Review of Year of the Dragon (1985) by Mjs M — 06 Aug 2009

This is the second film I?m watching in my exploration of the early career of Mickey Rourke, its also interesting as a major work in the career of the director Michael Cimino (another figure I need to catch up on).

This is the first movie Cimino was allowed to make after the debacle of Heaven?s Gate, and its clear he was trying to prove that he could make a ?normal? movie. This is pretty much a standard, clichéd, Dirty Harry rip-off cop movie.

It?s got every hallmark of the genre from the lonely grizzled cop to the moronic police chief. The hook that?s supposed to set this apart is that the villains are a Chinese Triad centered in Chinatown rather than Italians centered in Brooklyn.

This choice resulted in a lot of controversy from the Asain community who believed the portrayal of Chinatown was stereotyped. I can see what they were offended by, there are elements of the film that seem to mitigate some of the less enlightened portrayals, but these politically correct elements feel like they were thrown in at the last minute in order to avoid controversy, I suspect that the original script was much less savory.

Regardless of the racial overtones, this is a pretty lame and boring movie. Rourke is clearly trying, but he?s too young for his role and he?s give a really bad dye job. This probably didn?t deserve the five razzie nominations it got, but it?s still very unoriginal.