It’s time for a very old film with Jackie Chan. It’s definitely not one of his best films but the fight scenes are definitely on point when they occur. You get a lot of action at the end of the film but outside of a fight near the beginning, the film does go a long while without action. There are quite a few twists throughout the movie which does take it in a different direction than you might have expected but in this case that’s not necessarily a good thing.

The movie starts off with two factions fighting. One of them wins and so the master claims the title of “Champion” and has the banner to prove it. The master of a different faction didn’t like this and so he challenges the first one to a battle for the crown. The first master loses and is promptly murdered. His top student Tang is tasked with avenging the master’s death and restoring honor to his family. So he travels with the master’s wife and daughter to the home base of the villainous Master Li. Tang has been doing some training but is he really ready to take on a master level opponent when he was folded so easily the first time? Additionally there is a lot of politics going on here with various factions so Tang must really plan his moves carefully or risk complete and utter defeat.

Okay so lets start off with the positives here. The fight scenes are really good. I always appreciate some good martial arts like what this film has. The choreography is really good and the fighters are attacking at high speeds all the time. You feel good power behind the blows and it’s nice when two fighters finally go at it in life or death stakes near the end. A lot of the action scenes tend to involve one side holding back due to circumstances but of course you’re eager to see the fighters cut loose. There’s a really fast fists barrage near the end of the film which should really stand out even among the other combos.

The film is also fairly unpredictable which is good to an extent. I probably would have preferred the more predictable plot of revenge in this case but more on that later. There are also a decent amount of memorable supporting characters so it helps make the film more memorable. For example the 2nd in command for the main villain and the main heroine of Master Li’s faction. So it’s not one of those films where only the main character and villain are important.

Now on the not as impressive side is the main character. This is in part I’d say a cultural difference as well. A lot of times in both Japanese and Chinese films, there’s a lot of stock put on family honor and doing whatever you gotta do in order to preserve it. The main problem is that this will often result in the characters making the wrong decisions just because to go against it would be dishonorable. Tang strikes me as that kind of character as he goes as far as to become a full villain after some strategic blackmail. Here’s the main problem, he should just be taking what he needs by force.

The situation involves a drug that he needs or at least the formula to replicate it and the only way he can get it is to beat people up by working for a gang. At that point if you’re going to have to be a villain anyway, choose the outcome that has the least amount of victims. In that case it would be taking down the villains himself. Tang just seems a little slow on the uptake here as he doesn’t quite seem to realize how evil his bosses are when they don’t really hide it.

There’s one scene where the villains murder a child and Tang gets framed for it. He quickly confirms that he didn’t murder the child but this doesn’t stop one of the villains from being upset at how he orchestrated all of this for Tang to murder some more heroes. Here’s the thing..he says that right in front of Tang yet the lead doesn’t visibly react at all. Surely that should have been the end of this alliance right?

Then Tang goes as far as to fight all of the good guys at once while still working for the villain and it’s not until the final 15 minutes or so that he realizes he’s not doing well. This results in yet an even higher body count once more. I would also argue that the ending isn’t even a happy one at all. You have to remember that the heroes were heavily outnumbered with numerous guys with swords bumping off anyone who tried to leave the complex. The movie ends immediately after the final fight but as far as we know there are 3-4 super weakened heroes left who are going to have to fight well over 2 dozen armed fighters. I don’t think they’re actually leaving that place alive. There’s a slight shot Tang can do something since he’s the most skilled but even then I just don’t see it.

All right time for some spoilers so skip the next 3 paragraphs if you haven’t seen the film. It’s time for me to go into detail on some of the twists and why they didn’t work for me. Well first off, we never got the big fight with Master Li. It turns out that his wife destroyed herself in guilt after his win because she had an affair with the other guy so then Li removed his leg as penance and wants to make amends with the main characters. It’s not like you can just go ahead and beat up on someone with one leg who can no longer fight although Tang comes dangerously close to attempting this anyway. It’s a very intense twist to be sure but it means we have lost the main villain//the strongest fighter in the series. The movie has a hard time recovering from this because the actual main villain is so much weaker.

It’s subversive but it comes at the expense of a cool climax. The new villain’s second in command is reasonably tough but only makes this a real fight because he grabs some weapons at the end. Likewise the actual new villain only does well because the hero is tired by then. It would be much more satisfying to take down a main villain who is super powerful. It also feels like maybe the film did this because Tang would have been no match for Master Li but I’d still have preferred to watch that fight.

Ultimately though, the film’s lacking because of Tang in each scenario though. Beating up on the heroes while working for the villains is pretty wild in itself but he’s always extremely slow to act. At one point a group of 5 men attack one of the heroines and he just stands there like a statue until their blows start to add up and he realizes he should be in there fighting. Yeah it’s good that he eventually got in there but leaving her to fend for herself for any period of time really wasn’t cool.

That’s it for the spoilers so back to the program. The old master’s wife and daughter were more reasonable than Tang at least which is good although you do feel like they were just holding him back the whole time. I know they needed to be there as per tradition for their revenge but if Tang had just gone by himself then the whole film would have played out verrrrry differently. Having to watch out for two noncombatants the whole time is very tricky.

The film can also get a little dark at times. Of course you have the kid dying which I wasn’t really expecting. Fortunately it’s completely off screen but it’s still something we didn’t really need here. Two characters commit suicide and so the film which already had a fairly large body count, really added to it with some intense ones there. Considering that the gang’s run things for a while now, it’s likely something that happens a lot. Master Li’s reasoning for not fighting back doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Yeah he was waiting for proof but in the meantime his men are being attacked and the villains are gaining more ground. That’s a losing, defensive strategy. If you want to win then you have to press forward and attack. It’s not like he’s a diplomat who needs absolute proof before doing anything. He’s a martial arts master whose first duty is protecting his students, he really should have done something.

The characters don’t always feel very logical to me and it feels like an honor thing at times. They all just have to pretend to be polite at all times and do everything by the book. That may be fine in some scenarios but often times you need to get out there and attack. While I have numerous issues with Tang throughout the film, at least his intro scene where he jumped in to defend the master was good. It would have been nice if he would have at least looked decent in the fight instead of being thrown around effortlessly but the attempt was the important part.

Overall, Dragon Fist is not going to be able to hang in there blow for blow with most of its martial art rivals but if you’re looking for a quick film with lots of action then this definitely works out well. It is over with very quickly and so the pacing’s not bad. I would have liked a little more action and for Tang to have been more likable for it to have crossed over into the next level. I think that alone could have bumped it an extra two stars. It just focused too much on so many different plots with all of the factions which could work really well for a series where you keep spreading out the cast for the inevitable conclusion but having 3 different groups in a film that’s barely 90 minutes is pushing it. You don’t have much reason to care about some of these characters and it takes away from the main story which gets put on the backburner at different points.

Overall 5/10