REVIEW:
Legend of the Dragon features your typical Stephen Chow formula of comic silliness and underdog turns to hero story with the enjoyable addition of kung fu film legends Leung Kar Yan and Yuen Wah.

Stephen Chow is Chow Siu Lung, a kung fu student and son of kung fu master, Chow Fei Hung (Yuen Wah), who both live in a rural village on a small island. Siu Lung was given Bruce Lee's first name (in Cantonese) by his father who is not so modest to point out that he was once friends with Bruce Lee and doubled for him in Fist of Fury. This is made funnier by the fact that the actor, Yuen Wah actually did double Bruce on all of his flips. Siu Lung is basically a goofball who is one nickel short of a full dollar in the head. His fellow student, Mo (Teresa Mo) has a crush on him and whenever she attempts to flirt, Siu Tung interprets this as a sparring session and starts smacking her around.

The main plot kicks in when Fei Hung's brother, Uncle Yun (Leung Kar Yan) shows up from Hong Kong. He's actually working for crooked businessmen who want Fei Hung's land for development. Of course, Fei Hung refuses to sell and Yun returns to Hong Kong. With him is the naive Siu Lung who is looking to make his father proud by finding fame. Yun discovers that Siu Lung is a natural at the game of snooker (similar to billiards or pool) and begins to bet on him without the young man's knowledge. This eventually leads to a bet with Fei Hung's land as collateral. Once he realizes the stakes involved, Siu Lung chokes and loses to real world snooker whiz, Jimmy White. Siu Lung's father loses everything and the pair take to the streets in Hong Kong to escape angry villagers who have lost their land and to find work as street performers. Yun, who is ultimately responsible for their plight manages to reschedule a match with Fei Hung's land as the prize. Siu Lung has to overcome his anxiety and successfully perform possibly the toughest shot in all of snookerdom to win.

Stephen Chow's brand of humor is distinctive enough for most people to either love it or hate it. I fall somewhere in between. Where Shaolin Soccer is undeniably one of his most commercial and easily accessible comedies, many of Chow's earlier films are not as fully realized in terms of broad comedy. Legend of the Dragon is helped along by having a familiar formula involving Chow's rise from a nobody to a hero through his expertise in some skill. It not as well developed as in his later films though. Two common elements in his films include kung fu and Bruce Lee, two subjects Chow holds in high regard, despite the fact that he never seems to take them seriously on film. Having Yuen Wah play his father in the film works wonderfully and the seasoned action star proves to be quite adept at handling comedy.

The other kung fu star is Leung Kar Yan who usually wore a distinctly cropped beard during his extremely prolific martial arts film career. Like Ti Lung, he's one of the few old school greats to make a successful transition to modern day action films. This isn't really surprising considering how versatile he is. Although a successful kung fu star, Kar Yan never learned kung fu, he just did what the action director told him to do. His role here as a semi-sleazy gambler who takes advantage of his family, but ultimately redeems himself is terrific. There is one brief fight between him and Yuen Wah. Honorable mention goes to former TV star, Teresa Mo who gives a charming performance as Chow's girl. One aspect I really like about Chow's films is that his leading ladies generally play very quirky characters.

Although Legend of the Dragon looks like it should be an action comedy and by definition it is, there really isn't much action. For genre fans, the most disappointing aspect may be the last 20 minutes or so that focuses more on the snooker game than anything else. Having seen my fair share of Hollywood films cover similar topics, I kept hoping Chow would do something more creative as he did for the outrageous cooking scenes in God of Cookery. As it turns out, I found Jimmy White's outtakes during the credits to be more entertaining.

For Stephen Chow fans who are familiar with his earlier work, Legend of the Dragon is a lot of fun. This may not be his best film, but there are at least a few laugh-out-loud scenes and the acting performances are fine. Considering the kung fu talents involved including action director Corey Yuen, more action would have been appreciated.

This movie was one of Stephen Chow's first "nonsense" comedy movies, and as such, it doesn't feel quite as polished as some of Chow's later films. Sure, there's the requisite fast-talking and potty humor (one sequence has Steven becoming entranced with Amy Yip's boobs), film parodies (Bruce Lee movies in particular), pop-culture references (Jimmy White had to that point never won a major tournament), and also a bit of action and romance. However, these elements never quite gel together. Some of the humor seems forced and the changes in tone in the story are too abrupt in points. Stephen seems to be trying a bit too hard -- he doesn't come off as naturally funny as he does in other movies.

Still, this film generated a good amount of belly laughs -- Stephen's "rubber face" works well in this one -- and the supporting cast (as is the case in most Chow movies) holds up its' own end, especially Yuen Wah in a rare comedic role that reminded me a bit of Ti Lung's great performance in Drunken Master 2. And while the story isn't really original, I liked the way it was carried out because I cared about the characters. It would take a lot for me not to like Stephen Chow in a movie, and Legend of the Dragon certainly does not fall into that trap. While it's not Chow's best work, it's definitely worth a viewing.