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The opening scene of Heart of Dragon should clue you into the fact that this is not business as usual for our star Jackie Chan. Jackie can be seen running around in a yellow jumpsuit, waving around a fearsome looking machine gun, blasting commando-looking guys left and right. Certainly Jackie has used guns in the past, but they've never fit his presence like a glove. Guns are such a mean, efficient way of dishing out violence. Jackie usually only hurts people when he absolutely has to, not because he wants to. (Please ignore the final minute of Police Story.) What's he of all people doing with a gun? The other thing that should clue you in that something is off, at least in this one scene, is his screaming yellow jumpsuit, which no sane person would wear were they trying to escape with a hostage through the jungle. Of course it turns out that this was only an exercise conducted by Jackie's squad commander Lam Ching-ying, who angrily cancels the vacations of everyone except Jackie's team. (If you watch the extended Japanese cut, this action scene is scored to a song called "China Blue", which has **** all to do with the proceedings but is sung by Jackie himself. Another song called "Tokyo Saturday Night", also sung by him, plays over the end credits.)
Heart of Dragon was something of an attempt for both Jackie and Sammo Hung to stretch their images from pure action comedy stars and show audiences that they were capable of drama. Now, with Hong Kong movies, there's a certain amount of tonal whiplash one can expect. When I first started diving in, I viewed that element as something of a flaw, but with enough time, I accepted that it was just part of these movies' flavour. That being said, this has some of the most severe tonal whiplash I've seen in a movie. Jackie plays a cop who looks after his developmentally disabled brother played by Sammo. Now, there are ways to play this material sensitively and realistically. This movie does neither. Sammo doesn't play his character as "childlike" so much as an actual child, walking around in ridiculous looking overalls, playing with toys, having only school children as friends, and nearly drowning in a bathtub while playing with his toy duck, meaning we have to look at his ass longer than anyone (other than maybe his wife) would reasonably want.
There's a perhaps insensitive but fairly astute conversation in the movie Tropic Thunder about how clumsily movies portray characters with developmental disabilities. This movie is guilty of all those crimes. Where the whiplash comes in is that this is still a Sammo Hung Hong Kong action movie, which not only means that it contains a pretty formidable level of action direction, but that it also goes all in during any given scene, like where Sammo is hassled by restaurant employees after being unable to pay the bill, or Sammo and Jackie have an argument at home. And what's most shocking is that this approach kind of works. Sammo plays his role and the material extremely broadly, but there's a certain pathos about how he treats the character that did kind of tug at my heartstrings. The closest comparison conceptually I can think of is the Shahrukh Khan movie My Name is Khan, which is like if they made a sequel to Rain Man but about 9/11. That movie is also completely shameless, tonally all over the place, but has a certain cloying sincerity that breaks through your defenses. (That movie sadly has zero kung fu fights.)
And as an action movie, this is pretty enjoyable, even if the structure is a bit more shambling than I'd like. (The movie eventually becomes about a gang of jewel thieves who take Sammo hostage, but the first half is fairly episodic, with scenes of Jackie doing cop stuff, Sammo doing cringe stuff and occasional appearances from Jackie's girlfriend Emily Chu, who the Japanese preview calls out with "Hey, who's that cute girl?") Sometimes I find it difficult to summarize why exactly a Hong Kong action scene is impressive beyond vague references to shot lengths, astutely chosen cuts and the acrobatic abilities of the performers, but you can see how this movie accentuates the bruising qualities of the action in comparison to the action comedies Jackie and Sammo had been making in prior years, with how the camera hovers above Jackie's shoulder in an early fight scene, and the abundance of blood in the climax. (This is serious business, folks.) And I must make note of a car chase that echoes the colour scheme of the opening scene, where a boxy yellow Mitsubishi hurtles through the cramped cityscapes and roads of Hong Kong. (The city here and elsewhere is depicted with a certain claustrophobic quality, so that even its equivalent of the open road has tons of people jumping out of the way of the action.) And before the show is over, Sammo finds a way to end the action with a bang and tug at our heartstrings one last time, with a montage set to sentimental music. Did it work on me? Eh...it's the thought that counts.
Heart of Dragon (Hung, 1985)
The opening scene of Heart of Dragon should clue you into the fact that this is not business as usual for our star Jackie Chan. Jackie can be seen running around in a yellow jumpsuit, waving around a fearsome looking machine gun, blasting commando-looking guys left and right. Certainly Jackie has used guns in the past, but they've never fit his presence like a glove. Guns are such a mean, efficient way of dishing out violence. Jackie usually only hurts people when he absolutely has to, not because he wants to. (Please ignore the final minute of Police Story.) What's he of all people doing with a gun? The other thing that should clue you in that something is off, at least in this one scene, is his screaming yellow jumpsuit, which no sane person would wear were they trying to escape with a hostage through the jungle. Of course it turns out that this was only an exercise conducted by Jackie's squad commander Lam Ching-ying, who angrily cancels the vacations of everyone except Jackie's team. (If you watch the extended Japanese cut, this action scene is scored to a song called "China Blue", which has **** all to do with the proceedings but is sung by Jackie himself. Another song called "Tokyo Saturday Night", also sung by him, plays over the end credits.)
Heart of Dragon was something of an attempt for both Jackie and Sammo Hung to stretch their images from pure action comedy stars and show audiences that they were capable of drama. Now, with Hong Kong movies, there's a certain amount of tonal whiplash one can expect. When I first started diving in, I viewed that element as something of a flaw, but with enough time, I accepted that it was just part of these movies' flavour. That being said, this has some of the most severe tonal whiplash I've seen in a movie. Jackie plays a cop who looks after his developmentally disabled brother played by Sammo. Now, there are ways to play this material sensitively and realistically. This movie does neither. Sammo doesn't play his character as "childlike" so much as an actual child, walking around in ridiculous looking overalls, playing with toys, having only school children as friends, and nearly drowning in a bathtub while playing with his toy duck, meaning we have to look at his ass longer than anyone (other than maybe his wife) would reasonably want.
There's a perhaps insensitive but fairly astute conversation in the movie Tropic Thunder about how clumsily movies portray characters with developmental disabilities. This movie is guilty of all those crimes. Where the whiplash comes in is that this is still a Sammo Hung Hong Kong action movie, which not only means that it contains a pretty formidable level of action direction, but that it also goes all in during any given scene, like where Sammo is hassled by restaurant employees after being unable to pay the bill, or Sammo and Jackie have an argument at home. And what's most shocking is that this approach kind of works. Sammo plays his role and the material extremely broadly, but there's a certain pathos about how he treats the character that did kind of tug at my heartstrings. The closest comparison conceptually I can think of is the Shahrukh Khan movie My Name is Khan, which is like if they made a sequel to Rain Man but about 9/11. That movie is also completely shameless, tonally all over the place, but has a certain cloying sincerity that breaks through your defenses. (That movie sadly has zero kung fu fights.)
And as an action movie, this is pretty enjoyable, even if the structure is a bit more shambling than I'd like. (The movie eventually becomes about a gang of jewel thieves who take Sammo hostage, but the first half is fairly episodic, with scenes of Jackie doing cop stuff, Sammo doing cringe stuff and occasional appearances from Jackie's girlfriend Emily Chu, who the Japanese preview calls out with "Hey, who's that cute girl?") Sometimes I find it difficult to summarize why exactly a Hong Kong action scene is impressive beyond vague references to shot lengths, astutely chosen cuts and the acrobatic abilities of the performers, but you can see how this movie accentuates the bruising qualities of the action in comparison to the action comedies Jackie and Sammo had been making in prior years, with how the camera hovers above Jackie's shoulder in an early fight scene, and the abundance of blood in the climax. (This is serious business, folks.) And I must make note of a car chase that echoes the colour scheme of the opening scene, where a boxy yellow Mitsubishi hurtles through the cramped cityscapes and roads of Hong Kong. (The city here and elsewhere is depicted with a certain claustrophobic quality, so that even its equivalent of the open road has tons of people jumping out of the way of the action.) And before the show is over, Sammo finds a way to end the action with a bang and tug at our heartstrings one last time, with a montage set to sentimental music. Did it work on me? Eh...it's the thought that counts.