Berry Gordy\u2019s The Last Dragon<\/i>\u00a0(1985) opens like the attract mode of an arcade fighting game \u2014 slow-motion close-ups of muscles carved in shadow, flying kicks that treat gravity as polite suggestion, an irresistible beat and lyrics built of raw motivation \u2014 a fast, flashy case for dropping in a quarter and seeing what else this thing has in store. As an arcade game, The Last Dragon <\/i>would bankrupt entire grade schools. As a 107-minute motion picture that comes with a generous helping of Bruce Lee footage re-scored by Motown\u2019s hottest up-and-comers, it must be seen to be believed. That may be a clich\u00e9, but I don\u2019t call it into service lightly.<\/span><\/p>\n I was trawling a video store, looking for a movie that couldn\u2019t have been half as memorable as Dragon <\/i>considering I can\u2019t remember it, when the friend who\u2019d joined me on this hunt found one of his minor grails. He\u2019s always had a more refined palate for kung-fu than I, but this was not another Shaw Brothers deep cut. He told me this one featured a full, uninterrupted music video for DeBarge\u2019s \u201cRhythm Of The Night\u201d smack in the middle of it. And you don\u2019t just forget a recommendation like that.<\/span><\/p>\n After finally buying my own copy to see for myself, I found this was not entirely true and buried the lede: Only the first few minutes of the music video get screentime, but that\u2019s also one of the least delirious things about The Last Dragon.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n But Leroy\u2019s not the only challenger for the title \u2013 Sho\u2019nuff, The Shogun of Harlem, is ready to kill for it. He wears shoulder pads shirtless. He puts on Japanese flag shutter glasses like punctuation for a death sentence. He keeps an entourage of tough customers around just to make the proper entrance, asking them if he\u2019s the meanest, prettiest, and baddest around so they answer, \u201cSho\u2019nuff!\u201d And to his credit, even if physical attraction is a more subjective scale than meanness or badness, they\u2019re not wrong. <\/span><\/p>\n I could keep outlining the ludicrous turns of plot in Last Dragon<\/i>, but I wouldn\u2019t do it justice because the movie\u2019s ace-in-the-hole is how it presents them. One of the first scenes takes place in a run-down movie theater playing Enter the Dragon <\/i>for a riotous audience. Every race, creed, and hair color are duly represented and equally amped up for some Bruce Lee action. Leroy is the only calm soul in attendance, sitting down front and eating popcorn with chopsticks. Then Sho\u2019nuff enters, announces his presence with the standard question-and-answer session, and challenges Leroy to throw down in the middle of the theater. And nobody minds. <\/i>When the inevitable fight does break out, random patrons decide they could take Sho\u2019nuff and try, to their immediate regret. The Last Dragon<\/i> establishes a matter-of-fact comic book reality not unlike the stranger extremes of Walter Hill\u2019s filmography. The Warriors<\/i> exists in a real-enough New York City where everyone seems to be in a gang, each almost mythic to the rest. Streets of Fire <\/i>plays out in a 1950s-inflected 1980s where it\u2019s always night and the only rule is rock \u2019n\u2019 roll. Neither movie wastes any time explaining the kinks in their respective worlds \u2014 they just start going and let you pick up the pieces for yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n In a diversion from kung-fu and blaxploitation standards, there\u2019s little revenge in the proceedings, and even less anger. Sho\u2019nuff shouts literally everything he says. Arkadian demands vengeance from Leroy mostly for being cooler than him. But Leroy himself is so na\u00efve he\u2019s almost flawless by default, helped in no small part by a convincingly innocent performance from first-time actor Taimak Guarriello. Writer Venosta admitted<\/span><\/a> his intention: \u201cThere really should be a young black kid superhero-type figure who kids can look up to.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Berry Gordy\u2019s The Last Dragon<\/i> is an infectiously funky kung-fu fairy tale. There may be one too many Motown promos shrewdly snuck in, but the staggering contrast between Vanity\u2019s dancing \u2014 like a bored sorceress enchanting without even trying \u2014 and Not-Cyndi Lauper\u2019s \u2014 like a dying robot trying to simulate sex \u2014 is almost worth it. Considering two songs from the soundtrack were nominated for Razzies (which are more like the high school lackey who piled on any kid already taking a beating than a legitimate awards presentation), the soundtrack probably seems less overt than it did at the time. The Last Dragon <\/i>rode on a disastrous wave of kung-fu tributes that crashed about as fast as it came in, with The Golden Child <\/i>and Big Trouble in Little China<\/i> breezing through theaters the following year.<\/span><\/p>\n But there\u2019s a reason Busta Rhymes borrowed Sho\u2019nuff\u2019s name, style, and mantra in the video for \u201cDangerous.\u201d<\/a> You can\u2019t keep a cult movie down, and unlike most, Berry Gordy\u2019s The Last Dragon <\/i>cashes its checks. Killer soundtrack. Impressive martial artistry. Too many quotable lines to catch in one viewing. A killer fish creature that only shows up for two scenes. Punches that produce red lightning. <\/span><\/p>\n With or without Gordy\u2019s historic involvement, The Last Dragon<\/i> is a cartoonishly good time that deserves to rile up rowdy audiences in the same theaters that served as international churches of kung-fu, where the faithful gathered to quote, cheer and mimic their one true god \u2014 Bruce Lee.<\/span><\/p>\n Jeremy Herbert<\/a> kicks nothing in Cleveland.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Support us by following us on Twitter<\/a> or liking us on Facebook<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nothing sells me on a movie faster than a title song that just reiterates the plot in a catchy way, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":475,"featured_media":8858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1399,1381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-looking-back","category-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/475"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/the-last-dragon.jpg\")
<\/a>Our hero, Bruce Leroy, known as much for his martial artistry as his tendency to dress exclusively in Bruce Lee costumes, reaches the final stage of his training and becomes The Last Dragon, but still must learn how to channel the mystical, rotoscoped power that comes with the title \u2013 \u201cThe Glow.\u201d So important, this glow, that it\u2019s not only repeated in the refrain of Dwight David\u2019s title song, but earns its own dedicated single from Motown legend Willie Hutch, aptly named \u201cThe Glow.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<\/a>To offset his instantly iconic cool, Last Dragon<\/i> takes a cue from blaxploitation and provides an equal-and-opposite pudgy white guy in a suit to pull the strings and sweat a lot. Eddie Arkadian is the baron of video arcades, though it is not made clear if his last name is a coincidence or arcades are an old family birthright. What he wants more than anything is to make his girlfriend, a screaming Cyndi Lauper parody, a star. This is his only motivation. So you can imagine how mad he\u2019d be at the video DJ played by singer-turned-actor Vanity, who absolutely refuses to play the girlfriend\u2019s aggressively off-putting music videos. Naturally, Arkadian\u2019s only recourse is to kidnap Vanity and make her watch said videos, for ghoulishly over-sexualized singles like \u201cDirty Books,\u201d until she relents. But he hadn\u2019t planned on her having a secret admirer in one Bruce Leroy.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a>In the world of Berry Gordy\u2019s The Last Dragon<\/i>, nothing matters but music and martial arts. Everyone parties at Vanity\u2019s club, 7<\/span>th<\/sup><\/span> Heaven. Everyone knows one or two moves in the ancient art of kicking ass. And absolutely everyone respects Bruce Lee. No explanation necessary. In that way, Dragon <\/i>is an open-hearted tribute to the black appreciation of martial arts movies that kept fists flying<\/span><\/a> in the grindhouses long after the kung-fu craze died down. It was a similar scene in a similar theater also showing Enter the Dragon<\/i> that gave writer Louis Venosta the idea to begin with. It also accounts for one of Last Dragon<\/i>\u2019s oddest touches: Leroy and Sho\u2019nuff are near-stereotypes of Chinese heroes and Japanese villains, respectively, while almost every Asian character is a near-stereotype of black people in movies that use them as shorthand for \u201cstreet.\u201d Without ever calling attention to it, this little tweak serves as an unexpected reminder that the Asian martial arts movies that inspired The Last Dragon<\/i> showed a lot more respect to people that didn\u2019t look like Chuck Norris than most American equivalents at the time, while also occasionally showing people who didn\u2019t look like Chuck Norris kick Chuck Norris\u2019s ass.<\/span><\/p>\n
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