Year of the Dragon (film)
| Year of the Dragon | |
|---|---|
Theatrical poster
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| Directed by | Michael Cimino |
| Produced by | Dino De Laurentiis |
| Written by |
Oliver Stone Michael Cimino |
| Based on |
Year of the Dragon by Robert Daley |
| Starring | |
| Music by | David Mansfield |
| Cinematography | Alex Thomson |
| Edited by | Françoise Bonnot |
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Production
company |
Dino De Laurentiis Company
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Distributed by |
MGM/UA Entertainment Company Cannon Films (International) |
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Release date
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Running time
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134 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English Mandarin Cantonese Polish |
| Budget | US$24,000,000 or $22 million |
| Box office | $18,707,466 (US) |
Year of the Dragon is a 1985 neo-noiraction film directed by Michael Cimino, starring Mickey Rourke, Ariane Koizumi and John Lone. The screenplay was written by Cimino and Oliver Stone and adapted from the novel by Robert Daley.
This was Cimino's first film after the infamous failure of Heaven's Gate (1980). Year of the Dragon is a New York crime drama and an exploration of gangs, the illegal drug trade, ethnicity, racism, and stereotypes.
Stanley White (Rourke) is a decorated police captain and Vietnam War veteran assigned to New York City's Chinatown, where he makes it his personal mission to come down hard on Chinese organized crime.
White comes into conflict with Joey Tai (Lone), a young man who ruthlessly rises to become the head of the Chinese triad societies, and as a result of his ambition, creates a high profile for himself and the triads' activities. Together, they end the uneasy truce that has existed between the triads and the police precinct, even as they conduct a personal war between one another.
The married captain also becomes romantically involved with Tracy Tzu (Ariane), a television reporter, who comes under brutal attack from the criminals, as does White's long-suffering wife. This makes him even more determined to destroy the triads, and especially Joey Tai.
White also hires an up-and-coming Chinese rookie cop, Herbert to go undercover as one of Tai's restaurant workers. Herbert manages to get inside information on a drug shipment but is betrayed by corrupt cop Alan Perez and loses his life when Tai is informed by Perez that Herbert's a cop. Now that Tai raped Tracy, killed Herbert and his wife, White wastes no time confronting Tai right as the shipment comes in. At the harbor, Tai and his bodyguard are on their way to the shipment when they are confronted by White who attempts to arrest them. Perez drives by, yelling abuse White shoots and kills Perez but Tai draws a gun and shoots White in the hand accidentally killing his bodyguard. Tai flees and runs away on a train bridge. That leads to a showdown where White and Tai run at one another while shooting bullets recklessly. White shoots Tai leaving him wounded. Rather than suffer, Tai asks for White's gun to commit suicide in front of him.
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Wikipedia