Customer Reviews

The Dragonhead: The Godfather of Chinese Crime--His Rise and Fall

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

First of all, I strongly encourage anyone to read an excerpt of this book before purchasing it. Sack (for better or worse) is one of the pioneers of "literary journalism", which means his writing style is more akin to storytelling, with recreated conversations and whatnot, than many people will be used to. This is especially disconcerting because he explains his methodology in assembling this biography of Chinese gang lord Johnny Kon at the end of the book, instead of the beginning. If this doesn't put you off, it's still hard to ignore some of his other stylistic flaws. Foremost of these is an excess of detail-throughout the book the reader is kept up to date on every dish consumed during gang meetings, the cost, style, and provenance of every item of footwear Johnny Kon is wearing, and the precise decor of every hotel lobby and room he passes through. These details, marginally interesting the first or second appearance, rapidly grow annoying and intrusive, ballooning what might have been a 250 page book to it's final 400 pages. Another stylistic flaw is the lack of dates throughout. Once the early part of Johnny's life is past, and the Vietnam War is over, it's very hard to get a sense of what time frame is under discussion.

The life and times of Johnny Kon is certainly an interesting tale, and not one many people could have even attempted, much less completed. From a life of poverty in Maoist China, Kon escaped to Shanghai and then Hong Kong, building a semi-legitimate fur empire. Much of his fur fortune was linked to the huge US Army presence in Southeast Asia during the 1960s, and the sections which detail his interactions with the US Army are very compelling. However, in this period also lies Kon's alleged motive for becoming the leading importer of heroin to the US. I say alleged because the basis for the book is Sack's relationship with Kon and interviews with him conducted in jail, and so it's hard not to view Kon's "motive" as an after-the-fact self-justification. In any event, whether one believes it or not, the event that pushed Kon into drug dealing was the death of two of his children in the chaos of the Khmer Rouge coup in Cambodia. He lays the ultimate blame for this at the feet of the US and its meddling in other countries and spread of indiscriminate death and destruction. The book posits the dubious notion that heroin was "popularized" by all the US soldiers who became addicted during their tour of duty, and thus created the demand for Kon's operations ten years later.

So, Kon builds himself a gang comprised of a tough circle of ex-Red Guard soldiers and embarks on an effective smuggling operation that massive quantities of heroin into the US in the '80s. While the logistics of his operation make for interesting reader, the dynamics of the gang do not. There are so many members of his gang, it gets hard to keep them, their nicknames, and their allegiances straight (here, a diagram or simple list at the beginning of the book would have been a useful editorial addiction). Similarly, the Byzantine feuds of the various gangs and how they all relate to each other gets a bit tedious and hard to follow. Ultimately, Kon's downfall was predictably the result of some rather amazing bungling, silly escalations of petty rivalries over "respect" between gang members, and that ultimate foe of the gangster-betrayal.

One of the more disturbing aspects of the book are the descriptions of how the US government strong-armed a number of countries into extraditing members of Kon's family who had nothing to do with his heroin operations. They were used as leverage against Kon, forcing him to plead guilty-and while there's no denying he was a very bad drug lord, those kinds of tactics are bad precedent setters. Ultimately, the book is moderately interesting, but far too long. It suffers greatly from its more or less detached recounting of Kon's life story-especially odious are Kon's attempts to be a good Bhuddist amidst it all. The same kind of hypocrisy that infested the Irish-Catholic gangs and Italian mafia. Ultimately, unless one is really really interested in the heroin trade, or in Chinese gangs, I'd probably advise skipping this overladen book.

Before buying this book, read the first few pages. If you like the style, then you'll like the book. If not, you'll find that this is a great story that was ruined by an annoying style.

This was a subject I was interested in reading about but the authors smug,semi-humorous style made it too annoying to finish. He seemed to be treating the whole serious subject with a self satisfied smirk.

My interest in the mafia was sparked by the book, "For the Sins of My Father," and since then, I have been adding to my collection. I am glad that I borrowed this book from the library versus buying it. I didn't even make it past the first 50 pages before I grew too frustrated with the author's (unique?) style of writing. Although it is extremely in depth and detail-oriented, the excessive amount of words confuse the reader and cause he or she to forget the true meaning the behind the sentence in the first place! Not worth my money, but perhaps borrow the book from another before purchasing it...

June 10, 2002

For good or ill, the author of `The Dragonhead', John
Sack, is the book's real `star'. He spends an inordinate
number of words wowing or attempting to wow his readers.
His style is a marriage of Tom Wolfe's observational
acuity and novelist James Ellroy's cynical descriptive
overkill.

As may be expected, Sack's writing occasionally gets
away from him, particularly during his frequent head-
hopping. Once inside the brains of a subject, Sack
doesn't illustrate so much as wallow. I'd guess he's
fairly on the money, but this impression may stem from
the fact that the book's main character, Johnny Kon,
has a noggin that's been turned around more times than
the wind-up propeller on a child's toy airplane ("Crank
`em up and watch `em go!").

I'm not a hundred percent on the reportage here, but
I'm more than impressed enough to believe that if not
everything in "The Dragonhead' is true, it could easily
well be. Still, it's an imperfect and not particularly
well-detailed book, and Sack and occasionally tiring
writer.

This book is about the life of a Chinese gangster leader Johnny Kon and his associates. John Jack spent 12 years talking with Kon and his criminals before he wrote this book. The operation of Johnny Kon's drug business is located in Hong Kong, my hometown. I like this book because it depicts the real life of a gangster leader and shows how he gets away from the authorities and how he runs his "business." The book unfolds like an action movie. For instance, in one scene Kon is attempting to smuggle a large amount of heroin around his waist at the airport. When he is about to be body-searched, he drops his expensive Minolta. The camera smashes on the ground, distracting all the security guards. They apologized as Kon walks away with the drugs. It is pure drama. I enjoy this book, however, I hope that readers who read this book do not have an impression that Hong Kong is highest crime cities in the world.

In this fast pacing, action packed book, Mr.Sack by no means to
justify or glorify the notorious crimes by those vicious, ruthless gansters, but rather, in every vivid, explicit detsils accounts their criminal actitities. The auther's masterful crafting of language artfully turns words into colorful, 3 dimensional pictures, take you on a thrilling global tour, and
yet, non-fictitious. Mr.Sack not only speaks the language of a different culture but also HAS INDISCRIMINATING CONSCIENCE.Do not

miss it.

I'm amazed that John Sack spent 12 years with Johnny Kon and his gang of criminals and still lived to tell the tale. The story of how Johnny became the "dragonhead" is a classic "American dream" saga, but with a very dark side--he left a trail of bodies, drugs and ruined lives on his way to fame and fortune. Of course, Johnny claims to have a personal reason that justifies all the crime and death he inflicted on American society, but I'm not buying it for a minute (what is his excuse? you'll have to read the book). Still, for anyone interested in true crime or Asian culture, this is a must-read.

Sack here bit off way more than he could chew. He had all the resources needed for writing a great story except talent. "Bland" comes to mind; so does "contrived." Moreover he shows neither sensitivity nor genuine understanding of Asian culture and the traditions of the hei sh'e hui (Chinese triads).

I regret buying this book. The true story of Jonny Kon would have been much mroe brilliantly handled by a veteran writer. Sack's interview and contacts with Kon turned out to be a pathetic waste of an incredible opportunity.