Reception
On the Hong Kong Legends DVD release of Dragons Forever, Hong Kong cinema expert Bey Logan offers his opinion of why the film underperformed both in the domestic and Japanese markets. The primary reason cited is that the actors played roles against type. Jackie Chan plays a slick lawyer who chases women, in contrast to the happy-go-lucky everyman characters he usually plays. Similarly, Yuen Biao plays an eccentric and possibly mentally disturbed character, rather than the underdog character fans were used to. For Sammo Hung, rather than the timid character that's been described in earlier films, he instead plays like a rascal. Logan explains that in general, the cinema going public in Hong Kong are not as open to such departures of role as, perhaps, the public in the West would be.
Additional reasons cited include the occasional use of coarse language in the film, and the scenes of narcotics production, particularly Hung's character being injected with drugs against his will. The fact that Chan's character has a relationship with a woman may also have had an effect, particularly in the Japanese market, as many female viewers couldn't accept that their idol wasn't single. On learning that Chan was in a relationship in real life, one Japanese fan had committed suicide and another poisoned herself in the offices of Golden Harvest.
Read more about this topic: Dragons Forever
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