Not a tremendous amount to say at this point about this one. Its a non cut and paste Godfrey Ho movie that somehow manages to be almost as confusing AS his cut and paste movies. It follows 3,4 or 5 ‘good guys’ who end up being ‘good guys’ by one of two means. Either:

A: They take on a towns local fighting competition which turns out to be a semi-murderous racket. they escape being murdered and swear vengence on the racketeers.

or.

B: they end up trying to defend a towns local open market by beating up some bullies. only to find out that the bullies are part of a larger organisation and that the towns terrified of them and dont want to rock the boat.

As you can imagine, it later transpires that the fighting competition organisers and the market bullies are in fact one in the same and are working in tandem to steal and sell antiques using the fighting competition as a front to pick up new henchmen and to launder money.

And…thats basically the plot. The good guys occasionally spar with the bad guys periodically across the runtime, theres some light comedy elements played out in places. But theres realistically about half an hour to 45 minutes worth of plot here thats been expanded out to 90 with long LONG fight scenes and subplots that dont really go anywhere.

i’ve heard that this is considered one of Ho’s better offerings. But I personally found it kind of pedestrian all things considered. The plots confusing and incoherent at times, the directions okay, it feels like the crew are all old hands at doing this, but thats kind of the problem…they’re old hands who, at this point, feel tired doing what they’re doing and are just going through the motions.

the cine is kind of bland and middle of the road too, just about passable. the fight choreography is fine enough, but nothing *too* grand happens here, they use soft touch contact fighting for most of the movie, but they the way the cine has been utilized renders what *should* be very powerful punches looking almost like the gentlest of taps. Like, its fiiiine…but thats all it is.

performances are kind of mixed ability, theres a nice campy overtone to proceedings which I enjoyed. But the sub of this film is SO badly translated, and the dub just feels kind of flat. so…its hard to really fully get immersed in this thing.

And the soundtrack is predominantly stolen from spaghetti westerns…according to those lovely folks at Gold Ninja Video, the martial arts genre was heavily influenced by westerns and thats why they pinched a lot of the soundtracks…But its kind of plopped into this film, it doesnt feel like it fits the tone they’re actually going for…which is a shame.

All in all? eh. i’ve ABSOLUTELY seen better. But this could have been worse. a bit of a bland viewing experience. This wouldnt be what i’d point you to for an example of Ho’s work, but if you’ve seen a few martial arts movies and do have a soft spot for Godfrey’s work, you’ll probably enjoy this one.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-dragon-the-hero/