Revenge of the Green Dragons is US debut of Hong Kong's celebrated director, Wai-Keung Lau (who co-directs) famous for Infernal Affairs.Revenge of the Green Dragons has Martin Scorsese as Executive Director. Scorsese won a Best Director Oscar for The Departed which was the American remake of Infernal Affairs, so he repays the favour.The film follows Sonny and Steven, two Chinese immigrant kids who become best friends and become involved with a Triad gang called The Green Dragons in 1980s New York. The films see these two friends rise amongst these ruthless gangsters and eventually Steven makes a fatal mistake while Sonny has had enough of the senseless violence and abuse such as the casual rape of Chinese women.The film's narration overpowers the film. It looks cheap with horrible cinematography. The acting is two dimensional and so is the script. You would not think this film is made by a legend of Hong Kong cinema.You might as well watch Year of the Dragon if you want to see a superior film about Chinese gangsters in America.

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. **

Movies like Enter The Dragon, Ronin, Entrapment imprinted lasting impressions in my young mind as a kid. Unfortunately, action movies today do not fill my action appetite as they simply are about over the top CGI and unrealistic action stories with their lack of surrealism and dark mood. However...this movie: Revenge of The Green Dragon resonates with the best movies from the 90's as it shows 2 young boys who are a product of their own underground gang society, beyond normal laws and morals but are loyal to their own codes and behavior. This movie has all the elements of a 90s classic.As most action movies from the 90's, this movie doesn't move fast and has a long developing story line which has an element of darkness and surrealism. The story line starts with main character illegally immigrating to an slumps of America setting the basis of how his society progressively turns him into a dark and immoral thug. For example, his gang has their own codes, who don't have a problem killing people but they do have a problem snitching to cops. The story branches out to many genres when the main character falls in love, seeks revenge, and is torn through his internal morals versus the gang's codes that are instilled in him. As the character ages, we see maturity and a change of heart in his actions. Unlike action movies today where there is a single straight forward mission, this movie is more like a slow progressive interpersonal narrative of ones life.I also enjoyed kevjumba's role in the movie as i've watched all his earlier youtube videos when I was a student at UC Davis. He is not as good as an actor as Justin Chon but still acted good enough to break out of his youtube character in the movie.

this film has made me wonder if the director from Hongkong is a real Chinese or worse yet, did this guy really know anything about the Chinese immigrants and those who came to America in the 1980s? the screenplay of this film is a absurd practical joke played on the Chinese immigrants, it's like George Bush Sr. amazed at the bar-code scanner when he found out at the first time, a device already existed and used in the supermarkets for years. i really don't know how this screenplay would have approved by the production company and its producers/investors of this film. the storyline was so outlandish and absurd that so many legal Chinese immigrant would rush into the customs like Irish refugees who came to America in the early 20th century. none of the Chinese characters appeared in this stupid film looked like legit typical Chinese, guys worked in the kitchen spoke Taiwanese intonation Chinese mandarin, bunch of elder Chinese young gang-bangers chasing two youngsters who escaped into the back kitchen of a Chinese restaurant, a woman gangster mamma-san enslaved all the newcomers. the screenplay was just so weird, so absurd and so formulaic out of touch. a messy patch-up work done by some moron who not only didn't know anything about the Chinese immigrants but also didn't know anything about the Chinese gangster tong culture and its history. the screenplay was like a homework by a high school American Chinese, his only knowledge of the Chinese was from some comic books, like FuManchu or Charlie Chen crap. there's nothing right and the cast so poorly assigned. some viewers still tried so hard to match this film with those often mentioned better films and certain master-level director, well, listen, okay, save it, dude, don't try to fool yourself. this is one of the worst films ever made since moving pictures were invented, period.