Customer Reviews

Fire Dragon

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Having seen "Tai Chi Master" and "Iron Monkey '93", I was in great anticipation to find this film. Reviews on other sites and other people have noted that the action sequences are top notch, so I decided to take the risk.

First, the strength in this movie lies in the performers, and the skill they use to develop the charcters. Brigitte Lin is superb as usual. Unlike the Swordsman series and Deadful Melody, we get to see a sentimental side in her character. She is an artist with truly a pleathorea of talent, and luckilly she's given the opportunity to showcase it here.

However the gem in the film is Sandra Ng, whose character saves the movie from dragging horribly. It's great to see her play the comic relief in this film. She too has a broad range of talent (check out "Portland Street Blues" for a different side of her ability).

Actionwise, there are some nice sequences here, but not as great as I had anticipated. Yes, it is a different kind of film, focusing on supernatural martial arts, and tons of swordplay. But there were not as great as the Swordsman series. But the choreography didn't seem up-to-par as in previous efforts.

If we're judging this film completely on the martial arts sequences, I'll take "Blade of Fury" any day of the week over this.

Luckilly the actors have the skill set to save this movie and turn an almost redundant plot into something worth watching.

DVD-wise, the subtitles are burned in, making it hard to read against a white background at times. The sound is in Dolby Digial 2.0, however there isn't much use of the rear channels. The video was very good, rich in color off of a good print.

Rent it first, and if you happen to appreciate the performances like I did, you may end up purchasing it.

I read several different reviews on the web before purchasing this movie(about six different reviews)and while there were mixed reactions everyone said that the fight scenes were fantastic.And were they ever.This is definitley one of the four best fight scene movies available today,the list goes like this:Tai-Chi Master,Fire Dragon,Fist of Legend,and Iron Monkey(93).While I said choreography wise Tai-Chi Master was Yuen Woo-Ping's fight scene master-piece , Fire Dragon does rank up in the same category and should be taken very seriously.I cannot imagine the ammount of time and effort that probably went into puting together some of these fight scenes that are so action filled,intricate,and origional that it will blow you away.This movie is also the newest Yuen-Woo Ping movie I have seen(95) so all the special effects used have also come a long ways and it shows,sporting the best special effects he has used in a movie of his.While the story may have gave some people some issues to talk about ,I found it very attractive and entertaining through-out.But even if this movie had no story at all, and all they did was just splice together all the fight scenes I would still dish out the money for this movie(the fight scenes are truly that good).This was the first movie in a long time that I saw that took me about an hour longer to watch than the actual length of the movie because I had to keep rewinding all the great fight scenes.DON'T PASS THIS ONE UP,A MUST OWN FOR FIGHT SCENE LOVERS!Bottom line is that Yuen Woo-Ping has out done himself here and truly proves that he is the master of choreography.

The fighting in this movie is top notch, from begining to end you will be blown away by the fighting and believe it or not the special effects. The way she lights people on fire is done very well for an older movie. Brigitte Lin is my favorite and she is great in this film as always. This is not her best acting work, but I believe it is her best fighting work. If you have never seen her before watch Bride with white Hair the best HK movie ever, if you are a fan like me buy this movie you won't be disapointed.

Fire Dragon is the story of a young man, who stumbles across a dying imperial guard, and is entrusted with a secret letter which implicates Prince Six, a local governor, in a plot to overthrow the prime minister/emperor. (Is there any other kind of evil plot?) Honor bound to carry the message to the imperial court he begins his journey unaware that he also being stalked by Ah Hsia (Brigitte Lin) , Fire Dragon, a beautiful assassin employed by Prince Six. On the way, the young man takes shelter with a group of circus performers, forcing Fire Dragon to infiltrate the acting group herself. Through friendship with the performers, Fire Dragon begins to question her loyalty to Prince Six.

I really enjoyed Fire Dragon. While it wasn't a particularly deep film, I found the fight scenes to be spectacular, and the acting by Brigitte Lin, Sandra Ng, and Max Mok, to be top notch. The comic relief provided by Ng, and the circus performers, was great! (I loved the way Ng brow-beats her troupe!) Also, I found Fire Dragon's duel with her best friend, Snow, moving.

This was a great Kung Fu, film with plenty of action. Excellent.

put down 4 stars but I really wanted to put down 4.5. this is an excellent movies, and while the fighting scenes in this movie arent as plentiful as most martial arts movies its the acting of of brigitte Lin and the other supporting stars made up for it. the fight scenes i must comment on though. they were extremely superb, clean, crisp, just totally awesome. the choice of screen shots were excellent. this is one of the best movies I have ever seen in my life and would highly recommend it to anyone starting out in the martial arts genre.

I have seen many Kung-Fu movies in my time and Fire Dragon ranks #2 on my list of the best fighting kung-fu movie of all time. Woo-ping throws everyhting but the kitchen sink at you in this one.

Brigitte Lin stars as Fire Dragon an unstoppable assassin who uses her hands as flame-throwers and can ignite her sword while weilding it. Her job is to eliminate a master swordsman (Max Mok) who has evidence that will bring down a powerful Fire-master, Prince-Six. This movie strikes a perfect balance between being serious and funny much like Wing Chun. Just when things get too serious, the comic relief is a welcome change, then when the movie starts to drag a bit it gets serious again.

Although the story is good, what seperates this movie from the rest is the superb acting and fighting. Brigitte lin's acting as well as her fighting in this movie is just as convincing as her role in swordsman 2 as invincible asia. Max Mok does a convincing job as a hero and Kwan Ng almost steals the show with her comedic performance.

But what makes this movie shine are the fight scenes. The fighting in this movie has to be seen to be believed. From all the martial-arts movies I have seen, and I have seen many, only one movie has better fight scenes than this. What else would you expect from Woo-ping the great. For example, there is a ferocious fight scene in the forest between Fire Dragon and her best friend Snow, an equally deadly assassin who uses bow and arrows and a grappling chain no less, that features all kinds of destruction including fire-balls, exploding nets and the leveling of trees- great stuff. But the final fight scene, unlike most movies which is a let-down, is absolutely spectacular and the best in the movie. The skill of Prince-Six is frightful as he more than holds his ground against a master swordsman, a baton-wielding, dynamite throwing kung-fu master and Fire Dragon herself-WOW. If I have to rank my top 5 fighting Kung-fu movies of all time, it would be (5)Tai-Chi Master (4)Iron Monkey (3) Swordsman II (2)Fire Dragon (1)Blade of Fury.

In closing, Fire Dragon is a very stylish, hyper-kinetic kung-fu movie, with a good story, great acting and memorable, creative fight scenes that no self-respecting kung-fu fan should be without. Highly recommended.

Very good movie! I bought it after reading some reviews and was real curious about the action. The fight scenes are quite good (not as many as I'd like) the story was pretty decent too! I chuckled at a few scenes. Decent humor. The special effects with the fire were done very well and the fight with snow at the very end was amazing! Not too many people know about this gem! I'm glad this movie is in my collection!

Get this movie. Plain and simple. From Fire Dragon chopping people and seting them on fire, to a cop using dynamite as num-chuks to the Prince slapping a sword through his own body to hit someone else, this movie has it all! There's a girl shooting arrows out of her clothes, a guy running around on his hands because his legs are paralyzed, and a little bit of a love story too. Prince Six is one of the hardest bad guys I have ever seen. He's worse than Donnie Yen from Dragon Inn!! He's fighting a master swordsman, a dynamite hurling supercop and a flying fighter whose hands are on fire... I give this my highest recomendation!

This is the movie I show to people who think the Matrix is so cool etc..I tell them there is more action in the first 5 minutes of this flick than most movies combined. They always nod "yes". Then you get the whole thing..lots of wire fu,bits of comedy, and of course, the beautiful Brigitte Lin. A must for swordplay fantasy lovers.

This movie is getting harder to find, so get your copy as soon as possible. The fire scenes, especially in the beginning, will blow you away. Brigitte Lin is in top form here and the fights leave you in amazement wondering how they did it. Brigitte throws fire from her hands and her sword flames up as she unsheathes it. She strikes a stance with her hand on fire. Just plain awesome. Brigitte exudes sex appeal, both in her fight scenes and her more serious role. If you're a fan of martial arts/sword movies, you MUST own this movie. ... Don't let this one escape your collection, you'd be missing out.