Hong Kong

DRAGON ON FIRE (THE DRAGON, THE HERO)-1979-Wow! I was so confused by this typical old school '70's martial arts movie made in Hong Kong. There were a lot of characters and they all fought each other in various styles. I think it had to do with two fighters who become enemies. One fighter is actually a spy sent to infiltrate a smuggling ring. There's a pasty faced Asian bad guy Tang (Tino Wong) and a non-Asian villain (Jim Jones) too.  Dragon Lee/Bruce Lei is in it imitating his hero. Mostly it's fights and fighters laughing. Much of the dubbed voices are ridiculous even for a Kung Fu movie! A very dark scene of a guy eating food and fondling a woman and an attempted rape where the rapist is castrated by a dog (!) seem to be from another movie. This shouldn't come as a surprise since DRAGON was directed by Godfrey Ho (MANHATTAN CHASE), a prolific B-director known for his "paste up" jobs (the Al Adamson of Hong Kong?). The finale goes on for ever where in one of the fights the pasty face guy turns into some kind of zombie (with green skin and blue hair) and fights Lei. Occasionally the music lapses into a cover of the SHAFT theme! Most reviews say Bolo Yeung has a cameo but I think it was cut out of the version I saw.



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