Revenge Of The Green Dragons: Blu-ray Review
The Movie:
Two immigrant brothers (Justin Chon and Kevin Wu) join the Green Dragons gang. They quickly rise up the ranks and become notorious in the community, drawing the attention of the NYPD’s Detective Bloom (Ray Liotta). But when an ill-fated love affair pits one of the brothers against the gang’s leader (Harry Shum Jr.), he sets out for revenge on the group.
It’s about time that we get an Asian crime drama here in the U.S. There are plenty of them overseas but none that actually depict what goes on here. This one is set in New York City in the 1980’s and is Executive Produced by Martin Scorsese so you know that he must’ve seen something great in this story. I thought the story was great as well. It had everything that you would expect from a mod/gang kind of flick. There was murder, deception and a family aspect thrown in. They go into some of the ultra violent acts that gangs commited in order to get what they wanted and to be honest it was a bit scary to see how someone could commit such an act with a smile on their face. It’s hard not to take a film like this and not compare it to something like Gangs Of New York or The Departed but I found myself doing that a lot. It’s definitely not better than those other films nor does it come close but it is a really good film in itself. You can call it “Scorsese Light” if you want but that is the truth. Chon and Wu were fantastic and brought forth plenty of heart and realism to their roles. I could believe them as they both delivered their lines and put out great performances. Shum Jr. was as equally great but my only argument about him was that I didn’t believe him to be this big mob boss. I just felt that he looked way too young even though acting wise he did “bring it”. Either way I feel like this was a great look at the usual crime drama with a minority group in the forefront which doesn’t happen too often.
Special Features:
Audio Commentary with Director Andrew Lau and Co-Writer/Director Andrew Loo
Deleted Scenes – Only a small amount here. Nothing too extravagant.
The Not So American Dream: The Cast – A behind the scenes look at the film with interviews from the cast and crew.
Stitches in Time: Costume Design – This feature focuses on Costume Designer Elisabeth Vastola and her contribution to the look and feel of the film.
A Claustrophobic World: Production Design – This feature is similar to the one above but focuses on Production Designer Wing Lee.
