The Next Last Dragon

It was a Friday night, and I was walking through my local Pathmark with two objectives: to pick up a Valentine's card for my folks, and to give in to a Tostito's craving that had been nagging at me for days. My travels through the aisles led me past a display of discount DVDs, most of which were either fullscreen or obscure titles I'd never heard of before. Scrooged was particularly tempting for only $9.99, and I might have caved were it widescreen. I've been trying to cut back on DVD purchases since the medium is almost obsolete, since physical media might be replaced entirely by digital downloads within the next few years. But another disc was practically glowing with soul, and after picking it up and putting it down a few times, I decided I couldn't pass up The Last Dragon, not for that price.

This ‘80s martial arts classic was an old weekend favorite in the days of “Channel 11 Movies”, wasted Saturday or Sunday afternoons watching movies on broadcast television. It starred Taimak, a martial artist turned actor, as Leroy Green, a.k.a. “Bruce Leroy”, a kung fu aficionado and Bruce Lee fan. Leroy studies with a master until he can swat arrows from the air, and has his own dojo of students. He seeks to attain the highest level of mastery, a point of mental and physical perfection at which a warrior will glow. Along the way he falls for a beautiful host of a music video show, played by Vanity, who was discovered by Prince. Most memorable was Leroy's archnemesis Sho'Nuff, the Shogun of Harlem, played to blaxploitation perfect by Julius Carry. The juxtaposition of a shogun and his Kurosawan posse against the mean streets of Manhattan are big part of what made this cult classic so enjoyable. These characters walk around in the gear of feudal Japan amid characters dressed in ‘80s styles, amid rapping, breakdancing, and boomboxes, and no one blinks, as though it's normal. It was genius.

Watching the film for the first time in maybe 20 years, without commercial interruption and hundreds more films under my eyeballs, I was struck by how many familiar faces there were. The crime boss trying to take over Vanity's show who sends Sho'Nuff and others against Leroy is assisted by a former boxer played by Mike Starr, the hitman inadvertently outwitted by morons in Dumb & Dumber. Vanity's agent J.J. is played by a young William H. Macy, onscreen for all of five minutes near the beginning of the film. Now there's a bit of trivia to whip out at a party. Leroy's younger sister, who also only appears for about five minutes, is played by a pre-Cosby Keisha Knight Pulliam. When The Last Dragon was released theaters, the hit sitcom was in its first season. Chazz Palminteri has a very small role as “Hood #2”, and one of Leroy's little brother's young friends was played by Carl Anthony Payne II, who would go on to play Cole in Martin. Fight choreography was handled by Ernie Reyes Sr., and in the film's climactic group battle, his young son Ernie Reyes Jr. gets to show off his own fighting skills in his very first onscreen appearance.

The movie stands the test of time as a period piece, a caricature of everything ‘80s, from a Madonna/Cyndi Lauper wannabe to the inclusion of DeBarge's Rhythm of the Night video. There are also countless clips from Bruce Lee films, many of which foreshadow the path Leroy will take in his own quest to become the master. By today's standards, the rotoscoped glow effect used in his showdown with Sho'Nuff is a little cheesy, but it works with the music and atmosphere of an ‘80s film. A lot of characters are corny and over-the-top, particularly the aforementioned crime boss who lifts the worst aspects of Gene Hackman's portrayal of Lex Luthor. Come to think of it, his Mike Starr henchman and Madonna-esque girlfriend might as well have been named “Otis” and “Miss Teschmacher”. Still, it's the booming bravado and unbreakable ego of Sho'Nuff that steals the show, the perfect contrast to Leroy's quiet reserve and reluctance to fight until absolutely necessary. It's the basic quiet guy rising up to put down a bully storyline that worked so well in films like The Karate Kid.

It'd be hard to imagine anyone else in these roles, so I was surprised to see that a remake was in the works for 2010. I wouldn't have minded a sequel with a lot of the original actors, maybe have Taimak as an older Leroy training a new young warrior. On the other hand, it might be silly to have a sequel with a successor to someone who was the “last” anything. I just think there are too many remakes out there. Do we really need a new version of Witch Mountain with Dwayne Johnson? I'm not saying the trailer doesn't look good, but why tell a story that's already been told? I guess the people my age and slightly older who grew up with these stories want the children of today to have that same experience we did, and can now take advantage of CGI and other modern film techniques to pretty much create anything the original filmmakers envisioned but were unable to portray. I imagine the next Last Dragon film will capture the glow as though an Iron Fist story was getting a live action treatment. And what of the cast? What of someone like Sho'Nuff, so distinct that you couldn't imagine anyone capturing his line delivery so perfectly? If anyone could do it, it's the one guy I was surprised wasn't in the original when I was recognizing all those other faces: Samuel L. Jackson. I'm already imagining his taunting “LEE-ROYYYY...” Maybe 20 years from now someone will be writing about finding a discount download of the remake. Is Samuel L. Jackson truly in everything? Sho'Nuff!