Double Dragon Blu-ray Review
Breaking Mediocre.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, February 22, 2019
In a way it's kind of refreshing to hear producer Don Murphy and writers Michael Davis and Peter Gould unabashedly admit in some interviews
included on this new Blu-ray release as supplements that
Double
Dragon just doesn't work, even though all three of them insist there's "fun" to be had for viewers tolerant enough to look for some.
Double
Dragon was just one of a slew of 1990s properties that were based on videogames, a "new" genre at the time that included films like
Super Mario Bros. that preceded
Double Dragon, and a bunch of
others like
Street Fighter and
Mortal Kombat that either came out at around the same time as
Double
Dragon, or followed in its somewhat questionable wake. None of the 1990s era "based on a videgame" films is probably ever going to make it to
anyone's "all time classic" list, but as Murphy, Davis and Gould almost lovingly recount, there's a certain nostalgia factor for those of a certain age
who may have grown up on early cable broadcasts of
Double Dragon or who may have even owned or rented early home media versions
(going
back to the VHS era).
Double Dragon takes place in a (then) "future" 2007 Los Angeles which is in ruins and often under water in a post-Apocalyptic and
environmentally damaged world where
gangs
run rampant and the police have entered into a truce of sorts with them where curfews are enforced but where they're largely left to wreak
whatever
havoc they can. Brothers Billy (Scott Wolf) and Jimmy Lee (Mark Dacascos) are seen fighting at a martial arts tournament where their ostensible
loss
to another team results in chaos after Billy loses his temper post-tournament. The brothers high tail it out of there, but are accosted by one of
those
aforementioned gangs, where it's revealed that the boys' guardian Satori (Julia Nickson) has half of a magical medallion known as the
Double
Dragon. Unfortunately for Satori and the Lee boys, arch villain Koga Shuko (Robert Patrick) has the other half, and he wants the missing piece to
complete the artifact and (of course) gain unlimited power.
As Davis and Gould kind of cheekily recount in their interview, there were quite a few versions of the screenplay, which may account for the kind of
hodgepodge crazy quilt ambience of much of the film. Davis and Gould were evidently
rewriters (original scribes Paul Dini and Neal
Shusterman got a "story by" credit), and even
after Davis and Gould submitted their work, a comedian was evidently brought in to "punch
up" the script with ostensible jokes. But
no screenplay could probably address some of the subliminal issues with the film, including the
patently odd casting (as is discussed in the supplements, lest anyone think I'm being bigoted in some way) of two actors with different ethnicities*
playing brothers.
Now I admittedly never played the videogame version of
Double Dragon, and I think my own boys came along enough after the game's
heyday that they didn't either (at least I don't recall them doing so), and so I'm frankly guessing about certain stylistic and even content choices in
the film, but this often seems like a
way overly labored enterprise that is struggling mightily to craft a connection between the videogame
"world" and the film's narrative (such as it is). Some of this is more blatant, as in cutaways to "data screens" that feature various options for
"players" (i.e., characters looking at them), and which I'm presuming were meant to evoke the actual ambience of the game itself.
As several of the interview participants freely admit, there's probably too much going on in
Double Dragon for any of it to really resonate
very well. The film is overstuffed with arguably needless subplots when the basic setup — getting both pieces of a magical medallion — is
simplicity itself. The film kind of careens wildly between set pieces, but it's actually kind of fun in fits and starts, and it features a great hammy
performance by Robert Patrick as the film's chief baddie.
*Dacascos is overtly referred to as an Asian in some of the supplements, but in reading about him in preparation for writing this review, he's
"multi ethnic", as they say, with Hawaiian, Filipino, Spanish and Chinese ancestry.
Double Dragon Blu-ray, Video Quality
Double Dragon is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of MVD Visual's MVD Rewind imprint with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Those
who grew up with this film in previous home media incarnations will probably be generally thrilled with this release, while others new to the film may
be considerably less enthralled. This looks it was sourced from an older element that has recurrent if fairly minor damage in the form of nicks,
scratches and dirt. The palette also appears somewhat faded, with flesh tones skewing toward brown, though that said, the film's often lunatic
production design, which features a lot of bright and bold primary colors, can pop quite well. There's fairly wide variability in the grain field, which may
bother some viewers, though some of this is due to understandable issues like a surplus of old school compositing and other special effects work.
While there aren't any major compression issues, grain is thick enough at times that it can look positively chunky, with a yellowish undertone.
Double Dragon Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation
Kind of hilariously, some of the people associated with
Double Dragon went on to rather spectacularly successful Hollywood careers, including
co-writer Peter Gould, who was a guiding force behind
Breaking Bad (hence my obviously joking subtitle underneath the review title, above). That said, this is one of those cult
films whose
appeal may be linked pretty dramatically to those with an emotional attachment to having seen it when they were
kids. As several people integrally involved in the making of
Double Dragon almost giddily admit in some of the supplements included on this
Blu-ray disc, the film just does not work as a whole, even if there are sporadic fun elements to be found in it. Those aforementioned supplements may
in fact be one of the major selling points of this release to those
without an emotional attachment to the film. Video and audio both have
intermittent hurdles to overcome, but my hunch is fans of
Double Dragon will be generally well pleased with this release.
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