Sometimes, when a person is destined to become famous, nothing can stop it. Jackie Chan is gradually growing old, Jet Li has lost himself, and Zhao Wenzhuo has sunk to becoming the king of third-rate TV dramas—in this era when every kung fu fan has lost a spiritual anchor and is nearly desperate, Donnie Yen, once beaten senseless by kung fu boys and kung fu emperors and acting in third-rate TV dramas just like Zhao Wenzhuo, seems to have become every kung fu fan’s great hope. A trained professional with solid kung fu fundamentals, a handsome face, a fit body, and a brain that works reasonably well, what reason is there for this macho man not to become the choice of the masses? Hu Jing? His skills are beyond reproach, but his image is too thin. An Zhijie? A muscle man who can’t do kung fu at all. Tony Jaa? A foreigner. It seems Donnie Yen is not merely the best choice; he is actually the only choice.
So last year, SPL: Sha Po Lang, with Donnie Yen as action choreographer and lead actor, received an ecstatic reception from every kung fu fan, even though the entire film contained only one decent kung fu sequence. To be honest, the action wasn’t satisfying, and the plot had little to recommend it. The writer-directors probably wanted to tell a story about three macho men going head-to-head, but unfortunately the macho man played by Simon Yam and his underlings were portrayed as far too weak, throwing the supposed three-way power struggle completely off balance. The result was a film in which Simon Yam and his men clown around and get brutalized for most of the running time, until Donnie Yen steps in to settle everything (and gets settled himself).
In this atmosphere of feverish adulation, Donnie Yen was not only crowned the new kung fu emperor; he was practically crowned the action choreographer with the most ability and potential as well. But I suspect that after Dragon Tiger Gate, his ability should face a little questioning, whether as the leading figure among kung fu actors or among action choreographers.
I. Donnie Yen’s Acting
Judging from Donnie Yen’s performance in Dragon Tiger Gate, he must have been feeling extremely good about himself lately. Otherwise, he wouldn’t spend the entire film striking poses. Even looking at his back, you can imagine him grinning smugly: grinning smugly. Striking poses during action scenes would be one thing, but in the dramatic scenes he keeps both hands in his trouser pockets—the signature move of an eighties street punk trying to look cool and sexy. And whether it’s a dramatic scene or a fight, he never forgets to stick out his butt, twisting his body into an S. Even the slow-motion shot after he pushes the Demon Woman into the water seems less like an expression of anger than a suspicious attempt to show off his physique. Thus Donnie Yen is reduced to a male model with a great ass in Dragon Tiger Gate.
Actually, the whole of Dragon Tiger Gate seems intent on showing off male beauty. Otherwise, why would it line up the three male leads at the end and have them enter Dragon Tiger Gate doing a model’s catwalk?
Dragon Tiger Gate is the Chinese male version of Charlie’s Angels.
II. The Action Scenes in Dragon Tiger Gate
I have to say that the action scenes in Dragon Tiger Gate are a failure. They fail in at least the following ways:
1. Monotonous Action
The action scenes in Dragon Tiger Gate expose the biggest flaw in Donnie Yen’s choreography: a lack of changes in body position (a shorthand for body orientation, ^_^). When I was little (good grief, Donnie Yen isn’t exactly young either) and watched the TV version of Fist of Fury, I felt that Donnie Yen’s fights basically consisted of two people standing face-to-face and trading punches, with the stronger one winning and the weaker one losing. There were rarely the dazzling changes in body orientation found in action scenes designed by other choreographers. The appeal of Chinese martial arts lies not only in the details of hand and leg movements, but also in all the ways the fighters’ bodies change position, making the action endlessly varied. Donnie Yen’s choreography is most lacking in precisely this quality. So in Dragon Tiger Gate, what we see most often is again face-to-face trading of punches or kicks. In fact, a few years ago, Donnie Yen’s action choreography in Twins Effect I showed a breakthrough and added more variation; it was simply wasted on the Twins’ flashy but flimsy moves. Sadly, the fights in Dragon Tiger Gate return to the old road of more than a decade ago, leaving only speed and ferocity, with very little of kung fu’s ingenuity.
Thus the action in Dragon Tiger Gate becomes the male model with a great ass Donnie Yen’s wild strut: plenty of ferocity, not enough variation.
Compare it with last year’s Seven Swords and you’ll find that the action designed by Xiong Xinxin and the others far surpasses Donnie Yen’s in creativity. Both films have fights in cramped spaces, but the alley battle in Seven Swords is far more watchable than the restaurant battle in Dragon Tiger Gate. This is why I feel that among the new generation of kung fu film actors, Donnie Yen is indeed the obvious choice; among the new generation of action choreographers, however, Xiong Xinxin is the one who inspires more anticipation.
2. Does the Director Dislike Action?
The camera work and editing of the action scenes in Dragon Tiger Gate make it seem that director Wilson Yip probably dislikes action. A large number of the fight scenes are presented in close-ups (almost extreme close-ups), so the audience can’t see the action as a whole. For example, the opening scene’s hand-and-foot exchange between Donnie Yen and Nicholas Tse could have been quite a spectacle, but it is chopped into a series of fragmentary close-ups, leaving us unsure whether we’re supposed to admire the editing technique or the martial arts.
Most of the action shots in Dragon Tiger Gate have also been sped up. Many old Hong Kong films do have a tradition of speeding up action scenes to make them more exciting. But there has to be a limit. The action in Dragon Tiger Gate is sped up so much that the audience doesn’t even have time to see what is happening. No wonder my friend said that before he could see how the fight started, he discovered it was already over and Donnie Yen was striking a pose.
3. Special Effects Paper Over the Key Moments
Although most of the fights in Dragon Tiger Gate rely on real kung fu, the moment it starts showing off special effects at crucial points, it becomes deeply irritating. The Golden Bell Shield, the Lightning Lone Dragon Drill in the final battle, and the last move, the ‘Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms’ (good grief), are all handled with special-effects sequences. The final blow against the boss is especially identical to the final palm strike in Kung Fu Hustle—even the bosses are both called the Fire Cloud Evil God. A real-kung-fu film finishing off its boss with special effects like these is seriously nauseating.
III. Plot and Dialogue
If the action scenes in Dragon Tiger Gate are at least still fierce, its plot and dialogue are comprehensively brain-dead. Perhaps a kung fu film doesn’t need a particularly outstanding plot, but it shouldn’t make the audience suffer. In fact, the classic kung fu films often have excellent plots and dialogue too. Take Tsui Hark’s Once Upon a Time in China series, for example: the dramatic scenes are sometimes even more engrossing than the fights. In Dragon Tiger Gate, meanwhile, the plot and dialogue, combined with the cinema’s powerful air-conditioning, gave me goosebumps all over—again and again.
As a plot, Dragon Tiger Gate is extraordinarily slapdash. Take the training of Louis Koo and Nicholas Tse. Most wuxia and kung fu films are more or less the same: the protagonist falls off a cliff or wanders into some remote mountain wilderness, meets a master or finds a secret manual, trains, comes back down the mountain, and takes revenge on an enemy. But even the most clichéd setup can be handled well or badly. In The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber, for example, Zhang Wuji finding the Nine Yang Manual beneath a cliff is the result of all sorts of causes and connections planted by his predecessors. In The Blade, the one-handed Ding On finds half a sword manual in a farmhouse, then uses half a broken blade to realize his own style—a little reminder of fate’s wicked games. In Dragon Tiger Gate, however, the reclusive master Qixia is simply a hero of ‘what the hell?’ The two men’s training is brushed aside in a montage lasting a few dozen seconds. Worse, their training serves no purpose at all: in the final battle, both are still defeated and contribute nothing to beating the boss. In the end, Donnie Yen defeats the boss single-handedly. I always assumed the plot would be that none of the three could beat the boss alone, and that they would finally win through teamwork. Sadly, the screenwriter couldn’t even be bothered to arrange that twist. Louis Koo and Nicholas Tse’s characters are therefore reduced to male decorative objects. In fact, Dragon Tiger Gate‘s plot is even worse than Fearless, which Donnie Yen had earlier criticized in a roundabout way. At least Fearless clearly expressed what it wanted to express; audiences simply didn’t accept it very well. Dragon Tiger Gate doesn’t even make clear what it wants to express—or what it ought to express.
As for the dialogue, it practically makes you suspect that Dragon Tiger Gate is a work paying tribute to Hero and House of Flying Daggers. The dramatic scenes are stuffed with either wildly irrelevant or hollow, grandstanding clichés. Ever since Zhang Yimou pioneered the ‘low-IQ school’ of wuxia films, other wuxia and kung fu films seem to have taken it as their model. Dragon Tiger Gate belongs to this school too.
(Judging by the looks of things, the upcoming The Banquet and Curse of the Golden Flower will be the same kind of stuff. That golden armor in Curse of the Golden Flower looks exactly like someone has rolled around in a pile of fresh shit.)
IV. Comics and Film
Dragon Tiger Gate is a comic-book film, but adapting Hong Kong comics is an extremely difficult business.
To put it bluntly, the defining traits of Hong Kong comics are low intelligence, earthy street-level sensibility, and sheer incongruity.
They are low-IQ because the vast majority of Hong Kong comics simply arrange some plot that lets the characters fight. Whether a comic is fun depends on how much fighting there is and whether the special moves are cool enough. The slapdash plotting in the comics themselves may also be why Dragon Tiger Gate has such a slapdash plot. So if you want to turn a Hong Kong comic into a good film, you basically need to consider rewriting the plot from scratch.
They are earthy street-level because Hong Kong comics are extremely vulgar in their aesthetic and lack any taste for beauty. Character designs, for example, are wildly exaggerated, sometimes distinguishing characters by their clothes rather than their faces. And these exaggerated designs aren’t trying to look good; they’re trying to look ‘cool.’ As a result, people in Hong Kong comics look like either street punks or nouveau riche. The character designs in Dragon Tiger Gate are packed with this exaggerated, earthy street-level feel. The film’s art director was the famous William Chang, whose style, in my view, is the exact opposite—refined and elegant. Yet even William Chang had trouble eliminating the earthiness of the comic. So the design in Dragon Tiger Gate isn’t successful either. It may preserve the feel of the original fairly well, but viewed purely as a film, it just feels awkward. This earthiness also appears in the names of the martial arts. The names of characters in Hong Kong comics (Qixia, the Fire Cloud Evil God) and the names of their kung fu moves often strive to look ‘cool.’ Take the ‘Lightning Lone Dragon Drill’ in Dragon Tiger Gate—how badass does that sound? But no matter how you hear it, it doesn’t sound like the kind of top-level kung fu a male lead should be training in. So when Qixia tells Nicholas Tse to train in the ‘Lightning Lone Dragon Drill,’ the theater erupts in laughter.
To call it a hodgepodge is justified, first of all, because Hong Kong comics contain plenty of stubborn elements that simply refuse to blend with anything else. Whatever the subject matter, the main plot always comes down to people beating each other up. Open a period-piece Justice Pao (Bao Qingtian), and they are still fighting with the “Lightning Single-Dragon Drill”; open a sci-fi Super Powers Era (Chaoba Shiji), and they are still fighting with the “Lightning Single-Dragon Drill.” The character designs, for instance, are always wildly exaggerated. So you may well find a comic set in the future whose characters look as if they came from ancient times. In Dragon Tiger Gate, this results in an extreme mismatch between the sets, props, character designs, and so on. Their outfits make you feel as if the story is set in the Republican era, but then, mid-conversation, someone suddenly pulls out the latest Nokia phone; the camera turns, and suddenly we are in the intensely postmodern City of Rakshasa.
Another reason it feels like a hodgepodge is Hong Kong comics’ reckless borrowing of martial-arts techniques and systems from wuxia novels. For example, the most absurd thing in Dragon Tiger Gate is that, without any explanation whatsoever, the boss suddenly tells the audience that the technique Donnie Yen’s character finally figured out is the Eighteen Dragon-Slaying Palms. When the boss cries out, “The Eighteen Dragon-Slaying Palms!”, that is also when the entire audience laughs hardest. Borrowing is fine, of course, but you could at least provide a little background connecting it to the thing you borrowed. And Yuwen Le’s Iron Bell Shield really does amount to putting himself inside a bell and waving nunchucks around. It is pretty hard not to spit out your popcorn.
To put it bluntly, Dragon Tiger Gate is a failed film whose plot has gone completely off the rails, with only the sheer ferocity of its action scenes offering anything to watch. A full-blown rampage showcase for a male model with a spectacularly fine backside.
Publication history
This article was first published on the NetEase Entertainment Forum (now defunct), and was later discovered by an editor at the Hong Kong film magazine Hong Kong Film Review and published in Chinese Film Weekly:
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