The Invincible Dragon 九龍不敗

Fruit Chan's foray into the martial arts genre is misguided and nonsensical.

Jiu long bu bai

Directed by Fruit Chan

Starring: Max Zhang Jin, Anderson Silva, Juju Chan, Kevin Cheng

Hong Kong, Cantonese and English

Approx. 99 mins

Much is hyped about The Invincible Dragon, a martial art’s feature from local Hong Kong film maker Fruit Chan, known for his distinctive local touch and grounded storytelling, with the inclusion of rising star Max Zhang Jin in a leading role and a match up with UFC hot property Anderson Silva and with Stephen Tung Wei handling action it should have been a such fire hit.

What we got instead is a complete train wreck of a film.

Kowloon (Max Zhang) is a Hong Kong police officer tasked with tracking the serial killer that has been targeting Hong Kong police women. His crack team which consist of Kowloon’s girlfriend, Fong Ning (Stephy Tang Lai Yan), devises a plan to use a female officer to lure the culprit out but due to some coincidental events the police are distracted and Kowloon’s girlfriend is captured by the killer. Kowloon chases after the killer but is shot in the process losing the killer and his girlfriend in the process. Kowloon is demoted to an outskirt police station wallowing in his own failure. After a few years there are a stream of murders in Macau that has the blueprints of the serial killer that killed Kowloon’s girlfriend, Kowloon is invited back to the investigation with the aid of Chow (Endy Chow Kwok Yin) and Macau officer Tso (Kevin Cheng Ka Wing). Their investigation leads them to a gym at the Macau Tower opened by war veteran Alexander Sinclair (Anderson Silva) and his lover Lady (Juju Chan).

Fruit Chan can’t quite decide on what type of film he is making, with the film jumping through multiple genres, at times it wants to play out like a film noir and not long it throws itself into comedy, then drama, then action etc. but none of it settles comfortably with each other resulting in a tonally inconsistent film. Moments of seriousness will be interrupted by some absurd comedy that seems ill fitting for a police procedural film about serial murders. The thriller part of the film fails to engage and lacks suspense with Kowloon’s random methodology in police work never making any sense; at one point he strangles himself to replay the moment of the murder a-la Lau Ching Wan in Mad Detective but with less elegance. It also never eluded that Kowloon had such an ability and it makes the reveal all the more weird and as the film progresses he never uses such ability again. Amidst all this is the all-important Dragon that the title refers to, throughout the course of the film the dragon is constantly referred to making it a majestical force at play but its final reveal is absurdly bad. Those hoping that those dragon shots in the trailer were some kind of deeper meaning or a metaphor of sorts will be sadly disappointed that it is an actual manifestation.

Filled with some questionable characters that make little sense, a police boss telling his subordinates to close the case in a month then spewing a whole bunch of rising up in the ranks comes of as cartoonish. The inclusion the Chinese medical practitioner played by Annie Liu Xin You who for no apparent reason (or any logical reason) is head over heels in fascination with Kowloon. Her appearance in Macau in connection with the murders is also too convenient.

Acting is all round bad with some truly horrible line delivery and some very questionable dialogue provided. The things that the talent is force to spew makes little sense and have little relevance to proceedings. Matters not helped when Max Zhang is required to speak English dialogue making him on occasions incomprehensible. Non thespian Anderson Silva definitely shows his lack of acting chops with his performance or lack of performance clearly evident. He is given a lot of emotion to shoulder and he fails to elicit any. Juju Chan is given a difficult task of showing love and loyalty but with little screen time to emote and with her opposite talent failing to reciprocate with any level of acting. Child actor playing Silva’s son is truly horrendous and placing them together in such a pivotal moment in the film where both talents fail to emote convincingly destroys whatever setup was trying to do. It’s not helped that the scenario is truly embarrassingly handled.

For a fight film there is surprisingly long moments of non action but some very mundane dramatic beats. Max Zhang is a highly competent martial artist and he moves with such grace which the choreography does help in accentuating but sadly there is nothing in the fights to really stand out. Anderson Silva also provides little in the form of excitement for his moves are basic combinations of punches, kicks and grapple offering little that stands out. Hot property Juju Chan (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon 2, Wu Assassins) deemed the female Bruce Lee of Hong Kong makes a welcome appearance but her fight with Max Zhang starts of exciting but escalates to an absurd affair, fighting inside a moving train but as the train derails they flip and rotate with it soon it becomes unbelievable with both receiving nary a scratch and made worse by some of the worse visual effects seen in a long time in a film of such a caliber. Sadly it does not stop there, Max Zhang and Silva have 2 bouts in the film with both being substandard affairs. It seems that there are moments that Fruit Chan wanted to shoot the scene with artistic shots in a specific way that is not quite fitting for the fight, by no means does it ruin the fights but it can be mildly distracting to have an awkwardly placed camera angle. The finale between Zhang and Silva proceeds as a normal bout with little that excites, as fight proceeds to the exterior of the high rise building things become too hard to swallow as it is accompanied by some horrendous CGI backgrounds and odd uses of wire work.

Billed as the next martial arts star of Hong Kong, Max Zhang sadly disappoints once again carrying a film himself after such disappointing affairs as The Brink and Ip Man Master Z. Fruit Chan once used subtly and ambiguity to convey his messages has literal threw everything in and adopted for a commercial approach but failed to satisfy any parties with this picture.