Dragon Tiger Gate (Long Fu Moon)

After watching that tripe called X-Men: The Last Stand, I was really looking forward to catch Dragon Tiger Gate, kinda hoping it would restore my faith in comic book flicks...




Unfortunately, Dragon Tiger Gate didn't really do it for me. Overall, it's a mixed bag. How so? I've sorted out the good stuff from the crap pile below:

Good stuff:
1) Action scenes are amazing - outrageous, over-the-top, fast-paced duels. Stylish...

2) Special effects & CG are very well produced. No cheesy 70s, 80s wire-fu, only the good shit here...

3) This comic book adaptation is done in classic HK style (reminiscent of The Storm Raiders & A Man Called Hero). The scenes are very comic-book, manga-like feel

4) Donnie Yuen! His star is on the rise! Iron Monkey! HERO! Seven Swords! SPL! Give me more Donnie!

Yucky stuff:
1) Plot & characters are very 2-dimensional - I've never read Dragon Tiger Gate comics (mostly becos I dun read chinese) but the whole movie seems too condensed.

Dragon Tiger Gate is touted as the classic, must-read HK manga but the movie didn't do it justice. I expected much deeper storylines & fleshier characters. Eg. it was never revealed why the main villian, Shibumi & his crime syndicate, Lousha Gang are the bad guys. Just becos the dude wears an ugly mask & a caped costume doesn't mean he's a baddie... Maybe he kena rejected by X-Men leh...

2) Nokia's product placement deal - In the Dragon Tiger Gate universe, everybody uses Nokia phones...

I dun normally complain about product placement as the funding from these corporate sponsors are one of the reasons we get to watch the movies at all. The only time I get pissed about product placement is how blatant & obvious it is done.

In the movie, Dragon, Tiger & Turbo all had close-up scenes of them "using" Nokia phones. Of course, "using" here means teaching the public how different Nokia model works. Tsk, tsk, tsk...

3) Err... too much Donnie Yuen can be a bad thing also - Seems like the whole movie is made for him to pose in cool, stylish kung fu moves...

Trivia:
I thought it was kinda cool that the comic's creator Wong Yuk Long cameo-ed as Master Qi. How apt was it that only Master Qi can "heal" the badly injured Tiger & Turbo and Master Qi "taught" them their new finishing moves for their final duel with Shibumi...

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On a totally unrelated note:

NEVER... Never ever doubt the power of the MAT vote...

Hady Mirza is the new Singaporean Idol!