Search - Dragon Fist on DVD

Shortened Dragon Fist

09/27/2001

(3 out of 5 stars)

"...Some yahoo at the studio cut out almost 20 minutes from the already cut version, which runs 94 mins. I have to admit seeing it once again in widescreen, 2.35:1, with a pretty good print may be worth it. I guess it was for me. But, the 18 mins. missing make you wonder what the heck's going on when it just jumps to fight scenes for no reason whatsoever. And why is Chan doing what he's doing? (I'm not giving anything away). Buy the fullscreen version to get the full story. When I first saw this in the theater, some twenty years ago, it was a pretty good kung fu movie. Chan did not use wires and his fighting style was unique. This is a pre-comedic Chan. Nice to see a serious Chan. Produced by Lo Wei, the producer of a few early Bruce Lee movies."

The best handwork Jackie Chan has ever performed

morgoth | omaha, NE | 03/21/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"During an awesome opening tournament scene with Hsu Hsia taking on all comers, he gets killed, and his student played by Jackie Chan goes to take revenge. He goes with his master's wife and daughter to find the killer. But when he gets there, we find out that this man is very sorry for what he did. There's a bit more to the story, but I don't want to give it away. It's not a great story, but darker than most kung fu movies. I didn't see Jackie smile once. He gives a great acting performance, and an even better fighting performance. This is the most hate I have ever seen from Jackie. No comedy, he just tears people up with his awesome kung fu.

Yen Shi Kwan, Eagle Han Ying, James Tien and Chui Fat also star, and they all give fine performances. This is the best I have ever seen James Tien look next to his performance in Bone Crushing Kid. Jackie worked him really hard on this movie.

3.5/5

The Columbia Tristar DVD has awesome picture quality, a good sounding Chinese dub, and the original oldschool English dub (not one of those crappy dubs you hear sometimes). This version is cut, so if you want to see it uncut you should get the PAL Hong Kong Legends version."

Very rare "good" early Jackie Chan flick

T-Man | Virginia Beach, VA | 02/09/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Dragon Fist has very well done choregraphy. This is one of his good films with Lo Wei. Jackie was in good physical shape at the time of this movie so there is some pretty sweet acrobatics. His amazing choreography ability shows in every fight scene.

This DVD (Columbia Tristar) has cut the film from its original 95 minutes to 75 minutes. But to make up for it, it does have the original widescreen aspect ratio (2:35:1) and the original Cantonese audio with English subtitles. Although sometimes fight scenes will happen without any explaination, and you don't really get the WHOLE plot. But for the most part, you know what's going on.

EDIT: THe best DVD of this film is that of Hong Kong Legends. It has the whole movie UNCUT with the original dialogue, English subtitles, and original aspect ratio. However, it's out of print, but it's still being sold."

Excellent tale of redemption and butt-kicking

Shantell Powell | Kitchener, ON, Canada | 10/19/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Dragon Fist is a classic tale of redemption and butt-kicking. Even if you've never seen a kungfu movie before, chances are, you'll be familiar with the storyline. I don't want to give the story away, but realize it's the same sort of plot used in many westerns, only instead of cowpokes and gunfights, we have martial artists and kungfu showdowns.Dragon Fist is an early Jackie Chan drama. It's a film he made before he created the genre of comedy chop sokki, and it shows not only can he do comedy, but he can also do a competent job at playing serious parts.My only real qualms about this flick are the dubbing (not bad, but not great, either) and the film quality. The video and sound quality is particularly bad in the beginning fight sequence. The kungfu masters all look about ten feet tall and four inches thick. It's pretty stretched out. In addition, the sound is very muffled, and I had to turn the volume up quite a way in order to understand what was being said.That being said, I do have one other nit-pick: all the kungfu masters wear horrible, obvious wigs! I was waiting for the hair to fly off during one of the many excellent fight choreographies, but it just didn't happen. That stuff is glued down really tight...."