CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Third_Person2 Year of the Dragon (1985) is a film about A police detective cracks down on organized crime in Chinatown after the murders of Triad and Mafia leaders. I thought this film was great an absolute underrated gem. The film is Based on the novel of the same name by Robert Daley, the screenplay was written by Michael Cimino & Oliver Stone, The Direction by Michael Cimino was good the film was made after his box office disaster Heavens Gate (1980) when everybody probably doubted him he really brought it he really created something new and it's nothing like his other works. The film is a Neo-Noir thriller and has everything Action, Drama, and Crime and has themes of ethnicity, racism, and stereotypes. The film stars Mickey Rourke as Stanley White a Vietnam veteran, John Lone as Joey Tai, and Ariane as Tracy Tzu, Mickey Rourke was good in this role he is a complex character who in order to arrest Joey Tai Stanley White blurs the line between right and wrong and it's very interesting to see, like Michael Cimino's film The Deer Hunter (1978) he gives a dash of the psyche of the Vietnam vet in this film. John Lone is good as Joey Tai he really had an awesome presence on screen sinister and smooth who is not all completely evil he has a code of honor which makes him the perfect foil to Stanley White who is a very flawed man who wants to do the right thing. The main criticisms of the film are the performance of Ariane a first- time actress as Tracy Tzu I didn't think she was that bad I like every time she interacted with Mickey Rourke I thought they had an interesting relationship. The film portrayed Chinatown in a negative light which at The time was met with protests by some Chinese Americans which led to some people not wanting to see The film or giving the film a negative reaction but if you watch it today all that is completely irrelevant and you can just enjoy this good film. The film had good cinematography and good action scenes that really make the film, the film goes where you don't expect it to go twists and turns and adrenaline. The ending will have you on the edge of your seat it ends in a way you won't expect and it's awesome. All and all this is a great under- appreciated film and should be talked about more. 10/10

Smoreni Zmaj Average crusader cop movie, worth watching if you don't expect more than some action fun to kill few hours.For those who watched it or will do, censorship forced them to replace the very last line of Mickey Rourke: "Well, I guess if you fight a war long enough, you end up marrying the enemy", with: "You were right and I was wrong. Sorry, I'd like to be a nice guy. I would, but I just don't know how to be nice."Lame.....................................................................

NateWatchesCoolMovies Michael Cimino's Year Of The Dragon is a visceral blast of pure Americana as only the man could bring us. It kills me that he suffered through that whole Heaven's Gate fiasco (which is actually a really good movie, but that's another story and argument entirely) because it extinguished any hopes of him making future films, and in doing so the studios effectively committed genocide against their own. Sure the guy was crazy as hell, but damn could he ever make a great film. This one is one of the most criminally overlooked cop flicks of all time, partly due to Cimino's scorching direction and partly due to a a performance of monolithic grittiness from Mickey Rourke as Captain Stanley White, the cop who won't stop. White is fresh out of Nam and mad as hell, launching a unilateral crusade of racist violence and self righteous fury against the Chinese crime syndicate in New York City, particularly a young upstart in their organization named Joey Thai (John Lone). Thai is as ruthless as White is determined, and the two clash in ugly spectacle, causing leagues of collateral damage on either side and inciting them both to roar towards an inevitable, bloody conclusion. Thai's elderly superiors warn him of men like White, men who are fuelled purely by anger, bitterness and nothing else, smelling the fire and brimstone in the air and wisely stepping out of the way. Thai is of a younger, more petulant generation and foolishly decides to meet the beast head on by essentially kicking the hornet's nest. White is warned by his caring wife (Caroline Kava) and fellow cop and friend Lou (Raymond J. Barry is excellent, firing Rourke up further with his work) not to mess with such a dangerous crowd. He has a volatile relationship with a beautiful Chinese American reporter (Arianne is the only weak link in the acting chain) who puts herself on the line for him by digging around in dangerous corners. The intensity level of this film is something straight from the adrenal gland; even in episodic scenes of introspect we feel the hum of the character's emotions, and when the conflict starts again, which it does in fast and furious amounts, the actors are simply in overdrive. Rourke has never been better than he was in the 80's, it was just his zenith of power. This isn't a role that gets a lot of recognition, but along with Angel Heart, Rumble Fish and Pope Of Greenwich Village, I think it's his best. He puts so much of himself into Stanley White that the edges which separate performer from performance begin to blur and waver, until we are locked into his work on a level that goes beyond passive consumption of art and elicits something reflective in us. Not to sound too hippie dippy about it, but the guy is just that good. On the calmer side of the coin, John Lone brings both evil and elegance to Joey, a slick surface charm that's constantly disturbed by Rourke's hostility, leading to an eventual meltdown that's very cool to see in Lone's expert hands. This is one for the ages and should be in the same pantheon with all timers like Heat, Serpico, The French Connection and others. Rourke fires on all cylinders, as do his colleagues of the craft, and Cimino sits cackling at the switchboard with a mad calm, yanking all the right levers in a frenzy of unhinged genius. Not to be missed.

chaos-rampant Cimino shows that he is a crass and hysteric filmmaker here. His sensibilities place him somewhere between Cecil B. DeMille and Francis Coppola. He's got to film big, so even a cop flick about violence in Chinatown has to be a saga. There's no weight to it, it just has to be a sprawling story that's only vaguely about social issues of importance. He's got to have both the scope and relevance, preferably something to brood over. He's got to have lots of people and lots of scenery in the frame. There's a pretty ludicrous scene set in backwoods Thailand that only seems to exist so that a Triad boss can majestically gallop in view of a swarm of soldiers (and later brandish a severed head).There's nothing worse than a filmmaker who can only leverage ambition and control in his art (Coppola once in a while had good intuitions). So at its most profound, cinematic beauty is at perfume ad level here, say a woman in silhouette sliding into a majestic night-view of New York. What's the term, 'elephant art'? I say it doesn't breathe.Worst of all, since he is very much a storyteller, these days a novelist living in Paris, his dramatic sense is a lot of puff and noise on a typewriter. It has no life. It's screen writing 101 like in one of those books that tell you about the 'hero's journey' and where to put the 'inciting incident': the couple is growing bitter and distant, and it's right on the first scene that they have to curse, yell, and throw things as they explain all that's wrong between them: he's never at home, he doesn't care, she wants a baby.And he's got the ideal writing partner for this. Oliver Stone: so angry barbs at the media, school-lessons in American and Chinese history, and Vietnam is behind all of it. It's all abrasive on this end, as is Stone.Mickey Roorke, usually game for roles that call for lots of smirking and boyish thrashing-about, is the violent, crazy, anguished new sheriff in 'Town. He browbeats and ridicules the Chinese journalist girl and of course she goes to bed with him the moment he has finished doing so, because what's more charming than a 'flawed protagonist'.The film is bookended by public funeral processions and that could have been something, connoting obsession, artificial images, false narratives. Watch John Lone in M. Butterfly for that. Watch Fukasaku for chaotic action.