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Thread: The Last Dragon

  1. #16
    np I found it just now.....

  2. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by edward View Post
    i'm sure some nerd posted the entire thing on youtube...

    speak of the devil...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5OgQ1svrc4
    Remember Van Damme in Black Eagle?
    "Wing Chun is a bell that appears when rung.

  3. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Happy Tiger View Post
    Remember Van Damme in Black Eagle?
    JCVD VS Sho Kosugi !
    The amount of cheese almost caused the implosion of the space-time continuum !
    Psalms 144:1
    Praise be my Lord my Rock,
    He trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle !

  4. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by edward View Post
    i'm sure some nerd posted the entire thing on youtube...

    speak of the devil...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5OgQ1svrc4
    11:30ish may be history's only example of the combination of laughably bad Mook Jong use and goofy rapping.

  5. #20
    i miss those times when martial arts movie were popular...

  6. #21
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    30 years old

    An amusing tribute article. It's been too long since I've rewatched this classic.
    ‘The Last Dragon’ 30 Years Later: A Glowing Glory of Kung Fu, Magic, and Progressive Racial Politics


    TRISTAR PICTURES

    MOVIES
    MARCH 23, 2015
    by SHEA SERRANO

    The Last Dragon turned 30 years old Sunday. I’d assumed that writing about it would be easy. And it was, but it also wasn’t.

    It was easy because I’ve seen it somewhere between 80 and 100 times. It’s one of my favorite movies. I started watching it as a kid and I’ve just kept on watching it over and over again. I own three copies on DVD because Walmart sells it in that big bin of movies and it’s only $5 so, I mean, how can I not? The part when Bruce Leroy chops that arrow in half as it flies through the air in the opening montage. The part when Sho’nuff introduces himself to Bruce Leroy in the movie theater. The part when Bruce Leroy gets tricked into walking into a 30-on-1 fight and then his kung fu students save him. The part when he glows. THE PART WHEN HE ****ING GLOWS.

    Let me explain the plot in case you’ve never seen The Last Dragon, or haven’t watched it in the last 48 hours: Bruce Leroy is a young black martial artist. He is being trained by an old Chinese martial artist. All Bruce Leroy wants is to become a master martial artist — if he attains the second-highest level of master in The Last Dragon, he can make his hands glow from the energy he’s harnessed. This, as you can imagine, is an especially devastating skill. More deadly than that, though: If he reaches the highest level, he can make his whole body glow, and this raises some weird questions, like, “Since you have control of The Glow, can you use it anywhere, like, say, while you have sex or while you eat spaghetti, or can you summon it only when you’re fighting?” and “Does your whole body glow? Like, ALL of your body? Even your you-know-what?” But don’t think about those questions, because they’re never addressed in the movie, no matter how many times you watch it.

    There are two lead villains in the movie. One is supposed to be the brains. His name is Eddie Arkadian (he owns arcades), though it isn’t until the final third of the film when he turns super-evil. (In the beginning, the most dastardly thing he does is threaten people with a weird super-piranha monster, but by the end he’s taken up kidnapping and blackmail and shooting people in the face at close range.) Mostly, though, he just seems motivated by love. His girlfriend is a would-be pop star, and Arkadian tries to force her way into fame by kidnapping the host of a TV show that plays videos. It’s pretty understandable, really.

    The other bad guy is Sho’nuff, and he’s legit the star of everything. He’s crass, he’s mean, he’s intimidating, he wears shoulder pads with no shirt, his hair looks like murder-death-kill. Like Bruce Leroy, Sho’nuff is also hoping to become a kung fu master, though where Bruce Leroy applies self-reflection and enlightenment with an unseen master named Sum Dum Goy, Sho’nuff plans to bully his way to the top, defeating all other would-be masters and siphoning away their energy. He has a total ******** for Bruce Leroy and spends much of the movie trying to goad him into a fight by destroying his family’s pizza joint, attacking and humiliating him in front of his students in his dojo, etc. He’s a masterful bully — think of Johnny from The Karate Kid mixed with Chong Li from Bloodsport.

    Eventually, Sho’nuff teams with Arkadian before finally forcing Bruce Leroy into a fight. And it’s gorgeous. Bruce Leroy houses Sho’nuff and eventually kicks him through a wall, and that’s that: The movie’s over. Except guess what. It’s so ****ing not. Sho’nuff, somehowImprobablyMIRACULOUSLY gets his hands to glow blood-red. Turns out, he’s the master Bruce Leroy was looking for.1 So Sho’nuff is the master. His hands are glowing red, he’s invincible, and poor Bruce Leroy is beaten to smithereens. It’s all bad. Sho’nuff obliterates Bruce Leroy, and as an ultimate act of humiliation, he holds Bruce Leroy’s head under water over and over again, each time pulling him up just short of death and shouting, “WHO’S THE MASTER?!” It’s crushing, and that’s that: The movie’s over. Except guess what. It’s so ****ing not.

    As Sho’nuff dunks Bruce Leroy, he has flashbacks to scenes from the movie, and after enough of them he pieces together what he should’ve known all along and what we all should’ve known all along: BRUCE LEROY IS THE MASTER OF MASTERS. Sho’nuff pulls Bruce Leroy up out of the water, asks him one last time who the master is, and Bruce Leroy, a fully realized peace in his eyes and stillness in his heart, says, “… I am.” Sho’nuff explodes, attempts to deliver a death blow, but Bruce Leroy catches his fist. Again he says, “I am,” and this time he makes HIS WHOLE BODY GLOW. It’s incredible.

    Sho’nuff, there’s nothing he can do. He waits to die. Bruce Leroy glow-fights him a bit, and it’s so much fun, and then he flying-kicks the everything out of Sho’nuff. Sho’nuff is defeated. Arkadian the snake, watching the whole thing, pulls a gun, says some clever things about kung fu vs. modern artillery, and then shoots Bruce Leroy right in the face. I mean, it hits him square in the face. The violence of the hit spins Bruce Leroy all the way around, flinging his body to the ground. He’s down on the floor lifeless. Arkadian laughs his terrible laugh and that’s that: The movie’s over. Except guess what. IT’S SO ****ING NOT.

    Arkadian rolls Bruce Leroy’s body over with his foot. Bruce Leroy moves his head a bit, opens his eyes, then opens his mouth. And we see it. HE CAUGHT THE BULLET IN HIS TEETH, BRO. Bruce Leroy gets up, secures Arkadian for the police, and for real, that’s that, that’s the movie.

    I love it. I love that movie so much. So it was easy to write about.

    ♦♦♦

    The hard part, though — or it’s probably more accurate to call it the transcendent part or the amazing part — is that as silly a movie as it is, The Last Dragon handles the issue of race with a deftness that not many movies have ever pulled off.

    Bruce Leroy — a lithe, measured black man dressed in Chinese attire quoting Bruce Lee — is a subversion of racial archetypes. At one point, his younger brother chides him for not being black enough. Later, the three Chinese guys impersonating the all-powerful master Sum Dum Goy try to teach Bruce Leroy how to be black. By then, it’s clear what the movie is saying: There’s no “right” way to be. The movie — famously produced by Motown founder Berry Gordy — nods at the light skin vs. dark skin theme and at the notion that there’s an evil white man behind every treacherous scheme. It also atomizes the stigma of cultural appropriation. That’s what’s difficult to write about, and not because it’s a dangerous topic (because it’s not), but because of how adroitly everything is handled. Ultimately, Bruce Leroy’s brother comes to appreciate and respect him. This happens quietly and smoothly — it’s all a strangely subtle investigation of race for a mystical kung fu movie.

    I recently watched a 40-minute Q&A panel with members of the cast. One audience member asked how the movie was able to step outside of its circumscribed market to become a full-blown cult classic and not just a black cult classic. Taimak, the actor who portrayed Bruce Leroy, said he knew it was going to do exactly that. But he could never figure out precisely why, only that it did. If Taimak couldn’t, then I can’t. I’ve never made any part of my body glow.
    Despite Doug's initial protest at the beginning of this thread, I've moved it from Wing Chun to Media because we don't really have a Last Dragon thread here and that's a shame. We have this one: Last-Dragon-remake
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  7. #22
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    I should really rewatch this...

    ...it's been too long since I've seen it.

    Whatever Happened to The Last Dragon?
    The Last Dragon was quite a different martial arts film. We dig into its story, and what happened...
    Craig Lines
    Feb 7, 2018



    As the brainchild of Berry Gordy, the mastermind behind Motown Records, The Last Dragon mixes martial arts, music, supernatural adventure, Bruceploitation, comedy and dance to surprisingly dazzling effect. The soundtrack is a showcase of what Motown Records was about in the mid-80s (arguably a second golden age for them), and its lead single – Rhythm Of The Night by DeBarge – should be familiar to anyone who knows their pop classics. But, far from being a flimsy visual vehicle to hang some songs on, The Last Dragon is a brilliant piece of work that uses stylish silliness to put across some serious messages. It’s rooted in its time (the mid-80s) and place (New York) but has stood the test of time, remained unique and just celebrated its 30th anniversary with a series of conventions and screenings all across the US.

    The hero of the film is Leroy Green (Taimak), known around Harlem as 'Bruce Leroy' due to his obsession with Bruce Lee and martial arts. He’s seeking the final level of enlightenment in his training but his master can teach him no more, so Leroy must find his own path in the world. Opportunity presents itself in the form of three unlikely characters. One is Sho'Nuff, The Shogun Of Harlem (Julius Carry), a flamboyant local thug who's terrorizing the neighbourhood with his gang of crazy-haired minions. Another is Eddie Arkadian (Chris Murney), a Mafioso arcade game king looking to muscle his way into music videos. And finally there's Laura Charles (Vanity), the hottest VJ in town whose Video Hotpix show brings all these characters together for an outlandish, neon-drenched climax.



    There’s a lot to love about The Last Dragon and part of that is because it has so much love of its own to give. It’s a really positive story and Bruce Leroy is one of the first ever onscreen black superheroes. A big part of its success was the inspired casting of Taimak, a non-actor with a history in both martial arts and dance, who proved to be exactly right. His good-natured, wide-eyed performance makes Leroy endearing and when he launches into the fights, his moves are incendiary. It’s impossible to imagine The Last Dragon without Taimak and yet it’s his only lead role in a feature film to date. He’s been something of a mysterious figure for most of the last 30 years, so when I got the chance to talk to him recently, I was excited to hear his story.

    Taimak started training in karate at the age of six and spent his early teens in the grindhouse cinemas of New York’s 42nd Street watching kung fu films, much like Bruce Leroy in The Last Dragon. “I'd go to 42nd Street because they wouldn't play them anywhere else, you know,” he explains, with nostalgic enthusiasm. “There was Bruce Lee, who was the strongest, and Sonny Chiba, the Streetfighter series, and Shogun Assassin, Seven Samurai, and all the Shaw Brothers movies. They played some kung fu movies in Chinatown but they were in Chinese and I couldn't speak it. I was 14 years old and just running around the streets taking it all in. It impacted me and put me on a path that I didn't know I was going to be on until I got older.”

    While expanding his martial arts repertoire (he currently holds seven black belts), Taimak was cast in The Last Dragon, despite having no prior acting experience. “I'd been involved in a few school plays but I always froze and didn't know what to do. The movie was looking for a young black guy and they wanted to find someone who knew martial arts. At that time I was training with Ron Van Clief and he was one of the choreographers on it, as was a friend of my mother's, Lester Wilson, who has passed now but was a big dance choreographer. That's initially how I got a call. I thought it was gonna be a martial arts demonstration but it was an acting audition and I had no idea how to act!”



    With typical prescience, Berry Gordy thought Taimak’s naivete would work for the character and so he found himself leading a $10 million martial arts musical. It was an uncannily perfect fit. The story mirrored not just Taimak’s own life experience but also his views on the martial arts. “It is a true martial arts film because it represents martial arts. The message is what martial arts is about, that you can be the master of your life. I mean, you can go to UFC and just watch a fight, you can be a great fighter but that doesn't make you a master. A master is somebody who is courageous, who goes against their fears and is supportive of their community and is an authentic role model, that's what a master is.”

    With the movie grossing over twice its budget at the box office and Rhythm Of The Night hitting the upper reaches of the pop charts worldwide, The Last Dragon was a winner. Contemporary critics hated it (of course they did, it’s a genre movie), but audiences got it and everything seemed set for Taimak to be the next martial arts superstar. So, I ask him, what happened?

    “Life!” He laughs. “What happened next was life. Life is what happened. When you come from the streets of New York and a really tough family background, life happens. I mean, even if you don't, I don't care where you come from, you're dealing with Hollywood sharks who have their own interests. I had to rely on myself for everything because I couldn't trust any of them. You know, so it took me many years to find myself - just like Bruce Leroy - but I found myself, thank God I found myself. Most people don't, unfortunately.”

    While out of the cinematic spotlight, Taimak still managed to amass an impressive array of credits in multiple fields in the 80s and 90s. He set up his own martial arts school with a partner, he starred in music videos (perhaps most famously Janet Jackson’s Let’s Wait Awhile) and moved into dance choreography for top pop stars. “I choreographed Madonna in her Drowned World tour. She did a number called Sky Fits Heaven and I choreographed that. Gwen Stefani and Bush, I did the Chemicals Between Us video. I was doing everything, commercials, I was trying to pay my bills while learning about myself.”

    continued next post
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  8. #23
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    Continued from previous post

    “I just always loved anything that could be considered a craft,” he explains. “Whether it's martial arts or acting or dancing, it doesn't really matter. A craft is really interesting to me, you could turn making a protein shake into a craft. If not many people can recreate it, then it's a craft.”

    Meanwhile, The Last Dragon took on a life of its own, gaining more fans through TV screenings, re-releases and the many hip hop artists who’ve referenced it. Taimak has recently toured America, promoting the (beautiful) 30th anniversary Blu-ray. “Back in those days they didn't promote The Last Dragon to any audience other than the black audience. It went to #2 in the country but it only truly crossed over when it showed on HBO in the 90s. I do screenings sometimes - Alamo Drafthouse has had me back a number of times - and it sells out all the time even today. I was on a little vacation in Berlin and I happened to screen it there and they loved it. I would love to screen it more in Europe!”

    Since reconnecting with the film world, Taimak has returned to acting, as well as writing, producing and directing a series of shorts, showcasing ideas for features that he intends to make. Most interesting of these is The Master, a martial arts fantasy about a Persian-African soldier in ancient China on the run from assassins. He describes it as “Game Of Thrones meets Kung Fu Theater” and I’m not sure it’s possible to make anything more relevant to my interests. The clips online evoke classic Shaw Brothers and promise exciting things:



    Taimak’s also put together a treatment for The Last Dragon 2 and is courting interest from Sony, who own the rights to the characters. “Obviously, the fans are dying to see something that relates to The Last Dragon so I've got a group of guys who are really talented and we're gonna do some really, really fun stuff and you're gonna see some things that'll make you open your eyes and I'm hoping that someone will open their bank account and get Sony excited! It's not the end of the world if it doesn't happen but it'll make a lot of people happy all over the world.”
    continued on next post
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  9. #24
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    Continued from previous post

    “I also wrote a full-length detective feature, I've Seen Things, which is intense. I'd love for people to watch the short film of that and let me know what they think. I have another film called Obsession that's a superhero film about a philosophy professor with a dark past, so I'm packaging a number of these projects and hopefully everything works out. I'm gonna work my butt off and that's all I can do.”



    It may be an uphill challenge in a tough market like the current one but, like many fans, what Taimak wants most is to see martial arts films back at the forefront of genre cinema.

    “I've seen a lot of great films over the years, like yourself,” he says, “but in America, the martial arts genre has fallen by the wayside. Films use martial arts but they don't really bring all of martial arts. It's a genre that everybody loves but it's been watered down a lot. People like Donnie Yen and Stephen Chow keep that alive but we need to have them here too. There are people making attempts but the vision isn't coming from the right person or the right place. They always just go ‘let's do a little fight in here, let's do a little kick’... I know people are still passionate about me and about The Last Dragon and I love all my fans. They're fantastic.”

    Right back atcha, Taimak.
    I hope it comes together for him. Or at the least, he gets involved with the remake (assuming that remake really happens).
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

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