Verdict
Summary
Fist of the Dragon does the best it can with such a limited budget and despite its flaws it has some decent fight scenes but the CG blood and muzzle flair still pisses me off too much.
Plot: Damon, an MMA fighter retires and goes to China to meet his new love, Meili. But things take an immediate turn when he inadvertently takes a package sought by an underground arms dealer. Now he must fight to save himself and his loved one.
Review: First of the Dragon is a super low budget indie action flick starring Juju Chan, Josh “The Punk” Thomson and Daniel Whyte.
The budget was only $170,000 and I won’t lie, you can totally tell due to the CG blood and muzzle flair which made me want to turn the film off after a few minutes. I eventually made peace with it though and realised that it’s not going away any time soon despite how totally shit it always looks.
There are also plenty of dodgy performances and Juju Chan doesn’t do anything except wait to get rescued by Damon (Josh Thomson).
Thomson is a likeable enough lead even if he does lack a bit of charisma but as this was his first starring role then I could see him becoming a viable action star… if such a thing still existed.
The script also causes some unintentional mirth with lines like “Where are my mooncakes?” or words to that effect.
Aside from all of that though what this movie has in its favour is action; there’s tons of it and it never lets up until the end. The fights are well done and there are some rather cool moves which I hadn’t seen before.
I also have to commend any film which has so many quality bad guy deaths. People are impaled on glass, get their limbs snapped, stabbed, shot and more so it must have a bodycount in the double digits.
Overall, Fist of the Dragon does the best it can with such a limited budget and despite its flaws it has some decent fight scenes but the CG blood and muzzle flair still pisses me off too much.
