Revenge of the Green Dragons | Film review - Bleak crime thriller set in 1980s New York's Chinese underworld | Movie Talk | What's on TV

(Image credit: Ent One)

A pair of immigrant adoptive brothers get sucked in and spat out by the Chinese underworld in this brutally bleak crime thriller set in 1980s New York.

Revenge of the Green Dragons boasts Martin Scorsese as an executive producer (and it really does boast – Scorsese’s is the first name we see), but the cliché-ridden narrative and patchy acting prevent the film from being Chinatown’s answer to Goodfellas, notwithstanding the presence in the cast of Ray Liotta as a dogged FBI agent determined to bring the brothers’ gang to book.

A disappointment from Infernal Affairs co-director Andrew Lau (here helming with Andrew Loo), clearly on much firmer ground when he’s treading Hong Kong’s Mean Streets.

Certificate 15. Runtime 94 mins. Directors Andrew Lau, Andrew Loo

Revenge of the Green Dragons is showing on Sky Movies Premiere at 1.45am tonight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c-YiIC5Bz4

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.