Call Me Dragon (1978)

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General		Extras
Category	Martial Arts	Trailer-No Retreat, No Surrender I And II - Raging Thunder Trailer-No Retreat,No Surrender III - Blood Brothers, Claws Of Steel
Rating
Year Of Production	1978
Running Time	94:45
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Him Pang
Studio Distributor	Seasonal Film Corp Beyond Home Entertainment	Starring	Yasuaki Kurata Hsiao Liang Gar Ding Lee Wan-Si Wong Lan Chen Him Pang Fei Hei Chan
Case	Amaray-Opaque-Secure Clip
RPI	$19.95	Music	Fei Hei Chan

    A young Chinese man is walking along a deserted stretch of road when suddenly three hoodlums appear and tell him it is the day of his death. They attack him, but he beats them all up. Later on the same stretch of road the man comes across another man tied up, who complains of being attacked by robbers. The victim tricks our hero into being tied up and he and his accomplice turn out to be the robbers. But the man escapes and confronts the robbers, revealing himself to be.... Big Dragon!  The man who steals from the rich and gives to the poor. The two robbers volunteer to join Big Dragon and help him redistribute wealth.

    Arriving in a nearby town, Big Dragon discovers that it is under the thumb of a local gang. Then there's a killer named Leopard Head who has stolen some giant pearls from Tibet (the size of billiard balls), and our heroes attempt to clean up the town and recover and return the pearls.

    This film has the usual silly plot for a martial arts film. There are a lot of lame attempts at comedy, but I have to admit that the only times I laughed were in places where I was not intended to. Even the fights are poorly shot, as you can clearly see a lot of the punches and kicks miss their targets, although the sound effects tell a different story. Actually, why is it that every blow makes exactly the same sound? The dubbing is poor and quite laughable at times. While the release date is given as 1978, some sources say 1974. I mention this because one of the robbers is played by Meng Hoi, who looks more than a year younger than he did in 1979's Buddha Assassinator. In fact he looks about 15 years old here.

    But there is one saving grace, the final battle between Big Dragon (Bruce Liang) and Leopard Head (Yasuaki Kurata) which goes on for more than ten minutes up walls, over roofs and in open fields. Their kicking and punching is crisp and very fast, and looks spectacular. After fighting with kicks and bare fists for ages, Leopard Head suddenly pulls out what looks like a nightstick or tongfa. The camera zooms in to Big Dragon, who whips off his jacket to reveal some nunchakus, so they go at it again for a few minutes trading blows. After each fighter has been struck with fist, foot and weapon dozens of times neither has a single sign of injury, not even a drop of blood. Must be all that secret martial arts training.

    If you enjoy martial arts films and extended fight scenes, and you don't mind VHS quality video and atrocious dubbing, you will enjoy this, but make sure the fast forward button on your remote is working.

Video

    The film is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced, of course. This is obviously a pan and scan transfer of a widescreen film, probably shot in 1.85:1.

    The video is not much better than VHS quality, though it is a bit sharper and cleaner than the other kung fu films I have reviewed from Force Video. The quality of the print used for this transfer was undoubtedly better than for the others, though it still looks like it is more than one generation away from an interpositive. Shadow detail is okay without being a major factor in this film. The colour is not so good, with the print being faded in some portions, and has even turned yellow at the very end of the film. Flesh tones do not look quite right, being a little more saturated than they should be.

    Apart from some minor aliasing from time to time, and some slight blockiness in some of the fast motion sequences, there is little in the way of film to video or compression artefacts in evidence. In terms of film artefacts, dirt, hairs and dust are evident throughout. There is also a shower of white flecks from time to time, probably indicating a reel change. For the most part these artefacts appear at a lower rate than in the other films I have seen in this series of releases, and this is probably the pick of the crop so far.

    This is a single layered disc with no subtitles.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The sole audio channel is a Dolby Digital 2.0 mix, though this is obviously mono and no surround encoding is present.

    The entire film is dubbed, so audio sync is atrocious as you would expect. The dialogue is clear, and the accents veer between English, Australian and faux American. I did not have any trouble understanding the dialogue, but I had some trouble understanding why someone had written this rubbish.

    The sound has some crackling and hiss, with occasional pops, though these are not very loud and can only be heard when there is no dialogue or music. There is an omnipresent hum, which is faint but is noticeable during the quieter passages.

    The music score is credited to Fei Hei Chan. I wonder if any of the original score survives in the dubbed version of this film, given that most of the score sounds like it has been, um... borrowed from other sources. There is a familiar portentous chord which I have heard on countless old TV shows that makes an appearance here, and the overly dramatic orchestral music that accompanies the final battle sounds completely out of place.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Trailers (12:51)

    Trailers for the three instalments in the No Retreat, No Surrender series plus a film called Claws of Steel, which is actually the Jet Li film Last Hero in China. All of these trailers look in better condition than the main feature, and the last named trailer is in unenhanced widescreen.

    As far as I can tell, this film is available on DVD nowhere else but Region 4.

    An average Hong Kong martials arts film of the late 1970s, this is lifted out of the ordinary by the fighting skills of Bruce Liang and Yasuaki Kurata.

    The video quality is below average, but not as bad as some I have seen.

    The audio quality is below average.

    The extras do not amount to much, being just some trailers for other releases from this distributor.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall