Dragons Forever (1988)
'Sammo's name's obviously taken from the classic Wong Fei Hung character, I'm sure many of you are familiar with that, it's the character played by Jackie Chan in Drunken Master, by Jet Li in Once Upon a Time in China.
'Sammo was the director of the movie but because of the really tight
schedule, Jackie was actually shooting stuff as well as Corey Yuen.''Sammo is in his glory days and it's still what a joy to see him move. Because for a big man to be able to move like he does is so extraordinary. You can see why later he would break out into the American market with Martial Law. I always knew he'd make it in America because let's face it, most Americans are built more like Sammo Hung then they're like Yuen Biao. At the time it was made the three legends had not worked together quite some time. And this was like seeing a comeback vehicle. The reason it had been is I think is that Jackie's career was taken to such an extent that he had kind of left the other two behind and of course it happened even more since Dragons Forever which may explain why there has not been another film with Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao. I asked Sammo about it some time ago and he said: "If you wanna know why, ask Jackie". And I think Jackie maybe feels that the expectations of such a film, you couldn't meet them. It's like doing a Casablanca 2. No matter how good the film turned out to be people would still be disappointed that it wasn't as good as the guys used to be in the glory days.'
'It's great to see everybody in modern dress. And as ever, everyone's get their unique style and Sammo himself in this movie sports various fashion disasters on purpose, because I think he wants to have fun with the fact, that particularly given his built, if he wears funny clothes it kind of looks even funnier.'
' And we here have round two of Sammo vs Yuen Biao and it's such huge fun to see these two physical opposites. They also have a great fight in Shanghai Express. Seeing this two utterly physicly opposite guys going at it is a great joy.'
' This next scene is interesting because it's a rare case on screen of Sammo referring himself to the unique scar that h
e has on his face
between his nose and his mouth. And I have actually mentioned it in
previous commentaries talking about Sammo Hung, but those of you who're
new to the genre, let me tell you, if you look at it, it's actually
the size and shape of the broken top of an old-fashioned coca-cola
bottle and that's actually what it is. Sammo over a woman got involved
in a fight in a nightclub and his opponent who obviously realized Sammo
was gonna be better in fighting than him, smashed the bottle and took
the jagged end of it and stubbed it into Sammo's face so it actually
cut through his nose and mouth. This was when he was in his teens so
most of his later filmcareer you actually see him with this particular
scar. And he doesn't often refer to it himself on screen. But here she
says: your mouth may lie because of that scar and he says: this scar
belongs to my nose not to my mouth. So it's like another example of
using something that's an actual part of him to have a comedic moment.'' Sammo, I think even more than Jackie, because of the way he looks physically, is hard for a Western audience to take him seriously as an actor's actor. But he's somebody to me who in some ways as a traditional, in terms of classical dramatic acting, is superior to Jackie, is superior to Yuen Biao, but because of the way he's built, didn't necessarily get the chance to show that too many times in his career. So often it's kind of there, in the context of a film, like Pedicab Driver, which is known for its extraordinary action sequences, but if you analyze it, and look at Sammo's performances scene by scene, he is so good, he is so gifted and now that he's slightly older, he's moving into a stage of being a characterplayer. I hope he gets the chance to play more serious roles because I think he still has a lot to offer both as an action guy but particularly in the terms of doing more drama.'
' Noone looks as powerful as Sammo does when he goes into action.
You really believe he could take out all these guys with one hit. You
really couldn't do that with Yuen Biao because Yuen Biao is much
smaller so it doesn't really look believable for him to knock somebody
down, he has to use a whole bunch of punches and kicks to take somebody
out. But with Sammo… Sammo is so powerful that you really believe that
one punch would be all it took... Jackie's movies go much lighter on the
bad guys because he kind of plays around with them, but in Sammo's
films when you get hit, you get hit. So it's like all the way through
the finale we get people taking the most extraordinary hits in the
history of HK Action Cinema.
Jackie looks great in his own films, but my God, he never looks better
than he does with Sammo pushing him to look really cool.'