What's the French for 'Ouch!'? (Kiss of the Dragon (DVD))

Member Name: george_lazenby

Product:	Kiss of the Dragon (DVD)
Date:	18/11/01 (36 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very fast, exceptionally well choreographed, Bridget Fonda

Disadvantages: Terrible dialogue, very implausible

Few Hollywood action films seem complete without a scene in which some martial arts supremo leaps into the air, turns somersaults, kills forty seven people, mixes a Harvey Wallbanger and solves a particularly difficult Rubik’s Cube, all in mid-air, before finally landing on both feet, and then shooting someone. I blame ‘The Matrix’, although producers of subsequent movies seem not to have understood that the amazing feats of flying seen in that film were dramatically possible because the protagonists were effectively superheroes. ‘Crouching Tiger’ works in a similar way, taking place in a world where magical powers are commonplace.

One of the worst offenders, HK superstar Jet Li, has clearly learned his lesson from the wire-filled ‘Romeo Must Die’, given that he and others were seen to be zipping around the skies like birds. ‘Kiss of the Dragon’ is a lot more straight, reminiscent of old fashioned kung-fu movies, where the asexual hero gets by with about three lines of dialogue, the action is never far from a restaurant kitchen or a laundry, and every blow sounds as if it is being landed by a sledgehammer.

What’s it about? Jet Li is credited with the story, but given that the plot is so thin, one can only imagine his contribution was ‘I go to Paris and kick people in the face’. Given that the film has a structure of outrageous massacre, quiet fumbling dialogue scene, outrageous massacre, quiet fumbling dialogue scene etc. etc., the idea of a plot seems slightly redundant. There are fragments - Jet is framed for the murder of a Chinese dealer by corrupt Parisian cops, and they chase him around a lot while he makes friends with a hooker (Bridget Fonda), entirely failing to realise that she is The Key To The Whole Thing. In every scene, the cops are zipping around Paris machine gunning extras (and each other) while our hero seems to have been coated in Kevlar.

Gene
rally people get shot in the movie when they annoy the villain Tcheky Karyo (if I was one of his henchmen, I’d rapidly ask for a transfer, given that he shoots one and blows another in half in the same scene), or when Jet Li cleverly makes them shoot each other. These devices become pretty tiresome after a while, and strain plausibility, because unless I am very much mistaken, Parisian coppers, even vile corrupt ones, do not have carte blanche to go machine-gunning pedestrians in their search for a man they've framed in the first place.

It’s a shame that the film plunges headlong into implausibility so often, because the core of the movie’s appeal goes back to that revolt against the Wire virus. When all the silliness is stripped away, this is probably the most impressive English Language martial arts movie since the early seventies. Li is like a hurricane, balletic, vicious but curiously non-macho (he is almost crippled with shyness when faced with a offer of sex from Fonda), and his fight scenes are incredible. One scene, where having escaped a fireball in a laundry room Jet faces his enemies with a set of irons (plugged in, naturally) is intensely violent and yet curiously exhilarating. This film is bloody, brutal and stupid, but by God, it’s rarely dull for long.

The casting of Bridget Fonda is wise - her part is rubbish, but she gives her thin dialogue a sharp sarcastic twang, and she towers over Li, a fact which the director seems to play on quite happily. She is destined to be shuffled aside from the insanely violent climax, but nevertheless, is still a very appealling presence. Li is an odd action star, his English produced with seemingly great effort, but he looks the part, wiry, fast, determined, and he carries with him an engagingly innocent air. Compared to the fetishistically muscular antics of Jean-Claude Van Damme and co, this canny little demon is far more compelling to watch.

All in all, this is
not classic stuff, even for the genre - it makes no sense and falters at the end (the best action is in the first half-hour), but once sucked in, you can’t stop watching it.

Summary: