Dragon Tiger Gate

I am a great fan of Jet Li and Donnie Yen, So once my cousin just gave a hint about this movie a week end. I couldn't get the DVD initially in my city but luckily i got a copy from my Aikido master. Wow this is another martial arts treat to fans like me. One of my favourite Chinese movie collection

The film has spectacular cinematography matching to Hollywood standards. Coming to the story part ,Welcome to the world of “Dragon Tiger Gate”, the fascinating world whereby highly skilled pugilists be they evil or good fight it out! Adapted from the legendary Tony Wong’s classic, must-read HK manga of all times, “Dragon Tiger Gate” popularity is comparable to Marvel’s X-men or Spider-man in the Chinese comics arena.

Three young men (“Dragon”, “Tiger” and “Turbo”) after going through life turmoil decide to band together to rid the country number one’s evildoer, Shibumi. Assuming the lead roles is Donnie Yen (who also served as action choreographer and producer), Nicholas Tse and Shawn Yue. Accordingly, Tse and Yue have to undergo months of martial arts training to fully pull off the believable stunts onscreen. Both young actors put in a fair performance as “Tiger Wong” and “Turbo Shek”.

Apparently, little is known about this man-behind-the-mask’s motives, background, thus Shibumi ended up as a two-dimensional character. Doubtfully we have a question here how come Shibumi kills the master of the gate , if he is so powerful how did Dragon defeat him so cool? except for this question the film still stands for its spectacular action scenes and cinematography.

Directed by Wilson Yip, the man behind last year’s hard-hitting “SPL”, “Dragon Tiger Gate” is part fantasy, part action and adapted from a well-known comic and most of all, a fitting showcase of what the flagging HK film industry is capable of pulling off.