''Revenge of the Green Dragons'' is a 2014

crime drama Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...

film directed by

Andrew Lau Andrew Lau Wai-keung ( zh, t=劉偉強, born 4 April 1960) is a Hong Kong film director, producer, and cinematographer. Lau began his career in the 1980s and 1990s, serving as a cinematographer to filmmakers such as Ringo Lam, Wong Jing and Wong ...

and Andrew Loo, written by Michael Di Jiacomo and Andrew Loo, with

Martin Scorsese Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominatio ...

as an executive producer. The film stars

Justin Chon Justin Jitae Chon (born May 29, 1981) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has directed three films, ''Gook'' (2017), '' Ms. Purple'' (2019), & ''Blue Bayou'' (2021). He is also known for portraying Eric Yorkie in '' The Twilight Saga'' film ...

Kevin Wu Kevin Wu (born June 12, 1990) is an American former YouTuber best known under the username KevJumba. The ''San Francisco Chronicles Jeff Yang has noted that Wu is not a comedian in the conventional sense but that by "just talking eis, well, ...

Harry Shum Jr. Harry Shum Jr. (born April 28, 1982) is an American actor, dancer, choreographer, and singer. He is best known for his roles as Mike Chang on the Fox television series ''Glee'' (2009–15), Benson Kwan on the ABC television series ''Grey's Anato ...

Eugenia Yuan Eugenia Yuan is an American actress and former rhythmic gymnast who has won a Hong Kong Film Award. Early life On January 22, 1976, Yuan was born in Inglewood, Los Angeles county, California. Yuan's mother is Cheng Pei-pei, an actress wh ...

Geoff Pierson Geoff Pierson is an American actor known for his starring television roles on '' Dexter'', ''Unhappily Ever After'', '' Grace Under Fire'', '' 24'', '' Ryan's Hope'', and '' Designated Survivor''. He has guest-starred in dozens of other TV shows. ...

and

Ray Liotta Raymond Allen Liotta (; December 18, 1954 – May 26, 2022) was an American actor. He was best known for his roles as Shoeless Joe Jackson in ''Field of Dreams'' (1989) and Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese's ''Goodfellas'' (1990). He was a Primeti ...

. The film is based on

Frederic Dannen Fredric Dannen is an American journalist and author. He is best known for his landmark book ''Hit Men: Powerbrokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business'' (1990), which investigated the behind-the-scenes dealings of the major American record l ...

's ''

New Yorker New Yorker or ''variant'' primarily refers to: * A resident of the State of New York ** Demographics of New York (state) * A resident of New York City ** List of people from New York City * ''The New Yorker'', a magazine founded in 1925 * ''The New ...

'' article that chronicled the true story of Chinese-American gang life in 1980s and 1990s New York City. The central villain Snake Head Mama is based on gangster

Sister Ping Cheng Chui Ping (; January 9, 1949 – April 24, 2014), also known as Sister Ping (), was a Chinese woman who ran a human smuggling operation bringing people from China into the United States from 1984 to 2000. Operating from Chinatown, Manha ...

Plot

An immigrant named Sonny (Chon) joined the Chinatown gang "The Green Dragons" when he was a kid, and worked his way up through the gang hierarchy. But as he quickly rose up the ranks and became notorious in the community, his life falls apart around him.

Cast

as Sonny ** Alex Fox as Little Sonny *

as Steven Wong ** Michael Gregory Fung as Little Steven *

as Paul Wong *

as Snake Head Mama *

Leonard Wu Leonard Wu is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Orus in the Netflix television drama series ''Marco Polo'' (2016), Shiwei Chen in the drama television series '' Bosch'' (2018), Kinuba in the action film '' Alita: Battle Angel'' (2019 ...

as Ah Chung *

Jin Au-Yeung Jin Au-Yeung (; born June 4, 1982), known professionally as MC Jin, is an American rapper, songwriter, actor and comedian of Chinese descent. Jin is notable for being the first Asian American solo rapper to be signed to a major record label in ...

as Detective Tang * Jon Kit Lee as Teddy * Shuya Chang as Tina * Celia Szeming Au as Bobo *

Ron Yuan Ronald Winston Yuan is an American actor, martial artist, director, and stunt choreographer. He is best known for his roles on '' Sons of Anarchy'', '' Prison Break'', '' Golden Boy'', and '' CSI: NY''. He has acted in numerous films, including a ...

as Born to Kill Dai Lo *

Billy Magnussen William Gregory Magnussen (born April 20, 1985) is an American actor. He has been featured in the films ''Into the Woods'' (2014), ''Birth of the Dragon'' (2016), '' Game Night'' (2018), and '' Aladdin'' (2019), and has had supporting television ...

as Detective Boyer *

as FBI Deputy Director Sam Higgins *

as Michael Bloom

Production

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...

began in June 2013 in

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Scenes were filmed in some parts of Queens and Brooklyn, New York such as Elmhurst. On November 2, 2013, Mark Kilian was hired to score the film.

Varèse Sarabande Varèse Sarabande is an American record label, owned by Concord Music Group and distributed by Universal Music Group, which specializes in film scores and original cast recordings. It aims to reissue rare or unavailable albums, as well as newer r ...

released the original soundtrack album on October 27, 2014.

Release

The film had its

world premiere A première, also spelled premiere, is the debut (first public presentation) of a play, film, dance, or musical composition. A work will often have many premières: a world première (the first time it is shown anywhere in the world), its firs ...

on September 10, 2014 at the

2014 Toronto International Film Festival The 39th annual Toronto International Film Festival, the 39th event in the Toronto International Film Festival series, was held in Canada from 4–14 September 2014. David Dobkin's film '' The Judge'', starring Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duv ...

, and then went on to be screened at a number of other international film festivals. The film also received a day-and-date theatrical and VOD release in the United States on October 24, 2014. In December 2014, co-director

said that the film was able to make profit.

Reception

The film has received largely negative reviews from film critics. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds a rating of 15%, based on 26 reviews, with an average rating of 4.14/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a score of 36 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". However, co-director Andrew Loo had traveled all over the United States with the film, and said: "I've found that this is actually a real-audience film.....In terms of audience reception, I don't think we've ever had a 'bad' screening. It's interesting that the critics hate the film because it's not an easy film to watch. It's a genre film dressed up as an art house film because you have Marty's corsese'sname on it."

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Revenge Of The Green Dragons 2014 films 2014 crime drama films American crime drama films Films directed by Andrew Lau Chinese-American films Films set in New York City Films shot in New York City Triad films IM Global films A24 (company) films Asian-American drama films Chinese-language American films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films 2010s Hong Kong films