Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Blistering performances.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

A very brutal gangster gangster epic about an Asian gang in New York in the 80's and early 90's.Although the gangs are supposed to be immigrants they all speak perfect English which I guess was mostly to do with it being more easily to comprehend and more easily accessible for an English speaking audience who otherwise wouldn't watch Asian cinema.So it's a non-issue really that one can look aside.The acting is fine, as is the cinematography and editing etc. As I was watching it I found myself wondering why the rating was so low because I felt like it was a well-made movie on all levels.But then of course in the end they had to throw one final twist into the mix that didn't make any sense with the movie we just witnessed.Really irks me when they do this in films, if you're gonna add a twist you need to make sure that everything we witnessed checks out and that character personalities aren't completely bypassed just for the sake of throwing in that twist.Which is the exact thing they did not do here, won't get into details but when you see it you will know what I mean.Would have gotten a 7 but because of that I have to pull it down a notch to a 6.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning In the early 80s, a swathe of Chinese immigrants arrived on Ellis Island, eager for a new life. Seeing no other way to pursue their slice of 'the American dream', and gain the status and respect they crave, brothers Sonny (Justin Chan) and Steven (Kevin Wu) become part of the titular 'Green Dragons' street gang, who are locked in a turf war with other similarly named Oriental gang members in their area. Detective Michael Bloom (Ray Liotta) follows a lead, tying them to narcotics activities and becomes determined to bring them down. But when one of their members behaviour crosses a line, it plunges the whole group into a deadly spiral of destruction.Adapting a true story, and seeing it's potential for an electrifying action flick, after exhuming some brief history that serves as the backdrop, this biopic of the Green Dragons quickly shifts gear into a high energy, full on action flick, with an Oriental flavour and some brutal, unflinching violence and set pieces. The big draw, though, is Martin Scorsese as executive producer, and after a while it seems he's trying to forge a Goodfellas lite kind of thing, charting how the two central characters became involved in the gang and how their rivalries with each other formed. It's even more down this ark with Ray Liotta as the main star, but even in the lead, this seems like another of his recent 'barely there' parts, with minimal screen time compared to the central protagonists.It's relentlessly flashy, and brutally head on, but it's all completely lacking in coherence, and as a result all seems like a bit of something over nothing, a little too sure of itself without much in the way of genuine substance to keep it going. It makes the mistake of being impetuous when it should have been considered. **

Despite Martin Scorsese being the executive producer and Ray Liotta having a role, "Revenge of the Green Dragons" doesn't seem to have received much of a theatrical release (if any) in North America. It doesn't take long to figure out why - the movie simply isn't very good. I'm not saying there isn't any merit to be found. Some of the acting by the largely no-name cast is fine, and directors Wai-Keung Lau and Andrew Loo do manage to inject a little stylishness despite their low budget. But for the most part, the movie's low budget does show, particularly with the extremely tight direction - I almost suffered from a case of claustrophobia with everything so closely filmed. But the movie also suffers script problems. None of the characters are fleshed out enough to give us a good idea as to their backgrounds or what they are thinking or feeling. I simply didn't care one way or another about these guys. As a result, the movie becomes extremely tiresome very quickly, and you'll be impatiently waiting for it to come to its end.

A collaboration between Wai-Keung Lau (Infernal Affairs trilogy) and Martin Scorsese (The Departed) about Chinese gangs in New York at the end of the 1980s. One would expect fireworks, right? Not so much. This movie is entertaining but misses a bigger impact. It's not surprising the film didn't get a wider release in the US... The rather conventional story is embellished with different kind of colorful gangs from the (Asian) underworld, some pretty gruesome torture scenes and an attempt to make a huge plot twist at the end, but finally fails due to ordinariness. It needed more "cool" and a more interesting angle storywise. Fans of Asian-centered mob movies should give it a try though.