When is a Dragon Lee movie not a Dragon Lee movie? When the actor's only got a bit part. Which means there are two ways to watch Jaws of the Dragon. One involves paying attention to every minor character and seeing if you can spot Mr. Lee. The other is to let it go and settle in for a decidedly noir experience. With moody cinematography and a soundtrack illegally lifted from Shaft, James Bond, and other crime pics, Jaws of the Dragon bleeds existential dread. James Nam (a.k.a. Nan Kung-Hsun) takes on the roles of star and director; he's a low-rent action autuer who made a handful of fight flicks but never achieved the same level of fame as say, John Woo, who apparently lived in the same apartment complex at the same time. That doesn't mean we shouldn't pay attention to what Nam did, though.
Jaws of the Dragon, his first film as a director, has a twisted viciousness coursing through its action as characters bring especially nasty weaponry into the fights: a clawhead hammer, a steak prong, an especially ingenious razor-whip, et cetera. With knives, dynamite, and darts thrown nearly as often as kicks, this flick's violence consistently draws blood and never laughs so if the choreography isn't impeccable, at least the cast makes the most out of each murder. The backdrop of a story entails heroin, a suitcase of money, gang rape, and rival gangs but all you really need to know is the female folk-singer (Kim Jin-hui) is about to witness enough material to fill two albums' worth of tragic ballads.
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