Yen with writer and director Wilson Yip, following their release of the hugely popular police thriller KILL ZONE (aka SPL). DTG is based on a popular manhua (comic book) series created in 1970 by Tony Wong. It is still in publication today.
The plot revolves around the Dragon Tiger Gate, a martial arts academy created by two martial arts masters as a haven for orphans caught up in gang violence and as a beacon for righteousness in a city overrun by criminal triads.
Dragon Wong (Donnie Yen) and Tiger Wong (Nicholas Tse) are the sons of the school’s founders, yet through circumstances stemming from their childhood now find themselves on opposite sides. With his dynamic kicking ability, Tiger has remained with the school while Dragon, with his palm strike mastery is working for gang leader Ma Shun (Chen Kuan-tai). Both sides are drawn into conflict when Tiger gets his hands on an important plaque belonging to Ma Kun and refuses to return it.
But a greater threat to both sides appears when a powerful masked warlord named Shibumi targets Ma Kun and Dragon Tiger Gate’s remaining master Wong Jianglong (Yuen Wah). Although joined by a nunchaku-wielding newcomer named Turbo (Shawn Yu), Tiger is still no match for Shibumi. The pair must rely on Dragon, the only fighter strong enough to take on this threat. But first, Dragon will have to come to terms with his past.
What my plot summary leaves out is the utterly pointless addition of Angel Dong Jie as Ma Xiaoling, daughter of Ma Kun and a romantic interest for Tiger. Equally pointless is Li Xiaoran as Rosa, a love interest for Dragon and invention created solely for this movie. Little effort is made to hide that these characters only exist onscreen to provide a break in the action and something else for the heroes to wrangle with. This is only one of several major problems with this movie.
Basically whenever the fighting stops, the movie crawls at a dismal pace with unimaginative and sappy drivel, either made up of overlong childhood flashbacks or amateurish attempts at creating meaningful angst for our moody heroes to chew on. I understand that Yip was trying to balance out the action with some drama, but it’s not integrated well.
There are a couple bright spots outside of the action. One scene I thought was particularly well done involved Ma Xiaoling’s desperate attempt to convince a martial arts master to cure wounds Tiger sustained when Shibumi assaulted his school. She begins to ascend a set of stairs that lead towards a pagoda when a booming voice tells her that she must first pick up prayer beads that begin to cascade down in every direction. It’s a simple, but very effective visual representation of the frustration and hopelessness someone might feel when trying to help a loved one stricken with a malady that seems virtually incurable.
Another nice touch is the master-student relationship between Turbo and Wong Jianglong. Turbo is initially a poser, a self-taught fighter who hides behind a façade of made up stories about his background and overconfidence in his martial arts ability. With nothing but a sandal, Jianglong brings him back to reality. Their relationship provides the only bit of humor and warmth in an otherwise superficial story dominated by awful product placement for Nokia mobile phones. It’s obtrusive enough to draw comparisons to the cinematic iPod commercial that is BLADE TRINITY.
Once again, Donnie and Wilson prove to be an effective team when it comes to shooting great fight scenes. Granted, this is a comic book movie so the action is a little more exaggerated than the fighting in KILL ZONE. Wires, trampolines and CGI are used extensively. Wilson also makes good use of some excellent sets and dynamic camera positioning such as overhead crane shots looking straight down on a massive brawl in a Japanese restaurant where fighters get tossed up towards the camera.
Even among all this artifice it’s easy to see that Donnie was striving to produce stunning fighting moves with as much realism as the material and actors’ abilities would allow. Besides aging stars Chen Kuan-tai and Yuen Wah, Donnie is the only martial artist in the cast so it could have been easy for him to outshine his co-stars, but Nicholas Tse and Shawn Yu are both surprisingly good in their action scenes. Shawn really hasn’t done any notable martial arts fighting onscreen previously, but somehow learned to wield nuchaku well enough to adequately make it his signature fighting style for most of his scenes. Nicholas had previously turned in screen fighting performances in a couple genre films including THE PROMISE. But nothing comes even close to the dynamic leg work he unleashes here. Behind-the-scenes footage reveals that wires enhanced his movements at times, but he still knocks out some pretty impressive moves considering his real-life inexperience with martial arts. I would compare him favorably to old school legend David Chiang when it comes to screen fighting ability.
The one big disappointment I found that is directly related to the action is in the choice of villain. The masked Shibumi is an underwhelming baddie. The stunt actor who plays him just isn’t convincing as a powerful fighter despite many exaggerated attempts to portray him as such. He knocks around a Guinness-certified world’s largest punching bag with ease, but his movements are stiff and the force of his strikes almost entirely rest on live-action and digital trickery. In addition, his colorless costume is pitiful. Half the time, he just blends in with the surroundings unintentionally. Making matters worse is the complete failure to develop his character. We know more about Rosa, a character that doesn’t even exist in the comic, than we do about the main villain.
Another disappointment is Chen Kuan-tai’s performance. He was one of Hong Kong’s few A-list kung fu stars in the 1970s who’s off screen skills were nearly equal to his onscreen skills. He was also one of Shaw Brothers top genre actors and proved it by starring in some of the era’s greatest films including BOXER FROM SHANTUNG and THE FLYING GUILLOTINE. But in DTG he’s given a hideous hairdo (which isn’t much worse than what the rest of the male cast members sport) and given very little to work with from the script. Even worse, his one big fight scene where he could have gone out in style by single-handedly taking on an army of thugs with nothing but a baseball bat fizzles. Donnie mentions in an interview that he was disappointed with this scene because he ran out of time to finish it as intended. It shows, as it is the weakest fight scene in the movie. I don’t blame Donnie, but Chen deserves better showcasing, especially considering the better fighting role Yuen Wah is allowed to have.
It’s a shame that DTG flounders so much because it has so much potential. After the success of KILL ZONE, Yip was able to muster impressive production standards for this movie. The sets look amazing. The CGI effects are not quite as polished as they could be, but generally work very well for a comic book movie and they’re far less obnoxious than what’s shown in fantasy films like THE STORM RIDERS and THE LEGEND OF ZU. Kenji Kawai provides the same high quality music that he previous applied to SEVEN SWORDS and anime hits like GHOST IN THE SHELL 2. This is a movie that should have played very well internationally despite that foreign audiences would likely be unfamiliar with the DTG comics. Above all, the movie does a far better job of creating CGI-enhanced martial arts action than disappointing Hollywood flicks like CATWOMAN and ELEKTRA. But ultimately the movie is yet another indication that with very few exceptions, the Hong Kong film industry is losing its soul.
by Mark PollardRelated Topics:
Donnie Yen • Dragon Tiger Gate (2006) • Nicholas Tse • Shawn Yue
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