The Tattooed Dragon (15) |Home Ents Review

A highly likeable martial arts action film from the director of Bruce Lee classics The Big Boss and Fist of Fury. Lo Wei does some aesthetically pleasing things with group sequences and crisp, nighttime shots in this rural Thailand set drama, starring ferret-faced, black hole of energy Jimmy Wang Yu. 

Wang Yu plays Tattooed Dragon, a legendary fighter and righter of wrongs who seeks refuge with a nice but dim farmer (Hui) and his fiancée (Chang) after being wounded in a fight. 

The villain who ordered Tattooed Dragon’s duffing up wants to get his hands on farm land so that he can turn the area into a mine. He sets up a gambling house in the village to make the villagers and local farmers lose everything, including the deeds to their land. Once Tattooed Dragon feels better and finds out about this evil plan, it is time to settle scores. 

Sam Hui is a good comic foil for Wang Yu’s scrunched-up poker face. There are some nice gags played out with Hui, Chang and the actor playing her father. There’s a comically bad Thai boxing match and the gambling sequences buzz with energy. 

The film looks great. The 2K restoration looks better than that usually suggests and there’s an almost underlit but clear, dark tone to many of the shots, which brings out contrasts of light and dark nicely. I think it is unusual to have so many real nighttime sequences, especially fights; Wei and his cinematographer must have really known what they were doing to keep these shots clear and interesting. 

Despite the setting, this is classic Hong Kong martial arts stuff: Wei uses full body framing and tracking shots rather than fast, close-up editing – even though the latter would probably have hidden Wang Yu’s complete lack of martial skills better.  

A pleasure to watch.