Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Best movie ever!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"The Sky Dragon", the final film in the Charlie Chan series, is described as the "nadir" of the series by Leonard Maltin and given a BOMB rating in his book. Now, I haven't seen many Chan films (yet), but this cannot be the worst when it is in fact better than another one which I saw only yesterday, "Golden Eye". It opens with a rather unusual setup (a murder, plus the robbery of a quarter of a million dollars, aboard a plane), and if it had stayed on the air it might have been a much-needed change-of-pace. It soon (crash)lands on earth, and becomes deadening at times, but at least it returns to the scene of the crime in the last 10 minutes for a traditional gathering of the suspects and unveiling of the culprit(s), and there is some cleverness in way the robbery is carried out (though the main killer is obvious). It's a movie only for the most dedicated buffs of the mystery genre, and they may get some fun out of it. My favorite Chan line: "Tired man's idea like children's nightmare: easily dispelled by light of day" ** out of 4.

This is it for Chan (at least for the three actors that did the B-movie thing). It involves a plot that has been done any times since. That of a murder on board an airplane. We have a finite set of suspects. There is some history among the passengers. There is a large sum of money involved. And, Charlie and Lee (Number One Son) are on board. We have been told that Lee has been trained as a pilot for several episodes, so there is no big deal when assumes control of the plane. This has a nice cast of very recognizable actors. Noel Neill who was Lois Lane in "The Adventures of Superman" and Milburne Stone from "Gunsmoke." I also remember a show called "The People's Choice," which starred a heavy set guy who played the Mayor. There is no way to keep these people on that plane and they are allowed to leave. Of course, murders are committed and lots of drama ensues. For the final time, a light is turned out and a man is assaulted by an intruder.. How many times!!! This is the most entertaining of the Roland Winters films. I'm puzzled at the great disdain held for him. The earlier Chan movies weren't really all that great anyway. Having Caucasian men play a Chinese detective creates problems from the start. I guess there is a charm in seeing these actors do their thing for very little money. We could criticize till the cows come home, but these weren't ever works of art.

Also known as MURDER IN THE AIR, this is the sixth Chan film starring Roland Winters. To be exact, this is the last in the Charlie Chan franchise that began at Fox Films about 19 years earlier with Warner Oland playing the American-Chinese detective from Honolulu. The series pretty much began declining in substance and popularity when Winters took over for Sidney Toler as Chan in 1947. This film has Charlie on board a flight to San Francisco with #1 son Lee(Keye Luke)and his bug eyed chauffeur Birmingham Brown(Mantan Moreland). Before arriving at their destination passengers and pilots are drugged and upon waking up an insurance courier is found dead and the quarter-million-dollars he was carrying is missing. Winters is lackluster in performing his duties as the honorable detective. Moreland provides some rib splitting comic relief as usual and Luke gets to fly the plane to the closing credits. (Did they not plan this to be the end of the series? You would figure the lead character would close out the string of murder mysteries). Also in the cast: Milburn Stone, Noel Neill, Tim Ryan and Lyle Talbot. Ah so, Charlie Chan.

"The Sky Dragon" would be the last of the Charlie Chan mystery films, this one starring Roland Winters who appeared in a total of six films as the Oriental Detective. Keye Luke, who first appeared as Number #1 Son Lee in 1935's "Charlie Chan in Paris" opposite Warner Oland, appears here in a much more mature characterization. So much so, that this is the only film in which Charlie is called "Dad" instead of "Pop" by any of his offspring.The movie involves an insurance scam aboard a San Francisco bound airline flight, on which all the passengers are drugged, with the perpetrator making off with a two hundred fifty thousand dollar bundle. Chan must make his way through a host of suspects among the passengers, before ferreting out the guilty party with Lee's help impersonating an injured (actually dead) pilot.Notable among the cast are Tim Ryan in his third Chan appearance as Lieutenant Mike Ruark of the San Francisco Police Department; and future Daily Planet Reporter Noel Neill as an airline hostess. For trivia fans, her TV Superman counterpart George Reeves also appeared in a Charlie Chan film, 1941's "Dead Men Tell", as of all things, a newspaper reporter! For his last appearance in a Chan film, Mantan Moreland as Birmingham Brown doesn't have much to do, although he does get physical at one point, helping Lee wrestle down a gunman confronting Charlie.Like many Charlie Chan films, it helps to keep a scorecard to track the characters and their relationships. "The Sky Dragon" has enough going on to keep you guessing, although in the end it's a rather average entry in the Chan series.