Dragon on Fire (1979) Review

Dragon on Fire (1979) or The Dragon, the Hero is a Godfrey Ho semi-period piece that is one of the most bizarre #kungfu movies I had ever seen. At the same time, it probably is one of the more coherent pieces, if you want to call it that, from Godfrey Ho’s works. In a way, I see Dragon on Fire as a movie in a movie because of the Dragon Lee pet project going on with Godfrey Ho that almost runs in parallel with the main story while the core story involves kicker John Liu and Tino Wong.

The intro is quite memorable with both John Liu, Tino Wong and villain Philip Ko in some red room practicing their martial arts against one another. The narrator calls the two main characters’ styles the Strike Rock technique that when combine is near unbeatable. However, at some point these two would fight for an unknown reason that caused the style to be lost to time.

After the intro, we see a future version of John Liu 20 years later as Tu Wu-Shen. Unlike in the introduction where the characters wear Manchu style queues, John Liu appears more like a ruffian with his hair blown into a kind of Chinese fro. We have no idea what he’s doing nor what his relationship is to the initial character at the beginning.

Nonetheless, the movie cuts away from him to the home of a pale faced Yung Tian-Hao, played by Chan Lau. Yung Tian-Hao holds fighting contests with his champions where people can earn rewards for beating them. Above observes Philip Ko, who plays Ma-Ti bearing a small hourglass that he uses to time these fights. The first fighter is some goof who employs a crappy monkey style and he gets his ass whooped by Bolo Yeung, who behaves like a hairy gorilla and yells like Tarzan here. The crappy monkey fighter says some really offbeat comments like “I’m going to pick your fruit” and “now, your melons” in reference to Bolo’s nipples and butt cheeks. I’m not kidding. That just shows you the nutty dubbing involved here.

After the “fruit peddler” gets tossed away, Bolo faces a new guy who employs a tiger claw technique and embarrasses Bolo by ripping away his chest hair. But it’s enough for him to earn the prize money, which apparently provides the amount to return home (now, why would someone come all the way out there just for a fight and not make a profit???). As this tiger claw guy walks away, Ma-Ti ambushes him and we see why he has the hourglass as he uses it as a measuring stick for how long his opponents have to live. Also, we learn that Ma-Ti observes from the upper floors of the boss’ den to effectively steal future opponents’ techniques. Naturally, he decimates the tiger claw guy and even is courteous enough to live a coin so the guy can use it to pay his way to Hell.

Next, we end up in some merchant square where a poor family sells wind chimes. Some old woman gets insulted by the family and nearly runs into a geeky looking official who partly manages the town. She is about to slap the arrogance from his face when he points to an unnamed foreigner played by Alexander, causing her to immediately back off. Alexander inspects the windmill vendor and asks what they’re selling. The official translates that the items are meant to bring good fortune as the son and grandfather beg for them to buy one. Instead, Alexander dismisses it all as nonsense. As he walks away, the parrot calls him an asshole. In turn, he takes his gum and stuffs it on the parrots nose. A fight breaks out where Tino shows up as Tang to help the vendor out. Thereafter, the official and his thugs run away.

As the official complains about getting revenge, he incidentally runs into Dragon Lee as Ah Tien. Ah Tien gives the official and his thugs a bit of a comedic beat down except for Alexander who attempts to escape. Tang shows up to block Alexander’s escape and knocks him unconscious. Around the corner is Tu Wu-Shen who quietly watches this unfold and smiles at the display while Tang and Ah Tien show their friendship. Unfortunately, the big white boss arrives on a carriage while Tang and Ah Tien’s boss comes out to see the mess that was caused. Alexander demands reparation for which the official slaps Ah Tien’s face in an insulting manner. Ah Tien is about to blow up as his boss threatens to fire him but he declares that he quits and knocks the official down one more time.

Tang pleads with Ah Tien to talk with their uncle for forgiveness and Ah Tien mentions how many in town are cowardly and lack Chinese pride (which is ironic because the actor is actually Korean). They decide to part for now but remain friends.

From there, we get some government official making strange markings on walls. As he walks down an isolated road, he encounters Ma-Ti and is challenged. This guy knows some sort of panther fist while Ma-Ti claims he also knows the style. The style permits one to be immune to blows, which causes a temporary stalemate between the two. Of course, Ma-Ti manages to defeat this random guy before the timer on his hourglass runs out. But the real notable part is how the film makers used one of the Star Wars themes here for dramatic effect.

Tu Wu-Shen finds the markings and approaches the home of Yung Tian-Hao, encountering two buffoon guards and knocking them out with “his product” which is naturally his famous kicks. He challenges three more guards with ease and wins $60 (US of course; j/k) However, he is insulted by the money and shows his identity as a fugitive, desiring employment and a safe place to stay with Yung Tian-Hao. Yung Tian-Hao agrees as it’s apparent that he has found a new highly competent fighter and Tu Wu-Shen demands as part of his stay to remove the jobbers he just defeated.

Next, we get Ah Tien practicing an “old” style with wine jars attached to ropes in a forest area while Tang observes from a tree. Somehow, Tu Wu-Shen randomly locates Ah Tien and challenges him. Tu Wu-Shen proves that he’s capable of using more than his legs, which causes Tang to jump down as he employs a similar technique.

Tang identifies the technique by name and asks where Tu Wu-Shen learned it. As a result, we find out that both men are the sons of the people from the intro (who would’ve guessed?). Also, we learn that Tang is an insufferable, single minded idiot hellbent on revenge. So that leads to a fight. During this exhibition, Tu Wu-Shen makes the proclamation that his “kung fu improves every hour. Soon he will be invincible.” Talk about sheer confidence! But he holds off from annihilating Tang and leaves.

Back at Yung Tian-Hao’s place, Yung Tian-Hao has the official from earlier, Alexander and the other white guy as guests. Here, they plot on a big sale of antiques that the government are looking for (probably stolen by Yung Tian-Hao) The older white dude says he’ll manage the government’s involvement so that the sale can go through.

Then Ah Tien trains some more this time with Dragon Lee’s infamous nun-chucks. As he practices, three bumbling fools decide to piss him off about his firing. They demand that he pay respect by having them crawl under their legs. For whatever insane reason they decide to fight him and he beats them instantly and turns the tables to have them crawl under his legs because no one can get Dragon Lee to job or be humiliated (well maybe not everyone)

After that it’s Tu Wu-Shen’s turn to train with some eggs. Both Ma-Ti (who is hidden) and Yung Tian-Hao spy upon Tu Wu-Shen as he trains and Yung applauds Tu Wu-Shen’s efforts. But it’s training hour as it’s Ma-Ti’s turn to practice his combo style. This is where the movie starts to get a little weird because some spacey music plays as though someone is on severe amounts of coke. Well, maybe it’s Ma-Ti because the floor is covered by a thick layer of white powder and he does some ritual with candles as air mystically blows inside an otherwise enclosed room where he can privately train. While he’s practicing this style, Yung shows up, grabs a stick and hits Ma-Ti a few times to no effect. Ma-Ti comes out of this strange trance back into reality and declares himself nearly invincible. Ma-Ti warns Yung about Tu Wu-Shen though in this.

The training part of the movie continues as Tang practices catching plates with some fat guy and a scrawny guy. Actually, the fat guy is called Fat Lung and I recognize him from a few movies but most notably The Flag of Iron where he got a brief moment playing a butcher. Unfortunately, their boss walks in, causing Fat Lung to drop and break all the plates in his hand.

Abruptly, the movie transitions into a new character, who is Yung’s maid. Out of nowhere, Yung calls the woman a “dirty little slut.” If anything you have to admire the language in this movie because the dialog not only is random, it’s pretty filthy for a kung fu movie. At any rate, Tu Wu-Shen shows up and Yung admits to knowing how Tu Wu-Shen has a conflict with Tang, inquiring about Tang’s kung fu. Tu Wu-Shen basically says Tang is shit and agrees on the idea of having him beaten senseless for a laugh.

We go back to the maid’s story as she’s working in the dark within the kitchen preparing strange medicine. Tu Wu-Shen shows up and inquires about the medicine as well as a fancy bowl. His trick pays off as the maid incidentally admits that it’s for their master. Tu Wu-Shen uncovers the prescription and hunts it down.

Afterwards, the maid brings the “medicine” to the master/Yung. Here’s where everything becomes extremely trippy. You have that spacey sound effects playing in the background as Yung sits in a dark room lit with a ton of candles and breathes with a rasp. He molest his maid, giving her a nice ass slapping before taking his “medicine”, which involves bugs and even a rodent.

Out of nowhere, Ah Tien manifest over the walls as a dog barks in the distance. The sound of the barking causes the maid to drop the medicine onto the ground while Yung goes into a PTSD induced trance of him in the past raping another woman and having his hot dog bitten off by a vicious German shepherd. Ma-Ti saves the guy, which explains their relationship but the present day Yung ends up biting the maid’s arm, suggesting that he has rabies.

I swear that has to be the funniest thing ever in a kung fu movie. That said, Ah Tien rescues the girl and tries to help her escape as Yung calls for his guards. Ma-Ti interjects and challenges Ah Tien while the maid begs Yung to let them leave. Ma-Ti injures Ah Tien and he flees while the maid bites Yung and gets a death blow delivered.

In the morning, Tang encounters Ah Tien recovering and inquires who cause the injury. Ah Tien gives a vague “a man in white” where Tang assumes the culprit is Tu Wu-Shen. He goes off as Ah Tien calls to him to clarify the potential misunderstanding. In turn, the headstrong Tang locates Tu Wu-Shen and does the stupid thing to challenge him. He’s woefully overmatched but spared. Nonetheless, he screams for his teacher and seeks him out.

Tang meets with his teacher who is this really odd chain smoker. This guy huffs enough to compete against all the car exhaust from LA and probably is either drunk and/or really high (and most likely both). On top of that, he’s obviously dirty because he’s constantly scratching himself. The hkmdb describes him as a beggar. Either way, it’s off to more training montages! In between the training, Tu Wu-Shen plots with some person he gets drunk to “plant a message”. Then it’s more training as more of the Star Wars theme music plays. As Tang nears the completion of his training, the bad guys continue to perform their nefarious exchanges while Tu Wu-Shen’s own plant does his exchange to inform Tu Wu-Shen of the upcoming meeting.

With Tang’s newfound improvements, he challenges Tu Wu-Shen at Yung’s place before the meeting can take place. This time his eyes no longer are blinded by Tu Wu-Shen’s hand waving and he can counter many of his leg techniques. Yung and Ma-Ti watch in the background with Yung even offering money for taking Tu Wu-Shen on. When both come to a stalemate, Tu Wu-Shen once more attempts to appeal to Tang’s senses in getting him to forget the past. Tang says that they’ll meet again in the future while Ma-Ti decides that he will face Tu Wu-Shen soon.

The smugglers wait for the shipment of stolen goods in a dark warehouse. The head corrupt person is named Carter and he tells his goons that after the exchange that he will get a blonde (woman). The Chinese goons have no idea what a blonde is and he simply describes one as a woman with golden hair, which intrigues the horniness from the goons. However, Tu Wu-Shen shows up and reveals his real identity as an undercover government official and proceeds to beat the goons up. The Chinese sub-boss pisses down his legs and falls unconscious while Alexander gets his face knocked into some flour (or maybe drugs take your pick). To make matters worse for the goons, Ah Tien appears and tells Tu Wu-Shen that he knows his real identity too and finishes things up as the goons brandish staves. Of course, Tu Wu-Shen probably could’ve handled them just fine but this is nothing more than another opportunity for Ah Tien to demonstrate his double nunchuk skills.

Out in the countryside, Fat Lung and Skinny-so wander around and almost drink piss because they’re quite stupid. Tang shows up and asks where they’re going for which they tell him that they’ve resigned because the boss is an asshole. Somehow, Ma-Ti and Yung find them along this road. The real purpose though is that Ma-Ti was searching for Tang as he wanted to test his kung fu against him as Tang proved worthy in achieving a stalemate with Tu Wu-Shen. While those two fight, the two goofy kids decide to assault Yung. Yung humiliates both and for whatever reason they continue their attack on him. We see that Yung isn’t so helpless or at least these two kids are just off their rockers. Yung bites on the skinny kid while Fat Lung throws water on Yung which causes him to go even more berserk. The skinny kid then accuses Yung of having rabies which convinces himself that Yung needs to die (although it should imply he would need a shot which might not have been available in that time period or location of the world). Either way, the two goofs stand no chance and are quickly eliminated by Yung.

Tang tries to rescue his friend but is too late as Yung launches himself into the air, demonstrating he’s not a complete cripple. As Yung and Ma-Ti unite, Yung declares that he will premier the “Mad Dog Technique” and both will use Tang as their guinea pig. As Tang gets double teamed, Yung tries to bite him but his mouth is intercepted by Tu Wu-Shen’s foot. Now, Yung realizes that Tu Wu-Shen is a spy and he teams up with Tang to take on the smugglers.

They separate where Yung runs off, leading Tang into the forest. Now, before I get into that part, I want to note that the time of day and Ma-Ti’s tan seems to change through this part of the movie. Like the area of the forest should be dark but actually is brighter than the clearing Ma-Ti and Tu Wu-Shen are fighting in. At any rate, the movie uses that spacey moog noises as we get some trippy camera angles of close up shots of Yung as he stalks Tang in the forest along with his dog-like panting. Yung rushes out to assault Tang before he’s thwarted and retreats with a very obvious reverse fast forward clip of him backtracking. Tang picks off a fruit from a tree as Yung rushes for a new attack and shoves the fruit into Yung’s mouth to prevent him from biting him. The next time Yung assaults Tang from the trees, Tang attempts to kick Yung in the balls where Yung announces in a hysterical laugh, “I don’t have any!” I mean, you kinda figure that at least the film makers managed to sneak in a dick joke at some point after that dog bit the guy’s wiener off.

The more “serious” fight between Ma-Ti and Tu Wu-Shen starts up again as Ma-Ti discusses his “principal” with his hourglass. Yet behold as Tu Wu-Shen unveils his BIGGER hourglass, which seems to upset Ma-Ti for lacking size. Also, as the two fight on some mountain or hilltop, the time of day and weather changes yet again. Now, it’s slightly overcast compared to the sunnier earlier shot. To be fair though, this fight is one of the better instances of action in this movie because both John Liu and Philip Ko are fun to watch when it’s just them showing off their martial arts skills.

In the meantime, Yung and Tang continue their encounter. But as Tang corners Yung, a shadow manifest where it’s none other than the pet project for his final Bruce Lee moments. Yung plays dead as Tang grabs Yung’s stopwatch/pendant. Ah Tien tells Tang to help Tu Wu-Shen while he keeps a watch over Yung.

Tu Wu-Shen seems to have the upper hand over Ma-Ti so Ma-Ti switches up his technique to employ that damage immunity style of the panther technique while dramatic music plays. Tu Wu-Shen’s kicks and blows now have no effect against Ma-Ti’s hardened body. I will say that for a serious fight, both guys pose and talk way too much. Maybe this movie isn’t as bad as some of Godfrey Ho’s other works where the martial artists are really bad and use their constant posing to hide the fact that the fights suck. But I always find the showing off phase to be a dead give away to ones enemies during a fight. Yet I figure this is just Philip Ko showing off.

Anyway, Ma-Ti manages to get the upper hand over Tu Wu-Shen with his superior kung fu and is about to land his eagle claw death blow. However, Tang tosses Yung’s stopwatch just before Ma-Ti grasps Tu Wu-Shen while Tang reverses Tu Wu-Shen’s hourglass to indicate overtime. He tells Ma-Ti that he took the stopwatch just before Yung died which angers Ma-Ti. Let me pause here to say that without much context, you would think that Ma-Ti is the good guy here because it’s going to be a two on one battle and that Tang called the old mad dog a cripple. So I don’t think the film maker did a great job in setting this part of the fight up to be more sympathetic to the heroes.

Now, it’s Tang’s turn to face Ma-Ti while Tu Wu-Shen recovers his strength in posing some more. This part of the fight starts to get ridiculous as Ma-Ti spins around like a helicopter. He tells the pair that his “superior kung fu will finish them off” which forces the pair to team up in using the ancient Double Rock Strike to battle Ma-Ti. Neither have demonstrated that they should have known this technique since it was supposedly lost to time after their parents beat the fuck out of each other but they inherently knew how to execute this technique. As with any ad hoc tag team, Tu Wu-Shen and Tang don’t have much initial chemistry and Ma-Ti continues to whoop their rears.

In a moment of sheer disjointedness (because the cut film here is slightly different than another version I have seen), we swap back to Yung and Ah Tien’s story as Yung had been waiting for Tang to leave. Yung bites Ah Tien just so Dragon Lee can do his version of the blood suck/spit Bruce Lee move.

For some reason, the movie abruptly cuts back to the main event where Ma-Ti is demolishing Tang and Tu Wu-Shen. However, he enjoys a brief moment of arrogance as he laughs before getting back into form. Eventually, Tang recalls some words his teacher instructed him about balance in a flashback for which the past never was shot in this movie. Also, he recalls himself catching plates which gives him the idea of throwing Ma-Ti off balance. This part becomes completely arbitrary because it’s suddenly interjected and at no point is it ever indicated that Ma-Ti’s style can be countered because of some balance issue. The heroic music starts up as Ma-Ti’s hands make some shitty snake sound while he’s getting double teamed. When he finally leaps to the air, Tang jumps underneath him so that Ma-Ti’s feet lands on Tang’s hands. That prevents Ma-Ti from having a stable bottom and allows Tu Wu-Shen to start kicking the shit out of Ma-Ti. Also, it’s a way for the film maker to prevent Tino from showing off his crappy skills while John Liu does his stuff.

As the pair beat the fuck out of Ma-Ti (or rather Tu Wu-Shen does), one hard hit causes Ma-Ti to flip over and do his watery puke moment.

Jarringly, the movie cuts back once again before the climax to Dragon Lee’s insufferable scene with Yung. It becomes the Dragon Lee comedy hour as Dragon Lee pulverizes Yung to death. I mean, it’s clear that whoever did this edit made it so Dragon Lee wouldn’t be left behind during the climax. But the two fights finish up separately in a different edit which isn’t as annoying since the music and main fight is about to climax.

We get back to the main event where Philip Ko has two more watery puke moments, including a super watery puke instance when Tang and Tu Wu-Shen not only jump on his stomach but wrench it and whatever substance was in his body to cause the guy to puke milk or whatever. I mean, he was bleeding from the mouth earlier so WTF?

Ma-Ti knocks both guys off his chest and hilariously swings his arms around to stand himself back up in his praying pose. An ultra tanned Tu Wu-Shen and Tang cautiously step back as they prepare for perhaps one final encounter. Instead, as Ma-Ti tries to compose himself, small amounts of watery puke dribbles from his mouth as he slowly dies and falls over while the music ends.

I honestly think this movie is one of the weirdest kung fu movies around. Of course, compared to the utterly incompetent, wretched and exploitive Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave, this movie appears handled by a genius. For a Godfrey Ho movie, Dragon on Fire manages to hold enough of the plot together without too many hand scratches for the audience while at least two of the main characters are fairly competent martial artists that make the fights worth watching.

The parts that fail for me are the frequent sudden appearances of characters out of nowhere. As per most movies in this genre, the main purpose in those cases is to start a fight. In this movie, the appearances does work to a lesser degree because the movie is ridiculous and comedic in various spots. It’s not shot as pure comedy but everything is done with tongue-firmly-planted-in-cheek.

Even if the sheer number of fights seems over the top in themselves, it works as the pace never really dulls. The biggest problem I’ve had with Dragon Lee/Godfrey Ho movies is the transitions between scenes where it can get discombobulating at times. For instance, I mentioned the sudden appearance of the maid. It just sorta happens and you’re not mentally prepared for it because there’s no indication nor flow to move into that scene.

The training bits mostly are gratuitous to me to show off these guys’ prowess. Only Tang’s makes a real difference in the end where he gets to use his lessons to fend off Tu Wu-Shen’s hand and leg techniques. However, the finale where Tang gets the epiphany from his master comes out of nowhere or was cut from the movie because up until the end, he never needs to battle Ma-Ti. So there’s no way he would understand what he would need to beat Ma-Ti’s styles.

Ma-Ti himself doesn’t make any sense to me. One would think that his style really is the “copy cat” style because all he does is watches other martial artists come by and steal from them. Then there’s the bizarro praying room with all the powder, candles and hurricane-like wind. It’s never really explained how he becomes immune to damage outside of the fact that somehow he copied that one panther fist government official ahead of time, which would give him that ability.

I feel that the movie cut some critical pieces out of Ma-Ti’s story potentially that ought to have better explained his skill, damage immunity and that weird milk-puke he does at the end. My theory is that the white powder could’ve been some drug he was inhaling like opium. When we see him practicing, it’s clear that he’s not only concentrating on this newfound power but that he’s under some sort of spell that causes him to sweat profusely. As he’s fighting Tang and Tu Wu-Shen at the end, his face is almost as pale as Yung’s. So part of Tang and Tu Wu-Shen’s tactics were to eliminate the opium from Ma-Ti’s system which is why you see him puking up that milky fluid. Also, you might note that in between his moves at times, he appears slightly deranged, implying that maybe he really was on some substance. But if you notice (which is something I only caught this time around because of the higher quality video), Ma-Ti, in his final moments, dribbles out spit, indicating that whatever substance was fueling his immunity had been drained, which meant that his body would register the hundreds of kicks Tu Wu-Shen was delivering to him. But I’m probably adding too much logic in an otherwise illogical movie here.

Next, let’s talk about Dragon Lee. Enter the Clones of Bruce Lee briefly discussed Dragon Lee’s disorienting presence in this movie where you have almost two sets of movies. One, which is a semi-period piece that has some coherent plot, and another which is the Dragon Lee/Bruce Lee world. Now, these two plots do intersect but it’s more for Godfrey Ho to show case Dragon Lee as this Bruce Lee impersonator periodically. Don’t get me wrong; anytime Dragon Lee shows up in this movie, it’s highly entertaining but it’s almost surreal as he doesn’t really fit the theme and behaves more like another comedic interjection.

Finally, let’s talk about the two actual heroes in this movie with Tino Wong and John Liu. Tino was used in a few of the Shaw Brothers movies like Shaolin Martial Arts. However, he seemed more like a jobber over there where he never climbed beyond the role of an extra. Here, he had a chance to prove himself but I just found him lacking any interesting quality. He’s a bit stone faced and his martial arts are average at best compared to the high end people, which is why I think he was used in the final battle to merely serve as Philip Ko’s feet unbalancing act.

Likewise, I’m not a fan of John Liu’s work as an actor. He’s very stone faced like Tino. The difference is that John Liu is one of the top 10 kickers from back in that era, which is why his work with Philip Ko here is worth checking out. When he isn’t kicking someone’s head in though, John Liu seems like an abrasive, arrogant asshole. Maybe it’s just this movie but he came off more as a prickish villain where you nearly have some level of sympathy for Ma-Ti and Yung. And when he talks to Yung about beating back Tang, it almost feels sincere just because he’s never really established as anything but a jerkface in this movie.

Overall, I still enjoy this movie and come back to it from time-to-time. Yet just that bug eating scene with the spacey moog sounds that Godfrey Ho enjoys employing, the strange watery puke death of Philip Ko’s character, the offbeat random characters that manifest and Dragon Lee’s coming back like a time portal from the present (or that 70s) make this movie truly head scratching, especially when you’re a kid in the 80s with a severe cold that makes everything appear like some drug infused nightmare. It’s still fun because of this novel zaininess and the final fight scene, when you watch the “normal” version, is pretty epic with the music and John Liu just kicking the fuck out of Philip Ko.