Dragon Eyes
2012
After Dark Films / Signature Entertainment / Autonomous Films / Dark Castle Entertainment / Silver Pictures : After Dark Films / G2 Pictures / IM Global
2.25 / 10
I've been a fan of Jean-Claude Van Damme films since No Retreat No Surrender back in 1986, in fact, that's when my interest in martial arts movies started to grow. To be honest, Van Damme has done some bad films in his time and this has to be one of the worst, though not because of him... Van Damme is the strongest actor in the cast.
This is a strange story of police corruption and gang warfare which flares up out of control when Hong, played by Cung Le is released from prison and drives into St. Jude. So that premise alone should allow for great drama and martial arts action, especially as Cung Le is a mixed martial arts champion and the cast sports Peter Weller as the crooked cop Mister V.
However, the story is weak and full of plotholes, whereas the martial arts scenes are all fought in slow motion and is easier to spot the fakes and the fluffs - the thrown punches that miss their opponent. The slowness also distracts from the action. There was a reason some 80's martial arts films speeded up the action, they knew it made it more exciting. Hence, you slow it down and it gets boring. This was a major fubar by director John Hyams - the other was to try and make the film stylish and cool, it was too obvious and failed miserably.
Then there's the set's these are so cheap and tacky they look as if they were either abandoned buildings or somebodies garage. Should have paid for a location scout, people.
It's Weller as the over-the-top Mister V and Van Damme as Tiano who actually appear to give a damn about the film as they both get into their characters pretty well, though it's nowhere nearly enough to raise this out of the toilet it should be flushed down.
Yet another movie that could have been so much better had things been done differently.
I wouldn't even recommend this to Van Damme fans as he's just not in it fo long enough. If you're thinking of making a martial arts film then you could watch this to see how it shouldn't be done!
However, the story is weak and full of plotholes, whereas the martial arts scenes are all fought in slow motion and is easier to spot the fakes and the fluffs - the thrown punches that miss their opponent. The slowness also distracts from the action. There was a reason some 80's martial arts films speeded up the action, they knew it made it more exciting. Hence, you slow it down and it gets boring. This was a major fubar by director John Hyams - the other was to try and make the film stylish and cool, it was too obvious and failed miserably.
Then there's the set's these are so cheap and tacky they look as if they were either abandoned buildings or somebodies garage. Should have paid for a location scout, people.
It's Weller as the over-the-top Mister V and Van Damme as Tiano who actually appear to give a damn about the film as they both get into their characters pretty well, though it's nowhere nearly enough to raise this out of the toilet it should be flushed down.
Yet another movie that could have been so much better had things been done differently.
I wouldn't even recommend this to Van Damme fans as he's just not in it fo long enough. If you're thinking of making a martial arts film then you could watch this to see how it shouldn't be done!
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