HK: Dragon Squad [Dragon Heat]
the original title “dragon squad” and the renamed “dragon heat“
starring: vanness wu, shawn yue, eva huang, xia yu, lawrence chou, sammo hung, simon yam, maggie q
with a promising cast and veterans sammo hung and simon yam, this look good. but first, the posters. i like the original poster and title. i love a lot of the releases by dragon dynasty but why changed the name???? hello? and how come maggie’s got a full blown photo on the cover? she wasn’t even the main character. talk about marketing ploy. personally i wouldn’t watch or buy anything with just maggie - think “naked weapon” - i still shuddered at that thought.
storyline: a bunch of professional killers freed a criminal on his way to trial because they have something to settle with his older brother, tiger. the “dragon squad” consisting of 5 young (and hot) elites from different places who are on the case of these professionals. vanness (chinese american cop), shawn (hong kong cop), eva (undercover agent), lawrence (british operative), and xi (mainland sniper). the cops are all from different places because hey, the killers are also from different places - ie: michael biehn (american) and maggie (vietnamese sniper).
their job is of course, to track these criminals down. sammo also play a cop, who apparently was on the trail of these criminals a few years back but is currently doing nothing because he blamed himself for his colleagues’ deaths. the “dragon squad” are good but not good enough and they will have to convinced sammo to help.
my thoughts: with a cover like dragon dynasty, i almost didn’t pick it up. why did i? because of sammo. i watched this with low expectations and am glad i did because it turned out to be pure entertainment. for one thing, vanness is hot!!! for the 2nd, eva actually look very pretty in here (not so with “sword stained with royal blood”). and the 3rd, maggie wasn’t the main character.
this movie was pretty much non-stop action, believable or not. a sort of background was shown as flashbacks on each of the cops and criminals. vanness is very hot! oops, did i say that already? 
i actually enjoyed the square off of the 2 snipers, xia yu and maggie. it was more believable than the alley square off of the killers and dragon squad. i mean, all these bullets flying off everywhere and no one was hit. nada.
sammo gets a little action at the end too, which is always a treat. man, sammo still packs a whoop!! and a good one too! it was great to see the end fight. c’mon, who else can do what sammo does?
andy on (ala black mask 2) get a cameo and did good. i shed a tear during his part. li bing bing was convincing as tiger’s ex girlfriend. sammo’s son, sammy (ala wing chun), was one of the hot cop trying to stop the “dragon squad”. philip ng get a cameo too. shawn sorta faded into the background for me, probably cause vanness was the main character.
all in all, very very enjoyable and so much better than i thought. the DD release have some extras, including a few interviews (michael biehn) and the making of which is neat. pick this up.
thanks to lovehkfilm.com for some of the names i couldn’t figure out.
Rating: 1/2 out of 5
