In the future, large corporations earn millions of dollars by staging gladiatorial fights to the death that are shown on worldwide television. One day, however, a fighter who is scheduled to hunt and kill an opponent in the Arizona desert decides he's had enough, and makes a run for it. His opponent is instructed to track him down and kill him.
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Good story, Not enough for a whole film
The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
In the deserts of Arizona, two men face off in a battle to the death: the maniacal Lochaber (Z'Dar) and the honorable Falchion (Coufos). Because this is the future, the two men are being controlled by their corporate masters. One big corporation, led by the smarmy, ponytail-wearing businessman Michael Moorpark (Paré) and his associates Asawa (Hong) and the creatively-named Kyoto (Aleong), have millions of dollars riding on the success of their chosen fighter. The other businessmen, led by Baybington (Cortese) are their rivals, backing their own guy. They sit in their cushy offices watching the proceedings play out on TV monitors. Falchion decides he's had enough and defects. He goes on the run, refusing to fight. It's on his travels away from Lochaber that he meets a desert Ranger, Moochow (Napier) (who presumably, based on his name, will get a Chicago-based talk radio show) and a drunken stranger, Jericho (Flower), who decides to narrate the whole story. There's also the magical hot chick, Dark Servant (MacLaren), who has the power to heal. But the time comes when all men must fight, and Falchion realizes he must face off against the murderous Lochaber (who has gone rogue and started killing innocent civilians). Who will be victorious in this so-called "Dragonfight"? Oh dear. Dragonfight is one choppy, nonsensical mess of a movie. It's more an off-kilter mishmash of stupidity and half-baked concepts than a fully-fleshed out film. We were happy to see a top-billed Robert Z'Dar, and a second-billed Paul Coufos, especially on a tape released by a major label (Warner Brothers, though we don't understand why; this definitely seems like something that would come out on a much smaller label - but then again, we're happy some of our fan-favorite actors got wider distribution than normal, even if it's not an ideal vehicle for them). Paul Coufos, star of Busted Up (1986), strongly resembles Huey Lewis - we suppose this is as close as we'll get to seeing Lewis in an "action" film, though Falchion needed more goons to fight, not just one, and he spends most of the movie running from the fight. That's bad policy for a supposed action movie with the word "fight" somewhere in the title.Michael Pare has a very limited amount of screen time, and of that, his ponytail steals his performance away from him. The movie as a whole has some classic line readings, some of which are said by James Hong, but just about every character says a stupid and/or confusingly-written piece of dialogue in an appropriately-confused manner. That's why the first 30 minutes or so of Dragonfight is so wacky and funny. But the desert sequences are mostly slogs and have an unfortunate Albert Pyun feel, and things slow down tremendously then. Some nice cinematography can't fix the egregious problems this movie has.Z'Dar runs around the desert yelling "RAAAAAHHH!!!!" and wearing a too-small suit of chainmail, complete with codpiece. Charles Napier has a cap with the word "Ranger" on it in tiny type, so small you can barely read it. Were smaller-than-average chainmail suits and "Ranger" embroidered patches cheaper than normal-sized ones? Then George "Buck" Flower (or is it Randall "Tex" Cobb? Not really sure...) shows up, and most of his dialogue (and inexplicable narration) is so grumbly, mumbly, and slurred, he makes William Smith seem like a master of elocution. And lest we forget Tom Magee as Bull, the token meathead. Naturally a movie about mystical sorcery wouldn't be complete without the Canadian 1982 World Powerlifiting Champion. Also he was in Stone Cold (1991) and Street Knight (1993).Director Warren Stevens also is responsible for Lone Tiger (1999) - how does he keep assembling impressive B-movie casts for these nonsensical movies? Sure, the writing, editing, and directing are very off, but our question is: did Stevens thought it made sense? Did it make sense to him? Did he think it would make sense to audiences? Or does he know it makes no sense, and he doesn't care? These are the questions we're curious about. But naturally, there is a lot of repetition to pad out the running time. We also noted that the movie Digital Man (1995) is very similar to this. Of all the movies to imitate, why Dragonfight? Is it really that inspirational? Add in a little Cyber Vengeance (1997) and you have...well, something.The first half-hour is fairly mind-boggling, but then the silliness subsides for most of the rest of the film. We felt the corporate-based scenes were more interesting than the desert slog scenes, of course. So that led to an overall feeling of dissatisfaction. Featuring the song "Take My Stand" by Velvet Hammer, Dragonfight is, despite author John Stanley giving it a glowingly positive review in his book Creature Features, a confusing disappointment after its opening promise. But there are some unintentional laughs along the way.For more action insanity, drop by: www.comeuppancereviews.com
If you were to rate this movie on how good it is, it's about a 2. But as far as how much fun you'll have watching it, I would give it a 10. This is one of the cheesiest 90's movies ever made. The dialogue is beyond horrible, the plot doesn't make any sense, there's some sort of loophole or mess-up in every scene, and the characters are priceless/terrible. If you are a fan of bad movies, this is a MUST SEE. And as a side note, I would pay good money for this movie's soundtrack. Trust me when I say that you WANT to see an idiot in chain mail named AxeWolf jive-walking around the Arizona desert. And some choice quotes to get you interested: "This is the 90's. We're businessmen." "See that strange lady? That's my ace in the whole. That's my magic lady."
Me and my friends rented this baby just to have something to watch while we drank beer and lied to each other about female conquests of the past... The party ended pretty early since we started to watch the movie. Obviously we had missed the "first part" or.. because we didn't understand anything! My most vivid memory was a line from the film: Two guys are standing in the middle of nowhere. One of them says something like "There ísn't a living soul out here for a hundred miles except us"... and in the background a motorcyclist are clearly visible the whole time. In a normal movie, that would have mean that someone was out to get the guys or.. well, anything! In this movie it truly didn't mean anything. It just ..was...
Robert Z'Dar's chin deserves its own credit in the movie. This guy has a chin that would eat Jay Leno's chin for a lightweight snack and not even blink. How freaky would it be to see a chin that blinked? I wish I had a screenshot from the movie of Z'Dar wearing his chain mail because he looks JUST LIKE Buzz Lightyear. Anyway, laughing at his chin is the only sort of entertainment you're going to get from watching "Dragonfight." Since Michael Paré is in the movie, my friends and I thought this would be a good one to rent and make fun of. Nope. This is a movie that's so bad it's *not* funny, and Paré wouldn't appear in it for more than 5 minutes.Unless you like a 5-minute premise stretched out to 83 minutes by showing repetitive shots of people running in the desert and climbing hills, then I suggest you avoid this one by any means necessary.
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