DRAGON SQUAD

Alternate Title: Maang Lung
Country: Hong Kong, China
Release Year: 2005
Genre: Martial Arts Action / Gunplay / Crime
Language: Cantonese / English
Running Time: 111 minutes

[Cast]
Sammo Hung Kam-Bo
Michael Biehn
Jun-ho Heo
Lawrence Chou
Vanness Wu
Simon Yam
Shawn Yue
Maggie Q
Wah Yuen
Yu Xia
Shengyi Huang
Bingbing Li
Andy On

[Director]
Daniel Lee


"HIGH FLYING KICKS...HARD HITTING FISTICUFFS...GUN BLASTIN'...ACTION OVERDRIVE!!!"

Action Aficionados rejoice! Your prayers have been answered!!!

DRAGON SQUAD (2005) is an action packed movie lovers dream come true!!!

It has everything an action movie should have: a decent storyline, an attractive young cast, veteran actors, international actors, hard-hitting fisticuffs action, and loud, explosive gunplay.

DRAGON SQUAD moves at an extremely fast pace. There is never a dull moment. As soon as the movie starts rolling you don't have to wait too long before an action scene takes hold of your undivided attention. There is so much going on in the movie, so much movement, it's almost hard to keep up with the movie's plot. No worries, the movie's storyline is simple, not convoluted.

Daniel Lee has done a very clever job in keeping your interest glued from one plot, to the next. Also, he must've been watching recent Tony Scott movies like MAN ON FIRE (2004), and DOMINO (2005) as of late because the similarities of filmaking element is present. Tony Scott's style is somewhat like watching a movie on an acid trip. His fondness for overexposure, zooming in and out, brief flashes, and placements of dynamic camera angles is also present in DRAGON SQUAD.
Thus, Daniel Lee incoporated his own Tony Scott-ish style of filmmaking.

Some movie-goers will probably be turned off by the style, but movie lovers like me actually embrace it. I must admit, the continous flashbacks for each characters background images everytime the camera does a close up on each one of them did get quite repetetive, but in no way did it lessen my enjoyment of the film. In fact, it only enhanced it.

Also Daniel Lee, painted more of a serious approach in the direction, and storytelling of this movie. There isn't an ounce of humor present. The movie was meant to be taken seriously, which is easy to do because the action packed sequences is simply breathtaking.

There is a lot of key martial arts sequences in DRAGON SQUAD. Particularly the fight scene between Sammo Hung, and Jun-ho Heo is jaw-dropping to say the least. They battle several times over the course of the movie, but their last fight scene is truly spectacular! Wait, I'm not finished talking about the battle sequences yet...

...the Gun Battles in this movie is...masterfully directed, I mean it's truly frickin' awesome!!! There are several Gun Battles in this movie, all of them are breathtaking but the Gun Battle towards the end in particular is without a doubt, the best gunplay action I've seen in a movie to date!

I especially enjoyed the Sniper versus Sniper Gun Battle scene at the rooftops. I've watched that scene over and over, and I just can't get enough of it. What I really enjoyed in DRAGON SQUAD is the mixture of Action Packed Sequences it goes from Gun Battles to Martial Arts, and back and forth.

The acting is also on par. None of the actors will win a Golden Horse award or anything but at least everyones' acting is believable considering it has an all star cast. At first I was skeptical when I heard Michael Biehn is starring in a Hong Kong Action movie, I always get weary when a Hollywood actor stars in Hong Kong films. They all come off stiff for some reason. But he did a decent job, after all he is somewhat a veteran in Hollywood.

Korean Actor Jun-ho Heo was excellent, he absolutely blew me away with his performance as a pyschopatic soldier. Maggie Q, was the perfect actress to play as the elusive sniper. Sammo Hung, is always a stunner whenever he is given a chance to show his ass-kicking skills and in DRAGON SQUAD there is absolutely no exception indeed!

In short, Daniel Lee succeeded in molding both Martial Arts, and Gunplay, and incoporated it in to a sleek, stylish, Hong Kong action movie. There is no doubt one will enjoy DRAGON SQUAD, especially if you are an action fan.

There is only one way to watch DRAGON SQUAD and that is to watch it LOUD...VERY LOUD!
If you own a decent Home Theatre Surround Sound System you definitely have to watch it LOUD in Surround Sound. If you can watch it in DTS (the MeiAh R3 DVD has this feature!) then you would be in for a real treat!

After watching DRAGON SQUAD, there is no doubt that the actions scenes will stay in your head for a long, long while. Until something better comes along that is!