Sunday, March 3, 2019

Blu-ray/DVD Review: Double Dragon

Sometimes I just need a fun, silly movie to help take my mind off the horrors of our country’s current political landscape. MVD’s Rewind Collection, which celebrates video cult classics, helps fill that need with its special collector’s edition release of Double Dragon. Starring Robert Patrick, Scott Wolf, Mark Dacascos, Julia Nickson and Alyssa Milano, this 1994 movie combines martial arts, action and comedy, and is a whole lot of fun. The Blu-ray/DVD combo pack contains plenty of bonus material, and even a small poster.

The film opens with some narration about “an evil army of shadow warriors” that terrorized a city thousands of years ago, and a medallion that was created to combat them. The medallion was so powerful that the leader then broke it in half so that it couldn’t be used for evil. One half of the medallion has power over the body, the other over the soul. “This is the legend of the double dragon,” the narrator tells us. And we are off and running, straight into a battle scene for half of the medallion. And for a guy who grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons, all of this is as delicious candy. What is interesting is that instead of then moving to current day, as you’d expect, the film takes us into what was then the future, and a post-apocalyptic sort of future at that. It is Los Angeles after the big earthquake, now called New Angeles, where gangs rule the night (even the police stay off the streets after dark), and Madonna is married to Tom Arnold. In this strange, dark world, a villain calling himself Koga Shuko (played by Robert Patrick, with an amusing hair style) delivers some exposition on the medallion. He has managed to get half of it, and demands that his minions find the other half, so that he can rule the city.

The other half is in the possession of Satori (Julia Nickson), who delivers yet more exposition about the medallion to Billy Lee (Scott Wolf) and Jimmy Lee (Mark Dacascos), brothers who are martial arts experts. When Satori is killed by Shuko, it is up to the brothers to keep their half of the medallion safe and to defeat the villain. In that endeavor, they are aided by Marian (Alyssa Milano) and her group, the Power Corp, a band of folks who break curfew to try to stop the gangs. By the way, the head of all the gangs is played by Michael Berryman, from The Hills Have Eyes, a cameo I appreciate.

The movie has a good sense of humor in creating this alternate version of Los Angeles, where George Hamilton, Vanna White and Andy Dick make up the local news team. There is also a nice play on the Hollywood tours. The video game driving bit is wonderfully goofy, and will certainly appeal to those of us who grew up with joy sticks in our hands. And there is some humorous dialogue, as when Billy tells his brother: “My whole life just flashed before my eyes. Dude, I sleep a lot.” And, yes, there is a playful reference to Who’s The Boss? (with someone asking Alyssa Milano, “Now who’s the boss?”). I also appreciate that the world of this film is detailed. Certainly, some thought and a decent amount of joy seem to have gone into its creation.

Of course, one question I have is, What about the rest of the country? The earthquake presumably only affected southern California, so why isn’t the National Guard sent in to stabilize the city and get the gangs under control? Well, no matter. The film is enjoyable without needing to answer that question.

Special Features

This special collector’s edition contains a lot of bonus material, the main special feature being a documentary titled The Making Of Double Dragon. It features interviews with producer Don Murphy, writers Michael Davis and Peter Gould, and actors Scott Wolf and Mark Dacascos. The stuff on the writing process is, for me, the most interesting material in this documentary. Also, I love all the material on what went wrong with the film, about the varied tones and so on. Scott Wolf tells a funny anecdote about adding the sound effects to go along with his fight moves. There is also a bit about the video game, and how adaptations of video games often don’t quite work. This feature is approximately sixty-eight minutes.

Also included in the special features is Don Murphy: Portrait Of A Producer, which centers on an interview with Don Murphy. He talks about obtaining the rights for turning the video game into a film, and about the final product, as well as other projects he’s done (such as Apt Pupil and Permanent Midnight). This is twenty-four minutes. There are also two other short featurettes on the making of the movie. We also get the animated pilot for Double Dragon, “The Shadow Falls,” which is approximately twenty-two minutes. And the trailer for Double Dragon is included.

Double Dragon was directed by James Yukich, and this Blu-ray/DVD set was released on February 5, 2019 through MVD Visual.

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