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Martial-arts maestro Jet Li strengthens his hold on international screen stardom with this elaborate, stylistically elegant, and characteristically vigorous action melodrama, certainly his best English-language vehicle to date. Produced and coauthored by French filmmaker Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita), Dragon begins with Li, playing a coolly efficient Chinese lawman, arriving in Paris to assist a high-level government official investigating international drug trafficking. After the official is murdered, Li discovers that the criminal mastermind is a French police inspector (Tcheky Karyo) with virtually the entire Parisian underworld at his beck and call. Bridget Fonda costars as Li’s reluctant ally, a young American mother separated from her child and enslaved as a prostitute. Director-of-record Chris Nahon, in his first effort, is clearly influenced heavily by Besson; Dragon exhibits all that filmmaker’s stylistic traits and shares the techno-noir look of his previous movies. The star and his fight choreographers make inventive use of big sets and small props: You’ll be amazed by what Li can do with, for example, a flying billiard ball. The plot might be a little murky with regard to such trivial things as logic and motivation, but whenever Li springs into action -- which he does frequently -- Kiss of the Dragon becomes rousing entertainment sure to please old fans and create new ones. Nahon joins Li and Fonda for a feature-length commentary accompanying the DVD, which also includes four featurettes covering different aspects of the film's production, two storyboard-to-film comparisons, a gallery of stills, and sundry theatrical trailers and TV spots. Ed Hulse

All Movie Guide

This action thriller co-written by filmmaker Luc Besson stars Jet Li as Liu Jian, a Chinese intelligence officer in Paris on an assignment that finds him in the midst of an international conspiracy. When Liu's investigation gets too close to uncovering the truth, his life is seriously jeopardized and he's forced to creatively employ his martial arts skills, which includes using a pool ball and the French flag as defensive props. In the meantime, romantic sparks fly between Liu and a sexy witness (Bridget Fonda), while the agent discovers that a trusted French peer (longtime Besson featured player Tcheky Karyo) is actually the double-crossing criminal mastermind he's seeking. Karl Williams

Hollywood Reporter

Li jumps into a series of martial arts sequences of flying fists and balletic moves that truly reinvigorate a genre that has gone stale even in Asia. Kirk Honeycutt

Product Details

• UPC: 024543395874
• Source: 20TH CENTURY FOX
• Region Code: A
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: DTS 5.1-Channel Surround Sound
• Editions: Subtitled
• Time: 1:38:00
• Sales Rank: 40,554

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• Action Pack
• Fox 3 Pack Action a
• Attack Packs
• Fight Club / Kiss of the Dragon
• Kiss of the Dragon / the Transporter

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