Review of Dragon Tiger Gate (2006) by Kristen U — 24 Mar 2009

Excellent comic adaptation with superior direction, cinematography and fight choreography. The story is a bit boilerplate, but it serves its purpose to solidify our support for the heroes and hate the villians.

The real winner here is the fights. They're set up terrifically and executed as only Hong Kong superheroes can. Everything here is predicated on the audience's familiarity with at least some wire-fu epics, but most anime or superhero fans will be up to speed immediately. You don't want to stop the movie to explain things, so it's not for everyone. If you like action that leads to waaaay over the top action, then this is your film. As such, I was surprised at the camera angles and the often beautiful cinematography. There's a few clunker CGI shots, but not enough to ruin anything.

As always, Donnie Yen is a force to be reckonned with. He wears many hats in this production and its certianly better for it. Too bad we can't see more of this kind of effort in the U.S. (Maybe if this got theatrically distributed instead of some of the other crud clogging up cinemaplexes.).