24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Companion piece to the Corruptor., January 30, 2000
For the longest time I didn't know what this film was called. I would catch it late night on cable like twenty times and finally found it on vhs.
This movie has it all, a superb script by Oliver Stone and Michael Cimino, great direction by Cimino and without a doubt, Mickey Rourkes greatest performance. He plays a relentless vietnam veteran police captain who is brought in to take down Joey Tai (wonderfully played by John Lone), the new drug czar in Chinatown backed by the Triads (the Chinese Mafia).
This film is intelligent (i'm in the process of reading Robert Daley's book from which it was scripted) and features a standout rourke, he actually makes you care for a racist. Amazing work all around. This film should be put out on DVD packaged with "the corruptor"
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
One of Mickey Rourke's best performances, November 9, 2004
This is one of my favorite movies. John Lone is so good, I think he steals the show. Rourke and Lone carry this movie, and the actress who plays Rourkes wife is terrific too. I might be bias here, because I relate to Rourke's character so much; A cop caught between his private ideals and the political groups and beauracracy. The movie shows how compromise and expediancy work to extend the life of the evil they are trying to destroy.
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20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Chinatown you won't see from the tour bus, April 21, 2002
"Year of the Dragon" takes us into a world most of us never knew existed, let alone have seen: the seamy underbelly of New York City's Chinatown, a world unknown to the outsiders who visit the trendy restaurants and tourist traps. It's the story of the Asian heroin trade controlled by the Chinese triads; the young Chinese drug lord who will stop at nothing to take it over, and the police captain who will stop at nothing to destroy him. As Captain Stanley White, Mickey Rourke gives the performance of his career; he doesn't just act Stanley White, he is Stanley White. And Stanley White, as Rourke portrays him, is a straight-up jerk. This guy is about as subtle as a runaway steamroller. He's totally self-centered, treats his wife like part of the furniture, and barges into his Chinese girlfriend's home and takes it over is if he owned it. And John Lone is remarkable as Joey Tai, the young drug lord who cynically arranges for the murder of his own father-in-law and then tells the members of the triad that it's time for a new and younger leadership. The battle lines are drawn; Tai and White are going to upset the uneasy truce that has existed between the Chinatown police precinct and the triads and are going head to head. The results are calamitous. White doesn't care who gets into harm's way in his zeal to do Tai and the triad in, and Tai ignites the wrath of his elders in the triad when he forgets the ancient Chinese philosphy that recommends moderation in everything and goes for broke, bringing down the unwanted attention of the NYPD and the press into the triad's activities. Tai finally goes too far in directly attacking White's family and girlfriend, and all hell breaks loose. We know how the movie is going to end, and it gets there eventually, but not before the blood and gore is splattered all over the screen.
The movie goes from Chinatown, to the ethnic enclave of Polish-American Brooklyn, to the opium hills of southeast Asia and back again, and the pace varies from fast to warp-speed. The acting is generally excellent, with some of the best performances being given by the Chinese actors playing the men of the triad and the boys and girls of the gang that carries out and enforces their activities. One of the most shocking scenes in the movie is White's gun battle with two exquisitely beautiful Chinese girls who look like porcelain dolls and act like the most vicious, cold-blooded killers imaginable. The major supporting cast is very good indeed; Caroline Kava has never been one of my favorite actresses but in this movie she is terrific as White's long-suffering and neglected wife, who has been forced to put off motherhood at his demand only to find herself tossed on the dump heap when she is abandoned for a younger and more exotic woman. The movie has been panned as sexist, racist and overly violent, but it's not a pretty film and it doesn't tell a pretty story. It's down and gritty and tells it like it is. More praise to Michael Cimino for keeping it real.
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