Sunday, October 4, 2009

Monster Crap Inductee: Double Dragon (1994)

Monster Crap Inductee: Double Dragon
Did These People Ever Play The Arcade Game?
1994


I like video games. Hell, I like them a lot. But when talking about video games, I have always heard debates on what video game franchises got the most screwed over. Of course, the two major answers are always Megaman and Sonic The Hedgehog, but I will dare say that the most screwed is instead Double Dragon.

In 1987, a game came out that would make its mark on beat-em up arcade games and that game was Double Dragon. In this game, you played either Billy or Jimmy Lee and your objective was to beat the crap out of bad guys and rescue Marian. This game was really awesome in the arcades and soon enough, was made to be ported for home consoles. One year later, Double Dragon II: The Revenge upgraded the fighting experience with a different storyline where the Lee brothers beat the crap out of the bad guys who murdered Marian. This game was also great, but unfortunately….this would be where the series went a turn for the worst.

Another year later, Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone came out and this game pretty much sucked. Even the spelling sucked as the Angry Video Game Nerd showed us in his review.


After that, the Double Dragon comic book came out and if you want to know about the crap stain that was….I suggest you go to BHMode.com because he came up with a great in-depth look at that garbage. Then Super Double Dragon came out and while it had an interesting plot, the video game heads hacked this plot to death. Then came Battletoads and Double Dragon, and while the games were not that bad, they pretty much hacked the Double Dragon storyline so that the Battletoads would be the main stars. What was worse was the bad guys were screwed up. Abobo was canonically incorrect; they changed the name of Willy (who was the final boss of the first game) to Roper and replaced Duke with the Shadow Boss. Now if you are wondering if the Shadow Boss had a name, let me just say no. They just called him the Shadow Boss because supposedly that was “original”. The folks who had the Double Dragon trademark then decided that they didn’t have enough raping the franchise and decided to make a Double Dragon animated series and instead of being two brothers who know a certain martial arts style, they are two superheroes. Yes, because the first thing I think of when I see ninjas is Superman. To give you more of a hilarious prospective on the crappy animated series, I will provide you a link to a funny parody of the show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIkxocQoaHA

The series lasted for two years and in between that time, another Double Dragon game was made called Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls and instead of a straight beat-em up game, we got a fighting game. Now I have this game at home and let me tell you, this game SUCKS!!!! After that, Neo Geo made a Double Dragon game and of course it was another fighting game. Now not only have I never played this game, but I had never even heard of this game until a few years ago. And finally, we have Double Dragon Advance which was a remake of the original Double Dragon game which kind of tells you that the series was pretty much in the grave at that point.

Now in between all of this mess, there came a Double Dragon movie. And this movie was supposed to be based off the original arcade game, but somehow, I feel like I am in for a world of hurt.

We begin this film with the opening credits and a monologue from Robert Patrick. Robert had been three years removed from his best known work as the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

However, in this film….he plays the evil Kogo Shuko who is looking for the two pieces of the pendent with two dragons on it. The tale is also known as the Double Dragon, for which we get the title from….I guess. According to Kogo, one half of the pendent gives the power over body and the other half gives the power over soul.

Somewhere in China…..

This Movie Is Just As Helpful As I Am When It Comes To Where We Are.

Anyway, somewhere in China, a village is being attacked by a group of horsemen with the leader in ninja gear.


Anyway, many of the villagers cut out their own tongues so they were not able to tell them where one half of the pendant is. However, the leader sees one villager going into a cave and follows him. In that cave, the leader finds one half of the pendant and takes it back to her boss, Shuko.


Also, after a big quake Los Angeles has now become New Angeles in 2007, which would not be a bad thing since you know I am not a fan of LA to begin with. Anyway, Lash shows the half of the pendant to Shuko and he is extremely disappointed that she only found half.


To show his displeasure, Kogo uses crappy CGI to turn into black construction paper form and tells them to find the other half.

At some local gym, we see the Lee Brothers, Billy and Jimmy (at least they got the names right this time) fighting two guys from a team called Team Red (yeah, creativity wasn’t strong back then. Billy gets his ass kicked so he tags Jimmy in and Jimmy kicks ass and scores 3 points for Team Lee. Billy tags back in and proceeds to get the crap kicked out of him as Team Red gains 3 points. It is a tie with time running out in this karate match so Billy decides to get his team disqualified by putting the guy in a headlock. This disappoints Jimmy Lee and the two Lees’ mentor Satori Imada. Anyway, Billy decides to be a prick and get Team Lee into a fight with Team Red after the match. After a riot breaks out in the stadium, we get a strange, pointless commercial for a product known as Jack City.


Anyway, after that we get the worst intro to a news show ever…..hold on, did someone record some crappy news over this movie???


Unfortunately, this is actually part of the movie as the New Angeles news team features George Hamilton and Vanna White.

What!!!!

They try to tell us that it is daylight savings time so curfew is being moved up. Oh I would ask how this could get any worse, but then they go to weather with a guy named Andy.

God Help Us All.....

Yes folks, we aren’t even ten minutes into the movie and I am already starting to regret even watching this movie. Anyway, we go to a bar where everyone is leaving. Why they decided to add this scene in is anyone’s guess. Back to Andy as he tells us that some black rain is coming.

I Wish To Say This Was When Andy Was At Rock Bottom, But I Know He Has Hit Lower Than This.

We get more news that we don’t need and finally we get back to the story after several torturous minutes of this garbage. There is a police chief named Delario who is glad the police have everyone in. Jeez…..I wonder why the police aren’t out at night.


Oh yeah, gangs run the streets at night.


Unfortunately the Lees and their mentor Satori, they are still driving at night. Billy sees a person with a catholic school girl outfit on and thinking she is hot, he tells them to pull over….which they sadly do. Unfortunately for them, it is a guy in a wig. The trap has been set as their car is rammed by a giant truck. It was a trap by the Mohawks and their leader, Bo Abobo.


Bo has his sidekick tell them that they want 50 bucks for them to pass. Bo goes into the backseat and sees Satori with a pendant, when he tries to grabs it she stabs his hand with some kind of knife. Satori tells them to drive and the Lees do as we get a car chase


During the car chase, Abobo’s henchman calls the Lee Brothers “Ug and Home”. Get it, Ug Lee and Home Lee??? Hehehehehehe…….that is neither funny nor clever. After several minutes of this chase scene that seems like a driving simulator instead of a real car chase. The Lees and Satori cause the Mohawk truck to crash in a small alleyway. Unfortunately for the trio, there is a dead end to this alley way and they are trapped. Abobo gets out of the car and looks ready to fight, but we see another gang come in which terrifies Abobo into leaving. That gang is known as the Power Corps. and they are a good gang who hate the other gangs. Their leader is a woman named Marian.


I will have more on the outfit and why this is insultingly bad later on.

At the Deville Theater, the Lees eat dinner with Satori who explains to them about the pendant. Billy, being the complete dumb ass, wants to use it now, but Satori is against that. If you are looking at Billy and wanting to kill him now, don’t hold your breath because as we know the Lees can’t die in this movie.

Back at Shukonet tower, Shuko finds out about the Lee brothers and the pendant from Abobo. Shuko makes some proclamation that they will surrender that second half or die, but Lash decides to turn on the lights and this is not good for Shuko, who apparently hates lights and can only have them on when he has his sunglasses on. Abobo gets rewarded for telling them about the medallion by being mutated into a freak.

Unfortunately, we get more news as Vanna White tells us that Madonna has divorced Tom Arnold (why the hell would those two be even married???) and wants to be alone. George Hamilton tells us that Vice President Jerry Brown (who was the runner up to the 1992 Democratic Primary and former governor of California so I guess they were doing some ass kissing here) visited Bangladesh, but of course the only reason I brought up these two stories was to show ass kissing and pure stupidity. Meanwhile in Marian’s bathroom, she is putting on a wig as a clever (not really) disguise. Of course, her brother comes in and blackmails her into paying him $100 bucks and after that fails, he blackmails her for $5 bucks, which also fails. While everyone is eating breakfast, George Hamilton tells us that a plane was blown up as a work of the Power Corps. Marian tries to defend the Power Corps, but her father, who just so happens to be Delario, says that the Power Corps are terrorists.

Back at the Deville Theater, the Lees are training with Billy being a cocky failure again. There is a knock at the door and Satori goes to answer it. Unfortunately, it is Kogo Shuko, who she calls Guisman, looking for the second piece. He responds by calling her Lotus Flower and demands she give up her half of the pendant. She says no and says that even if he had her half, he still wouldn’t be able to rule anything as she hid the second half where he wouldn’t find it. Sadly for her, he reveals that he did find the other half and then asks again for her half. We get a fight with Satori taking on Shuko and the Lees taking on the two henchmen. Using all sorts of props, the Lees easily defeat the two henchmen. Now Robert Patrick is so cool that as he is fighting Satori as Shuko, he has a cigarette in his mouth.

After some talk, Shuko reveals that using his half of the pendant, he can transform into a shadow and possess someone. Meanwhile, the Lee brothers face off against a mutant form of Bo Abobo. Now I want you to look back at the Double Dragon game and look at Abobo, because chances are, you are really going to be confused by the movie version of this mutant.


The Lee Brothers see this and run. Unfortunately, they don’t get very far and need Satori’s help to defeat Abobo, but not before Abobo says this line.

Abobo: Ug Lee….Hom Lee….Stan Lee!!!!

Words cannot describe the face palm I just gave myself after hearing this line. Anyway, the bad news for the Lees is that Satori is not who she seems as she has been possessed by Shuko. They fight the now-possessed Satori and manage to lock her into a room. Shuko gets out of her body and has the place set on fire. The Lees are able to get Satori out of the room and they try to make the exit. The exit is blocked by Shuko, so Satori decides to stay behind and fight while the Lees escape. Unfortunately, for Satori, she gets knocked out while Shuko escapes. The theater blows up and Satori is obviously dead.


A limo pulls up and it is Shuko telling Lash to organize the gangs. Meanwhile, we get a pointless scene of Marian telling her brother that she will be going out.

At the gang meeting, we see the leader of one of the gangs called the Maniacs being against this meeting.


Yes folks, that is Michael Berryman from the original Hills Have Eyes, not that pointless remake. Sad thing is when I originally saw him; I thought it was Christopher Lloyd until I heard his voice.

My Bad Michael....

Shuko arrives and tries to unite the gangs, but the Maniac Leader calls him a Snarf.


Snarf....Why I Am Being Mentioned In This Crap. Damn You, Michael Berryman!

Shuko decides to turn into a shadow and strangle the Maniac Leader. With the main opposition being killed so easily, the gangs decide to side with Shuko. Somewhere else, we see Abobo, who survived the explosion somehow, get captured by the Power Corps.

At a pier, Billy grieves for the loss of Satori while Jimmy shakes it off. Okay, now both guys become complete jerks and I have only one person to root for in Shuko. Sure, he is evil, but at least he admits it. Besides, Robert Patrick is awesome. While figuring out a plan, they walk into the junkyard where they are cornered by all the gangs and we get another pointless scene of the Lees fighting and running. Of course they run into a boat house and find a boat. We then get a boat chase scene, where the Lees crash and supposedly die….and thus our movie is over.

This Movie Aint Over Yet

It seems that Billy and Jimmy got out of the boat before it exploded. On Channel 69 news (that is also not very clever, movie), it announced that the river caught on fire and that the police were attacked by gangs in broad daylight. This signifies that some truce between the police and the gangs is over. The reporters are verbally attacking the police chief Delario asking him why did the gangs break the truce. Delario, being smart, gets them to disappear when he tells them that it is 23 minutes until sundown.
Meanwhile, at Shuko’s tower, Shuko is still pissed that no one can still find the second piece of the amulet. His two henchmen come in chewing gum, asking them if they have any news. When it is obvious that they still haven’t found anything yet, Shuko goes on a tirade, saying that he just wants total domination of one major American city and if that is too hard to ask. Shuko forces everyone out of his office except Lash, who he tells to set up a meeting between him and Police Chief Delario.

Meanwhile, Billy convinces Jimmy that the two need help from the Power Corps if they want to take down Shuko. Meanwhile, at the Power Corps headquarters, they interrogate Abobo by force feeding him spinach. The Lee brothers enter and explain their situation to Marian, who after some reluctance, agrees to help the two defeat Shuko. While going into a crawlspace, we do get to see Marian’s ass (I will say that Alyssa has a nice ass) and the Lees fight as to who goes in behind her. Billy wins and we move into the crawlspace and….okay I just can’t get over this.

Look At This Outfit

That freaking green soccer jersey is so grotesque; it is like the people making this movie were just trying to find a way to make Alyssa Milano not attractive at all. That green soccer jersey is so terrible that it makes her look like the butch half of a lesbian relationship. Now I know many guys like to fantasize about lesbian relationships, but most of the women in them (especially the dominant one) are so ugly in real life.

Meanwhile, while sneaking through the crawlspace which you can tell is just designed to almost fit an entire person through it without crawling, the three listening in to a meeting between Shuko and Delario. Shuko offers to make things the way they were again, as long as the police chief decides to help Shuko gain power over the city. He even offers to pay the chief for his help, but the chief refuses the deal. The Lee brothers try to grab the second half of the pendant using a necklace from Marian, but Lash sees them and forces them out of the crawlspace with a spear. In a fight, Jimmy gets captured by Shuko, who seems to have a strange obsession with cracking his knuckles.

Delario tries to have the police prepare for a night attack, but other police members are completely against it so Delario has to go alone. While Jimmy is tied up, Shuko reveals that he was the one who killed Billy and Jimmy’s father.

Meanwhile, back at the Power Corps headquarters, the bad gangs start their invasion. It seems that hope is lost, but Jimmy Lee comes in and kicks some ass. The reunion is short-lived as we find out that Jimmy is being possessed by Shuko.

You Can Tell By This Look That I Am Evil...

Meanwhile, Abobo makes his escape and is about to help the evil gang members, but sees himself in the mirror and cries.

Someone Better Call The Waaaaambulence

Lash tries to attack Marian and even says this line.

Lash: Who’s The Boss Now??

Somewhere Tony Danza is not laughing. Anyway, Lash gets beaten after her whip breaks, Marian ties Lash up only to see Lash get accidentally punched in the face during the melee between the Power Corps and the evil gang members. A fight between the Lee Brothers happens with the result being both brothers kick each others ass.

I Should Note That Someone Thought It Would Be Funny To Put The Double Dragon Arcade Game In This Scene. Suffice To Say It Wasn't Funny And Every Thinking Person's Head May Have Exploded Here.

Unfortunately during the fight, the second half of the pendant falls out of Billy’s hand and using his shadow technique, Shuko is able to get the second half. Afterwards, Shuko makes the power go out and using both halves, turns into twin monster swordsmen.


The final showdown between the Lees and the two Shukos erupts with the Lees having trouble. Abobo decides to switch sides by coming in and telling them that Shuko hates light. Marian goes downstairs and turns on the generator causing light to flow in the room. This weakens Shuko back to human form and has the amulet taken from him by the Lee Brothers. Using the pendant, the two brothers get their customary suits that you see in the movie cover and from the actual video game.


The ghost of Satori comes in and tells the two that destiny has arrived and it is now their time to defeat the darkness.

After this, the Jimmy and Billy kick the crap out of Shuko while he tries to make a deal where he buys them a new theater and receives a knockout kick for even trying to make a deal. Jimmy decides to possess Shuko and have him look like a complete moron by hitting himself, agreeing to pay the police $129 million dollars and turning himself in to police chief Delario, who just so happens to arrive during the whole non-comedic routine.

Just Arrest Me And Get Me Off This Damn Movie

Of course, Jimmy then gets out of Shuko’s body and Shuko is taken to jail all the while saying this line.

Kogo Shuko: You Think I'm Bad? Wait Till You Meet My Lawyers...Hahahahaha

The Lees also decide to help rebuild New Angeles and Marian reveals to them that she fixed up their car.


Abobo comes in and wants to drive the car. Jimmy, thinking it is Billy inside Abobo gives him the keys. He then goes into the back seat and tries to taunt Billy with Marian’s help, but Billy is actually in the backseat. When they realize they actually gave the keys to Abobo, they all scream as the car starts. We also see the two henchmen for Shuko looking like hobos with signs saying “Will Hench For Food” and “Thugs Seek Ruthless Boss”.


And thus finally, the movie ends.

Now before I give my critique and problems with said movie, I have to give you some aftermath. Alyssa Milano went on to do Charmed and is still considered one of the most attractive women today. Scott Wolf (who played Billy Lee) went on to be the original star of Party of Five, but easily got overshadowed by the girls on that show and has been stuck in supporting cast hell ever since. Robert Patrick is still freaking awesome as the bad guy of movies or as someone’s dad, but he has not had as big of a success as he did playing the T-1000 in T2.


Kristina Wagner (who plays Lash) went back to General Hospital and is considered a popular character as Felicia Jones. She also married Jack Wagner, who is one of the main stars in the Bold and the Beautiful and had two kids with him. Unfortunately, they divorced in 2006. She did a teeth whitener commercial and has since settled down into motherhood. Good for her, I say as she is a very beautiful woman and I hope the best for her.

The woman who played Satori, Julia Nickolson-Soul does small roles here and there while being a scientologist. I know, you think I am going to rip her to shreds for being part of a religion that I am not a fan of, but I am not because while I am against religion (honestly I am against all religion period), I am not against its followers. Unless you are a complete jackass, I have no problems with you whatsoever and I haven’t heard her being a jerk so she is cool by my book.

Now we get to the guy who played Jimmy Lee, who is a man named Mark Dacascos. When politicking for me to induct this movie, I have been told that people want to see this guy get completely roasted. Honestly, I don’t see why because I don’t have any grudge against him besides still doing bad movies. But I guess it must be because the guy passes himself off as the Chairman in Iron Chef America and nephew to the original chairman of Iron Chef, despite the fact that the original chairman has gone out of his way to say that there is no way that this guy is related to him.

Now let’s get to the down and dirty. Like I said before, this movie completely rapes the source material of Double Dragon in many ways. One is it has Marian, who has always been the damsel in distress in the series, into a powerful character. It is kind of like when the new TMNT movie decided to make April O’Neal an ass-kicking chick. The fact that you would turn a damsel in distress into a person who can kick ass is kind of turning away from the source material, although to be fair to that TMNT movie, April O’Neal is trained by Casey Jones so she would no longer have to worry about getting into to trouble so it makes sense. But this movie doesn’t as Marian is just an ass kicking chick. It is pathetic and it is obvious that the only way you could do this is either so you could get Alyssa Milano to play the role or you want to appeal to women.

The second major source that is raped is the fact that in the movie, the two brothers need help (and lots of it) to defeat the bad guys. I don’t know if you have ever played the game, but the game is all about the Lee brothers kicking ass to save Marian. The third source that is raped from this movie is Abobo, who is not even close to looking like the character from the video game.

The other problems with this movie are the complete stupidity of the entire plot, the acting, the attires of the people in the movie, and the graphics. Also, let me just mention that some if the props and costumes are ripped straight from other movies. I used to say that Super Mario Brothers is the worst movie based on a video game as there was no reason to even do a live-action version of this film, but after seeing this movie….I have changed my mind. This movie is atrocious and completely rapes everything the video game series that it is based off of. It infuriates me when you own the rights to make a movie out of the source material and you decide to just completely screw things up. I am done talking about this movie.

This day couldn’t possibly get any worse.

How About Playing A Children's Card Game???

Then again, I could be wrong.

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