STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
In the early 80s, a swathe of Chinese immigrants arrived on Ellis Island, eager for a new life. Seeing no other way to pursue their slice of 'the American dream', and gain the status and respect they crave, brothers Sonny (Justin Chan) and Steven (Kevin Wu) become part of the titular 'Green Dragons' street gang, who are locked in a turf war with other similarly named Oriental gang members in their area. Detective Michael Bloom (Ray Liotta) follows a lead, tying them to narcotics activities and becomes determined to bring them down. But when one of their members behaviour crosses a line, it plunges the whole group into a deadly spiral of destruction.
Adapting a true story, and seeing it's potential for an electrifying action flick, after exhuming some brief history that serves as the backdrop, this biopic of the Green Dragons quickly shifts gear into a high energy, full on action flick, with an Oriental flavour and some brutal, unflinching violence and set pieces. The big draw, though, is Martin Scorsese as executive producer, and after a while it seems he's trying to forge a Goodfellas lite kind of thing, charting how the two central characters became involved in the gang and how their rivalries with each other formed. It's even more down this ark with Ray Liotta as the main star, but even in the lead, this seems like another of his recent 'barely there' parts, with minimal screen time compared to the central protagonists.
It's relentlessly flashy, and brutally head on, but it's all completely lacking in coherence, and as a result all seems like a bit of something over nothing, a little too sure of itself without much in the way of genuine substance to keep it going. It makes the mistake of being impetuous when it should have been considered. **
In the early 80s, a swathe of Chinese immigrants arrived on Ellis Island, eager for a new life. Seeing no other way to pursue their slice of 'the American dream', and gain the status and respect they crave, brothers Sonny (Justin Chan) and Steven (Kevin Wu) become part of the titular 'Green Dragons' street gang, who are locked in a turf war with other similarly named Oriental gang members in their area. Detective Michael Bloom (Ray Liotta) follows a lead, tying them to narcotics activities and becomes determined to bring them down. But when one of their members behaviour crosses a line, it plunges the whole group into a deadly spiral of destruction.
Adapting a true story, and seeing it's potential for an electrifying action flick, after exhuming some brief history that serves as the backdrop, this biopic of the Green Dragons quickly shifts gear into a high energy, full on action flick, with an Oriental flavour and some brutal, unflinching violence and set pieces. The big draw, though, is Martin Scorsese as executive producer, and after a while it seems he's trying to forge a Goodfellas lite kind of thing, charting how the two central characters became involved in the gang and how their rivalries with each other formed. It's even more down this ark with Ray Liotta as the main star, but even in the lead, this seems like another of his recent 'barely there' parts, with minimal screen time compared to the central protagonists.
It's relentlessly flashy, and brutally head on, but it's all completely lacking in coherence, and as a result all seems like a bit of something over nothing, a little too sure of itself without much in the way of genuine substance to keep it going. It makes the mistake of being impetuous when it should have been considered. **