Dragon Squad
- -A team of Interpol agents arrive in the city to testify against a local crime lord. However on the way to court the vehicle carrying the Triad boss is attacked and the crime lord snatched, not by his own people but by another foe.
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Big-budget action filmmaking plays out across Hong Kong in Dragon Squad, a fast-moving production clearly positioned for international appeal.
Overseas and local police officers Ho (Vanness Wu), Lok (Shawn Yue), Jun (Xia Yu), Suet (Eva Huang) and James (Lawrence Chou) come together to escort smuggler Panther Duen to trial. But the heavyweight backup by the five young cops is of little use when a heavily armed team of foreign former agents steps in to kidnap the man. The military-trained bad guys want to get their hands on the ill-gotten gains of Panther’s brother, Tiger, and to take revenge for past misdeeds, too. The unnamed team of young cops quickly realises it’s not up against everyday criminals and jumps onto the trail.
Laden with characters on both sides of the law – ten are profiled in the opening minutes, alongside with their supports – Dragon Squad mostly skips past the burden of developing each of its protagonists and pumps up the action instead. Director Daniel Lee and martial arts co-ordinator Chin Kar-lok play nearly everything straight, delivering a succession of gunfights and face-offs from downtown streets to remote warehouses, all lensed with hyperactive camerawork and cut with rapid-fire edits. A centrepiece gun battle comes midway into the picture: a fierce, 15-minute clash expertly set up and staged in an aging industrial complex. The end of the sequence brings little time for a let-up in the violence, however, and more action is in store for the final reels including bouts of hand-to-hand combat with Sammo Hung, playing the senior Hong Kong cop who assists the squad.
Tim Youngs
Thanks to Far East Film Festival