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.
