• ⇤
• ⇽
• ≡
• ⇾
• ⇥

movie review - Kiss of the Dragon

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

I've only seen Li in one or two other (N. American) flicks, butbetween them, I'm starting to get an image of a someone wth a taste for making movies about violence.

This is a fairly bare-bones action flick, in which Li - as an agent of mainland China - turns up in France to aid in a drug-smuggling investigation. He doesn't trust his French partners, and it turns out quite early on that this paranoia is well founded (perhaps not even strong enough). The French cops are controlling the drug ring they're supposedly investigating, and everything soon goes to hell.

There is actually a substantial - if somewhat cliched - plot to this flick, and Li certainly plays his character to its limits (as does Bresson). And while the film is extremely violent, it isn't the kind of violence you'd expect from a mid-90's Schwarzenegger/Stalone/Whatever flick; people get hurt and show it. Li actually stated that this is not a family film, and I'd say he's right; but with a few exceptions, the violence is not completely over the top.

Recommended.