Rent Kiss of the Dragon (2001)

An incredible, brutal stunt-fest of a film, with a magnificently unhinged performance from Karyo - Kiss of the Dragon review by TB

Kiss of the Dragon is a film which is, above everything else, brutally efficient & stripped down. It is for those viewers who know exactly what they want from a marital arts film: minimal but impactful story, bone-crunching violence, spectacular stunts/set pieces and a final showdown which delivers the big payoff. And this film delivers that in spades, further cementing Jet Li's credentials as one of the greatest martial arts performers/actors in the world.

Liu Jian (Li) is a Taiwanese detective sent to France to assist in the undercover sting of a crime lord, Mr Big, using prostitutes as part of the operation. He is partnered with Richard, the highly unstable & violent French chief of police. The operation goes awry & Liu is framed for murder by Richard. He then attempts to clear his name, joining up with one of the prostitutes who was herself forced into sex work by Richard.

This film was primarily created by Li's determination to bring back genuine stunt work & combat scenes, after a slew of films which had lost these elements, substituting them for CGI & wirework. This is in many ways why this film is so impactful. It is so so brutal in both it's fight scenes & stripped-back production. There is one scene in particular involving a room full of martial arts students which literally has your jaw on the floor. The level of technical ability combined with choreography is at its pinnacle here. Alongside that, just before the Bourne films made this one of its signatures, there are many uses of ordinary objects utilised in fight scenes to devastating effect...

Li is always dependable as the man who has every odd stacked against him & yet still feels both believable & stoic. Fonda fares less well, in one of her final screen roles. Whilst she looks every inch the broken woman whose life has been destroyed after being forced into the horrors of the sex trade, as a character she is quite thinly written, never breaking out of the "hooker with a heart of gold" cliché. And Fonda is absolutely an actress who could have elevated a properly written role like that.

But for me, this film belongs to Tchéky Karyo. To be clear, his performance is absolutely outrageous. No-holds barred instability & insanity. We are in the presence of one of the greatest overacting & megalomaniac portrayals of a villain ever seen. For many, it will be too much, too far-fetched (I remember one reviewer writing "With Mr Karyo's performance, never before have the French police been portrayed as so incompetent & idiotic.")

But the reason I love it so much is because both Karyo & the director have totally committed to the insane world that these sorts of films exist in (where characters do the most idiotic things for no reason or make decisions which defy logic.) Within a few minutes, Richard kills 2 of his men, the 2nd of which is due to his seemingly total ignorance of the existence of gravity. Later on, he is part of a car chase in which he kills both his colleagues & ordinary members of the public with absolutely no consequences... For me, he is the best thing about this film. Karyo is sheer genius & obviously having an absolute ball.

But if you buy into this crazy world, there is so much fun to be had here. This is an "unplug your brain & have a riot" film, agog at the action scenes and laughing at the ludicrousness of it all. Just don't cross Jet Li, especially when he is armed with chopsticks...