Dragon Eyes

"Stand like a man. Get kicked like a man"
When "Dragon Eyes" was first announced in the midst of Jean-Claude Van Damme's budding comeback, fans pompously stated that it'd be his definitive reanimation vehicle and was headed for movie theaters. Well, they were wrong on both counts - this one's not about to see the inside of an American theater and it's definitely not a vehicle for Van Damme - but this isn't reason to be disappointed, because despite being a DTV production, it's very good action movie. Not mind-blowingly good (Van Damme's own Universal Soldier: Regeneration was superior, if you ask me), but nevertheless one of the better examples out there of quality martial arts flicks being feasible on a relatively small budget.

The story: a soft-spoken martial artist (UFC star Cung Le, Pandorum) - fresh from prison and the tutelage of his wizened teacher (Van Damme) -...

SYMBOL FOR CHANGE
Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a minor role as the prison mentor for Mr. Hong (Cung Le)..."There are two tigers inside you." These are seen as occasional flashbacks. Mr. Hong rents an apartment in an Hispanic neighborhood of St. Jude and immediately draws attention to himself. He attempts to pit two gangs against each other (both work for Mr. V (Peter Weller) although does so rather poorly as he leaves a calling card with an oriental symbol for change. But wait...that is all part of the master plan. Mr. V also controls the local cops (Craig Walker, Kristopher Van Varenberg).

Rosanna (Crystal Mantecon) plays the straight honest daughter of the landlord.

Mr. V. recruits Mr. Hong to work for him. The film has some questionable plot points...such as why Mr. Hong was allowed to live so many times. It utilizes grindhouse style music and introduces characters with written screen titles, however the film doesn't quite flow lie a good grindhouse, either by design or poor...

Good old school ass kicking.
I was finally able to watch this and I have to say that I enjoyed it. I do agree with some other reviews that the story did have some plot holes, which was the main flaw of the movie. It felt like a lot of the scenes were missing about 5 min that would explain why the next scene plays out how it does. Still, this didn't really affect most of the overall enjoyment factor for me. I thought Cung Le was a cool lead. He has minimal dialog, which is probably a good thing, so he comes off as the strong silent type. As we all know, JC only has a small part...probably about 10 minutes spread throughout the whole movie. His scenes and his performance are both very cool though. I didn't really care for how his back story was explained but no big deal. Peter Weller was a blast to watch as Mr.V as well. The fights do have a lot of slow motion thrown into them but it actually works for the most part. It allows you to feel the brutality of street fighting...plus you see everything clearly, which is...

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