Invincible Dragon

九龙不败

Hong Kong/China, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 98 mins.

Director: Chen Guo 陈果 [Fruit Chan].

Rating: 3/10.

Wannabe action-crime drama is an embarrassing mess on every level, and just keeps on getting worse.

STORY

Hong Kong, May 2017. MMA fighter-turned-supercop Jiu Long, aka Kowloon (Zhang Jin), brings down drug lord Uncle (Lin Xue), but his maverick methods upset the Hong Kong police high-ups. Six months later he’s quietly posted to a remote police station in Liufushan [Lau Fau Shan], near Yuanlang [Yuen Long] in the New Territories, close to the Mainland border. A couple of months after that a policewoman is found strangled – the second such case, following an unsolved recent murder in nearby Tianshuiwei [Tin Shui Wai]. The dead woman was murdered at a tram station and her body moved to Liufushan. Jiu Long is given a month to solve the murder by his mentor Li Yongjian (Wu Dairong), to prove himself again. Jiu Long’s fiancee, policewoman Fang Ning (Deng Lixin), is pushing him to get married in the autumn but Jiu Long says he must solve the case first. Soon afterwards there’s a third killing of a policewoman, Wu Jiayan, in Butterfly Village. Jiu Long expects the killer will strike again and takes a surveillance team out around the tram station one night. While they’re distracted, one of the team (Wu Jialong) is shot, Fang Ning is abducted (and seemingly killed), and Jiu Long gives chase but is wounded by the killer. He is put on leave, and the killings stop. A year later, in Macau, policewoman Zheng Yingyi (Yuan Zihui) is murdered after leaving a gym and being warned not to return, for her own good, by the gym’s yoga instructress Lin Difang, aka Lady (Chen Yuyun). As the m.o. is similar to the earlier ones’, Hong Kong detective Zhou Wu (Zhou Guoxian), a former pupil of Jiu Long, is grudgingly allowed to join the investigation by Macau police superintendent Cao Zhide (Zheng Jiaying). However, it’s later found that Zheng Yingyi actually died from a bullet to the head, as she put up quite a fight. Zhou Wu informs Jiu Long, who’s gone to seed and is making a living in fixed boxing matches. After finally visiting the murder scene, Jiu Long finds the bullet lodged in a tree; Zhou Wu gets Jiu Long reinstated and the two visit the gym in Macau. There Jiu Long re-meets Brazilian American fighter Alexander Sinclair (Anderson Silva), who lost to him in a championship fight long ago and still wants a re-match. Alexander Sinclair actually owns the gym, and shares the same herbal doctor as Jiu Long – Wang Mengqi (Liu Xinyou), daughter of Macau property tycoon Wang Bingchang (Wu Yaohan). Zhou Wu and Jiu Long are both suspicious of Wang Mengqi – who is always over-solicitous about Jiu Long’s health – but they’re especially interested in Lady, who is Alexander Sinclair’s wife. After Zhou Wu and Jiu Long start investigating on their own, Cao Zhide kicks them out of Macau. Worried by the police investigations, Lady leaves Macau for Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Jiu Long gets back into shape and he and Zhou Wu focus on Lady, who one night makes a break for it as the police stake out her home.

REVIEW

A wannabe action-crime drama that doesn’t work on any level, Invincible Dragon 九龙不败 is an embarrassing mess that marks the lowest point in the otherwise interesting, if up-and-down, career of Hong Kong veteran film-maker Chen Guo 陈果 [Fruit Chan], 61. Though he’s often seen as the embodiment of the territory’s indie scene, most of Chen’s output has been rooted in commercial genres, if from offbeat perspectives. Dragon is his most direct attempt to make a mainstream genre movie since earliest works like Five Lonely Hearts 五个寂寞的心 (1991) and Finale in Blood 大闹广昌隆 (1993), in this case a serial-murder procedural starring Mainland martial artist Zhang Jin 张晋 (The Brink 狂兽, 2017). An uneasy mix of drama and comedy that just keeps getting worse, it sat on the shelf for over two years before being released to a nothing RMB19 million in the Mainland.

For every one of his offbeat portraits of working-class life in the territory like Little Cheung 细路祥 (1999) or Hollywood Hong Kong 香港有个荷里活 (2001), Chen has flirted with many commercial genres, from horror (Dumplings 饺子, 2004; Tales from the Dark 1 李碧华鬼魅系列 迷离夜, 2013; The Midnight After 那夜凌晨，我坐上了旺角开往大埔的红VAN, 2014) to crime (Made in Hong Kong 香港制造, 1997; The Longest Summer 去年烟花特别多, 1998; Kill Time 谋杀似水年华, 2016). Dragon is especially disappointing coming after his bounceback with the apocalyptic, sci-fi comedy-horror Midnight After and the multi-layered, China-set murder mystery Kill Time. Both of those films were adapted from novels, whereas Dragon is an original script; and a major part of its problem is that very script, co-written with Hong Kong’s Lin Jitao 林纪陶 with whom Chen made Hollywood Hong Kong and Public Toilet 人民公厕 (2002), both much more modest, social-observation movies.

Despite being a serial-murder police drama – someone is killing off policewomen in Hong Kong’s New Territories and Macau – the script shows a complete disregard for basic procedural details as well as having a ridiculous motive for the bad guy’s actions. Instead, the film seems more interested in the psychological make-up of the protagonist – a former MMA fighter turned supercop – who’s still obsessed with a childhood fantasy of being rescued from drowning by a mystical dragon and has a body tattoo to prove it. That would be all fine and good if the script had remained centred on his demons, but the dark psychological underbelly keeps getting lost amid awkward comic sequences and necessary action setpieces, only surfacing now and then when the main story should be pushing forward. One sequence, in which Our Hero and a herbal Chinese doctor (Taiwan actress Liu Xinyou 刘心悠 [Annie Liu]) show each other their chest tattoos at a crucial moment is one of the most laughable in memory.

What’s left are a couple of good action setpieces (on a runaway tram, across some rooftops) featuring lithe Hong Kong taekwondo champ Chen Yuyun 陈钰芸 (Silver Dart in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny 卧虎藏龙 青冥宝剑, 2016; the heroine’s final opponent in The Empty Hands 空手道, 2017); some just okay fights between Zhang, 45, and Brazilian American MMA champ Anderson Silva, 45, capped by a ridiculous finale on top of the Macau Tower; and reams of gauche English dialogue between several of the cast. Whether trim or seedy, Zhang is a colourless lead, not helped by Silva’s lack of any acting skills; in supporting roles, Hong Kong’s Deng Lixin 邓丽欣 [Stephy Tang] is thrown away in a nothing girlfriend role, Zheng Jiaying 郑嘉颖 mostly looks peeved as a Macau detective, Liu is bouncy in a foggily written role, and veteran Wu Yaohan 吴耀汉 [Richard Ng] keeps popping up in awkward lighter moments.

Scoring by Dai Wei 戴伟 is either too raucous or too undramatic, and widescreen photography by Zheng Zhaoqiang 郑兆强 [Cheng Siu-keung] largely at night or in interiors, with few chances to evoke the remote New Territories setting. The film was shot between late Oct 2016 and early Feb 2017, after Kill Time, but only finally released in summer 2019. In the meantime, Chen was creative producer 监制 on the fine, low-budget heartwarmer Still Human 沦落人 (2018) and director and co-writer (with Lin) of comedy-drama Three Husbands 三夫 (2018), the third film in his so-called “prostitution trilogy” begun with Durian Durian 榴莲飘飘 (2000) and Hollywood Hong Kong.

CREDITS

Presented by Pegasus Motion Pictures (Hong Kong) (HK), Pegasus Visual Media Culture (Beijing) (CN). Produced by Pegasus Motion Pictures (Hong Kong) (HK).

Script: Chen Guo [Fruit Chan], Lin Jitao. Photography: Zheng Zhaoqiang [Cheng Siu-keung]. Editing: Tian Shiba [Chen Guo]. Music: Dai Wei. Production design: Zhang Yinghua. Art direction: Chen Miaoling. Styling: Zhang Shihong [Silver Cheung]. Costume design: Luo Peisha. Sound: Guo Zhiwen, Zhu Zhixia. Action: Dong Wei, Huang Weiliang [Jack Wong]. Visual effects: Luo Weihao (Different Digital Design, 3 Plus Animation, Macrograph).

Cast: Zhang Jin (Jiu Long/Kowloon), Anderson Silva (Alexander Sinclair/Xian Lishan), Zheng Jiaying (Cao Zhide, Macau police superintendent), Liu Xinyou [Annie Liu] (Wang Mengqi/Kay, doctor), Deng Lixin [Stephy Tang] (Fang Ning/Bonnie), Zhou Guoxian (Zhou Wu), Chen Yuyun (Lin Difang/Lady), Wu Dairong (Li Yongjian), Li Lizhen (Xiaoling/Jane, policewoman), Lin Xue [Lam Suet] (Jiufu/Uncle, drug lord), Wu Yaohan [Richard Ng] (Wang Bingchang, Wang Mengqi’s father), Zhang Songzhi (Zhang Fengxia, Hong Kong police detective), Wu Jialong (Sha Bao/Panther, police detective), Liao Junxiong (Chen San, Macau police detective), Yuan Zihui [Marsha Yuan] (Zheng Yingyi, Macau policewoman), Olokigbe Israel Tunde (Admen Sinclair), Huang Jiaqiang (coroner).

Release: Hong Kong, 20 Jun 2019; China, 2 Jul 2019.