"Dragon" Highlights New York Asian Film Festival

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Reviews

Published on Tuesday, 07 August 2012 00:56

Written by Jack Angstreich

Dragon/Wu Xiadirected by Peter Chan
starring Kara Hui, Wu Jiang and Takeshi Kaneshiro

Running from June 29th to July 15th, the 2012 New York Asian Film Festival presents Dragon, Chinese director Peter Chan's latest feature. Chan's work has been praised by the most penetrating surveyor of this national cinema, the preëminent scholar David Bordwell.

King of the intellectual blockbuster, Chan has made a swoony musical, Perhaps Love, a tragic Jet Li vehicle, The Warlords, and his patriotic historical epic, Bodyguards & Assassins. Now he makes his first straight ahead martial arts movie.

To judge by the filmmaker's latest opus, Chan is an accomplished metteur-en-scène with a gift for orchestrating animated martial-arts display — here he is immeasurably aided by the extraordinary action choreography of star Donnie Yen, a master with few peers in the genre.

Chan tells the tale of a sinful martial arts expert who wants to start a new tranquil life, only to be hunted by a determined detective and his former master. As a storyteller, Chan is certainly very skilled but ultimately this film falters in not fully overcoming the limitations of a melodramatic script while over-indulging in expository montages.

As an actor, Yen is impressive here but his co-star, matinee idol Takeshiro Kaneshiro, gives one of the finest performances in an already illustrious career.

To be released by The Weinstein Company, this elegantly photographed film was screened in a very handsome, high-definition digital format.

Yen will be making an appearance in New York for this premiere screening. For a schedule of NYAFF films and showings, go to: http://filmlinc.com

The 10th Annual New York Asian Film Festival
June 29 – July 15, 2012

Film Society of Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theatre
165 West 65th Street
New York, NY 10023

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