And you don’t just forget a recommendation like that.Īfter finally buying my own copy to see for myself, I found this was not entirely true and buried the lede: Only the first few minutes of the music video get screentime, but that’s also one of the least delirious things about The Last Dragon.

He told me this one featured a full, uninterrupted music video for DeBarge’s “Rhythm Of The Night” smack in the middle of it. He’s always had a more refined palate for kung-fu than I, but this was not another Shaw Brothers deep cut. I was trawling a video store, looking for a movie that couldn’t have been half as memorable as Dragon considering I can’t remember it, when the friend who’d joined me on this hunt found one of his minor grails. That may be a cliché, but I don’t call it into service lightly. As a 107-minute motion picture that comes with a generous helping of Bruce Lee footage re-scored by Motown’s hottest up-and-comers, it must be seen to be believed. As an arcade game, The Last Dragon would bankrupt entire grade schools. Nothing sells me on a movie faster than a title song that just reiterates the plot in a catchy way, and they don’t come much catchier than the title song of the only movie the founder of Motown Records ever produced.īerry Gordy’s The Last Dragon (1985) opens like the attract mode of an arcade fighting game - slow-motion close-ups of muscles carved in shadow, flying kicks that treat gravity as polite suggestion, an irresistible beat and lyrics built of raw motivation - a fast, flashy case for dropping in a quarter and seeing what else this thing has in store.

The last dragon full movie 1985