Double Dragon (1994)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Good movie but grossly overrated

Best movie of this year hands down!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Released in 1987 by Technos, Double Dragon is the spiritual successor to Nekketsu Koha Kunio-kun (known to the US as Renegade), a game that was inspired by the high school life of creator Yoshihisa Kishimoto. Basically - you fight to survive.When Renegade was released in the U.S., it was localized so that it appeared to be a video game version of The Warriors, with punk rock inspired bad guys. Double Dragon takes that to the next level, where Billy and Jimmy Lee (or Hammer and Spike, as the original cabinets called them) have to battle through hordes of post-apocalyptic punkers to rescue Billy's girlfriend Marian. There had never been a game like this before, where two players could beat up a near endless array of bad guys and even steal their weapons from them. It felt like you were in a movie. So making a movie of Double Dragon - and its many sequels - seemed like a great idea.Koga Shuko (Robert Patrick, Terminator 2) is a crime lord looking for a magic medallion called the Double Dragon, which has been broken into two pieces. He already has one half, but now he needs the other.Meanwhile, brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee (Scott Wolf of TV's Party of Five and Mark Dacascos, the American chairman of Iron Chef and Mani from Brotherhood of the Wolf) and their adopted mother Satori (Rambo: First Blood Part II) are racing home to beat curfew after a martial arts tournament. Oh, a curfew? Yeah, it turns out that in the Los Angeles of 2007, an earthquake has made the city an apocalypse, lorded over by gangs. One of those gangs, led by Abobo (one of the game bosses) attacks, but they're saved by the Power Corps, led by Marian (Alyssa Milano, Commando, every 90's boy's bedroom wall). Coincidentally, Satori has the other half of the medallion and Shuko mutates Abobo so he can go back out and get it.The gang attacks again with Shuko even possessing their mother. The boys escape thanks to her sacrifice and go on the run as Shuko unites the city's gangs, which have Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes) among their members.If you're reading this and thinking, "This has nothing to do with the video game I've played and loved so much," congratulations. Welcome to the world of 1990's video game adaptions!Will Billy and Jimmy finally stop being dweebs and learn how to fight? Will there by rollerblade attacks on an evil shopping mall? Wil they fight over Marian? Will there be fart jokes because all video games are really for children and not adults despite all evidence to the contrary? Who are the Power Corps and what do they have to do with Double Dragon?Amazingly, this movie was written by Paul Dini, who created the most perfect media adaption of Batman ever, Batman: The Animated Series and also wrote for Lost. There are some weird Frank Miller-esque talking heads on Channel 69 News, played by George Hamilton and Vanna White that try to make this movie into Robocop. Oh yeah - Andy Dick is also the station's weatherman. They have nothing really to do with anything else in the film.Because I come from Pittsburgh, allow me to make fun of Cleveland, where this was filmed. The boat chase sequence was filmed on the Cuyahoga River and ends with a gigantic explosion filled with 700 gallons of gasoline and 200 gallons of alcohol. Despite warnings in all manner of the news, the explosion caused a panic, leading to 210 phone calls to emergency services in 10 minutes. Oh Cleveland.This movie defines the word missable. I have probably played hundreds of hours of the video games they inspired it and have often written my own tales in my head of my character's motivations. Every single one, even back to when I was 16, are miles beyond this film. I've never seen a movie before where a bad guy hugs someone until he passes out, so there is that.Then again, if you always wanted to watch a kid-friendly version of The Warriors, I guess this could be it.

I'm going to start by saying that there has only ever been one great video game to move adaptation and that was the terrific Mortal Kombat and that should give you an idea of what direction I'm going in with this review.I'm not your average movie goer, I am first and for-most a retro gamer and in the 80's and 90's I lived and breathed computer and video games with Double Dragon being one of my all time favourite games. It's now 2014 and for 20 years I have avoided seeing this film. I deliberately dodged it when it came out because I just knew in my heart of hearts that not only would it have nothing to do with the game but it would be watered down kids action with bad acting all round.Well guess what, I was right!Double Dragon: the Movie is atrocious!!! Seriously, it really is that bad. Now I'm a big fan of low budget post apocalyptic action films from the 90's but even then Double Dragon takes the biscuit for just sheer lack of quality on all counts.The film features I think THE worst acting I think I have ever seen. the delivery of the cringe worthy lines is so bad it makes King Of The Kickboxers look like an Oscar winner, but then those kind of films are backed up with a quaint charm and great fight scenes, Double Dragon has absolutely none of that whatsoever and is a magnificent turd from start to finish.I'm convinced that video game adaptations were simply cash makers given to first time or music video directors to dip their toe in the film world because the name would generate at least a bit of revenue and it really didn't matter whether the actual film was good or not.As for the game well, it had a pretty thin story I'll admit, but there was no reason why they couldn't have taken that thin story and built on it instead of making up this mystical nonsense and almost completely changing everything which just p*****d off fans of the game who should have been the films main target instead of the simpering under 10 year old's that it was aimed at.I will be fair, there are one or two positive points in the film but they are extremely trivial. One is the matte paintings used for wide shots of the earthquake ravaged city, they are quite nice and add a bit of atmosphere. Two is Mark Dacascos, he is a fine martial artist and a decent actor but even he struggles in this film. Third and finally is Robert Patrick who genuinely looks like he's having some fun. When he accepted this role Mr Patrick was either desperate for work or he is the absolute King and master of not giving a f**k and I suspect it is the latter because he seems to take a lot of glee in hamming it up and ham it up he does, but with a bit of a wink.Another small point I'd like to make in the interest of fairness is that if you were young and saw this film when it came out then I can totally understand the nostalgia value attached to it and how that can make any film seem so much more enjoyable but being such a huge fan of the game I was never going to have that even if I saw it in 1994 so this review is completely objective.That's about it! I don't think I've ever given any film a 1 before but Double Dragon truly deserves it. A great, steaming pile of utter s**t that bears practically zero resemblance to the great game on which it is based and is an absolutely terrible example of film making in itself.

Movie critics hold up Double Dragon (DD) as a beacon of what-not-to-do when it comes to motion pictures, but I'm going to explain exactly why they're wrong, and DD is a bastion of film-making legend.Overall: Along with a couple B-list celebrity cameos and a helluva lot of tongue- in-cheek comedy, DD delivers many a humorous scenario with lovable, over the top characters. A product of its time, an overtly obvious wit and subtle charm accompany a glorious 90's soundtrack.The Future: While the predictions of the 1994 movie fall far short of how the future actually played out, this time capsule offers an excellent view of what would happen if LA Street Gangs got a hold of virtual-reality technology integrated into their leviathan-esque vehicles. Other: Also the portrayal of the right-wing stance on gang culture is phenomenal. Use of puns by gang members added to the realism, and therefore the viewer's immersion.Double Dragon: The double dragon medallion is a symbol of the duality of the soul, the struggle each man and woman must cope with from the day they are born: the duality of being an invincible, unstoppable ghost; or not.Combat: The fighting style is unique and original, and many scenes require the fighters to improvise with any object they find around. For example, one scene shows a protagonist fighting an enemy with a broom, showing the person has immense versatility as a warrior. One protagonist, Annoying Italian Guy #1, is so moving with his power and speed that I would go so far as to call his fighting style "Poetry of the Fist". Random Asian Henchman #2's incredible ability to take multiple kicks to the face was a nice touch as well.Cross-dimensional similarities: The realism between the fictional Power Corp bears striking similarities to Al Qaeda, in that they are both called terrorists at one point or another, and they are both phallic entities of almost incredulous enormity. A good amount of dialogue is puns that reference other movies and indulge in intertextuality. Dialogue: The only way to describe the dialogue and punchlines in this movie, would be: brave. Seriously, these writers must need wheelbarrows to carry their 200-pound man-berries in.SFX: This movie was incredibly eye-catching from the get-go, but what kept my attention was the time that was clearly spent on the special effects. So compelling was the detail and smoothness it flowed with that I was almost moved to tears.Final thoughts: This movie is a masterpiece - an emotional, action- packed, thought-provoking thrill ride that no self-respecting human being should miss. People will be watching, enjoying, and writing essays about this film for years to come.A+ and 10/10, would see again and recommend to friends.

My first acquaintance with the Double Dragon feature film was through a collection of video captures hosted on the X-Entertainment web site. Even they could not prepare me for the purely abysmal experience that the film proper represents. Like so many video game films after it, Double Dragon takes a perfectly good idea for a video game and turns it into an abysmal feature film. The film itself has a few things in common with the video game: the title and a few character names. The game featured one or two players moving a character from the left of the screen to the right, punching and kicking seven bells out of anyone who dared to get in their way. Unfortunately, Greenleaf Productions and director James Yukich thought that by aiming the film at children too young to remember any of the video games, they might make some money. Fortunately, the adults who were old enough to have played the classic video games ignored the film as it deserved. We certainly would not want the powers that be in Hollywood getting the idea that we actually like this kind of crap, after all.The first problem lies in the screen writing. What made the video games so compelling was that they made as little effort as possible to differentiate its setting from the reality of the player. The story, such as it was, was secondary to people beating each other senseless. In the feature film, the writers attempt to give the story of Double Dragon a background, a motivation, or a reality. They manage to get all three, that much is true, but they all come out the same way: incredibly silly. Making matters worse is some incredibly stupid costume design. I do not know who designed Alyssa Milano's attire for this flick, but I am just betting they spent much of the time when they first saw what they had made laughing at poor Alyssa. Whomever designed the makeup effects for the Abobo character should have been arrested for crimes against the viewer. I do not know exactly what they were trying to achieve with all the lumpage on his body, but whatever it is, they failed. Perhaps his best scene is when Milano is force-feeding him spinach in one of the weirdest interrogations on film.Also looking to fire their agent is Robert Patrick, who was at the time struggling to capitalise on his burst of fame after Terminator 2. Perhaps his agent told him that films based upon video games were going to be the new big thing. What the agent forgot to mention was that while they were a new big thing, they were a new big thing in unintentional comedy. Preceded by one year with Super Mario Bros., Double Dragon set a new low in cinematic history that it took another five years to worsen in the form of Wing Commander. I have no doubt in my mind at all that when Patrick looks back at this film, he thinks to himself "this is the moment I took what was still a salvageable career, and flushed it down the can". His performance is utterly terrible here, so I am inclined to blame the level of pathetic that Double Dragon reaches upon the director. After all, he has shown already that he is more than capable of turning in a good performance with halfway decent direction. Not that a good performance from either would have saved this cinematic abortion.Another problem for a film based upon a beat-em-up video game is that the fight scenes are terribly executed. The camera rarely sits still long enough to make out what is going on, the choreography is utterly terrible, and the actors chosen for the parts clearly have no idea what they are doing. Was it really that difficult to get some people who really know their martial arts for the task? Hell, let's farm the rights out to Golden Harvest, they at least know how to choreograph a halfway decent fight scene. Especially poor are the scenes with Abobo, where none of the superhuman strength the film goes to great pains to tell us he has is actually utilised. Much like Michael Beck in Xanadu, he is really there as window dressing. Part of the problem here is that the canonical character Abobo is meant to appear superhuman in size, and the film just goes too far in trying to maintain that illusion. It would be better to have left the character out of the story altogether than present us with the tumour-encrusted visage we get here.Even as an unintentional comedy, Double Dragon is a failure. Sure, there are moments when the viewer is either going to laugh or cry, the moment when Marian force-feeds Abobo spinach being a prime candidate. However, these moments are too infrequent, and the film takes itself far too seriously otherwise, for this to be anything other than a mean-spirited laugh at the principal actors. Half of the dialogue sounds like it was ADRed by prepubescent children, and none of the actors save Robert Patrick look like they could punch their way out of a bag of potato chips. I can still remember when the advertising corps. made a big deal about this being a film based on a video game, back in the days before films based on video games had a reputation for being universally terrible. And I still wonder what the hell Alyssa Milano's costume designer was smoking. In at least half of the shots she is in, she looks like she is contemplating force-feeding spinach to her agent until he vomits up a lung.For these reasons, I gave Double Dragon a one out of ten. Between watching this film again and being given a spinach enema, I would choose the spinach. You must be wicked hardcore if you can sit through this.