Double Dragon



In the distant future of 2007 (*snort*), earthquakes have devastated southern California and destroyed Los Angeles. The remains of the city are now called “New Angeles” and the streets are overrun with gangs and ineffectual cops. It is in this landscape that brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee have recently come into possession of an ancient relic passed down to them from their father, one-half of a mystical Chinese talisman known as the Double Dragon. The talisman is said to be incredibly powerful, and it’s rumored that each half has the power to imbue its wielder with the power of either body or mind. So naturally, some obnoxious villain wants it. Leaving Billy and Jimmy to fight off roving bands of eclectic gang members to prevent the dastardly schmuck from taking over the city.


Oh dear, I think they molded his hair to match his brow lines. That can’t be a good sign…

Double Dragon is an American martial arts film from 1994, and is based on the video game series of the same name. Or I guess I should say “very loosely based”, because here’s how the movie’s opening describes the Double Dragon…*Ahem*:

Thousands of years ago in ancient China, an evil army of Shadow Warriors terrorized the great city of Changsa. To save his people, the good king sacrificed himself to create a mystical medallion. Realizing the ultimate powers of the medallion, the king split it in half. To one son, he gave the power over body; to the other, the power over the soul. This is the legend of the Double Dragon.

No movie, unfortunately for game enthusiasts, that is the legend of Utter Crap. Because it sure ain’t the plot to the video game of Double Dragon. The plot of the actual games just involves Billy and Jimmy going through town busting skulls, all to defeat a Big Bad, because the jerk kidnapped Billy’s girlfriend. That’s it. There was never any mystical talisman, or ever any attempt to save the city. It was just a couple of dudes out on a bloody revenge mission, because arcade games from the 80s and 90s rarely had the memory to include pesky things like intricate plot details in their games. It’s just wham, bam, save the princess, thank you ma’am. So, needless to say, after that little opening narration I knew the film was already off to a bad start, because in less than 10 seconds they’ve already added a bunch of needless garbage to what should have been a very simple story. But I already kind of suspected it was going to go that way, because literally the only thing I knew about this movie before going into it was that it’s often listed as one of the “worst video games adaptations of all time.” Ouch.



I will say this in the movie’s favor though, even with all the changes and crappy, needless sub-plots, Double Dragon still isn’t the worst video game adaptation out there. That title still belongs to Super Mario Bros.. No, not the new one from 2023. I’m talking about the live-action one from 1993. THAT thing was an unintelligible, cheesy mess. So of course I – may the ghost of Bob Hoskins forgive me – absolutely love it. This does not mean, however, that I don’t know it’s still junk. I think the only thing SMB got right from the games were Mario and Luigi’s color schemes, the Bo-Bomb and…that’s it. And even in those two instances the movie still didn’t get them quite right.


Though I will forever contend that the Bo-Bomb looks absolutely precious.

By comparison, Double Dragon fares leagues better, inasmuch that it at least bears a partial passing resemblance to the game it’s based on. Yeah, they added a bunch of needless junk in way of the mystical medallion, the brother’s rather tragic family life, and a whole pointless subplot involving a group of rebels and their base camp. But in the end you do still end up spending most of the movie watching Billy and Jimmy traversing the town and beating up and/or running from a bunch of weirdos. And since that’s basically the game, I can’t say that the movie is inaccurate to the source material. Hell, they even threw one of the game’s main minions, Abobo, in there too. Sadly they ended up turning him into a really fugly mutant at some point, but he’s always looked kinda creepy and jacked-up as hell in most of his appearances, so I still feel the need to give them at least partial credit on that front, too.


He still looks ridiculous though. Like, holy shit.

The rest of the film’s story though? Rubbish. It feels like they were trying to make some unholy combination of The Warriors crossed with the Super Mario Bros. movie that came out the year before. Which feels like a truly bizarre choice, considering that that last film flopped so damn hard that Nintendo didn’t give Hollywood another chance to work on one of their properties again for almost 25 years. So, perhaps needless to say, the poor film just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Mostly because there’s just too much extraneous story stuff going on that’s built up, but never really pans out or ends up being necessary to the overall plot. Characters are implied to be important, only to be quickly discarded as a lame attempt to manipulate audience emotions at the earliest possible opportunity. The whole “rebels” angle is really only there to provide a colorful, non-dystopian locale for the final battle. Things that could have been important or meaningful plot points are introduced late in the game via throwaway lines (“Oh, btw kid, did I mention I killed your dad?”), as if the heroes needed yet another reason to try to stop the bad guy? And of course we’re never really told how the medallions work, or why the boys can’t seem to activate them. I mean, it’s kinda implied, but because the storytelling here sucks, it doesn’t end up landing the way they planned. So during the big reveal at the end, what they WANT the scene to convey is that in order to get the body medallion (aka super strength) to work, the bearer must first show that they have inner strength (I think that’s what they were going for, anyway). Which might have been deep and meaningful if they had pulled it off. But what we end up seeing on screen is Billy being unable to use the medallion in his time of need and then throwing the damn thing away from him in disgust like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. So, *splat* goes any meaningful point they were trying for there.


Fail, fail, fail! You all FAIL!

Really, the list of poorly conceived plot devices just goes on and on. And, believe it or not, I actually find this kind of surprising, because the movie was co-conceived by Paul Dini, the same guy who had a hand in writing several acclaimed comic book TV adaptations, like Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond, and he even won a freaking Eisner Award the same year this movie came out for his work on the comic, Mad Love. So you KNOW the dude can make decent adaptations of other properties, so it kinda makes me wonder which parts of the finished film were actually based off of his ideas and which parts are the result of being royally mucked-up by the studio’s inevitable interference.


No, seriously, who do I have to blame for this?

Unsurprisingly, it shouldn’t really be a shock that the acting on display matches the quality of the script: meh. I mean, you shouldn’t expect too much to begin with since this is a campy action movie aimed at teens. But even taking that into account, things aren’t great. You can tell most people were just there for a paycheck. Which is a bummer, because the movie stars people like Alyssa Milano and Robert Patrick, and I KNOW they can do better than what we got here. The real crime though is that the film also had Julia Nickson at their disposal, and for whatever bizarre reason they didn’t seem to have the foggiest idea of what to do with her. You get the feeling that she’s supposed to be this almost Mr. Miyagi-type guardian figure for the boys who helped protect and train them, and is thus really kind of important. But the story is so bungled that in the end she’s just kind of…there. So when she dies in a pitiful attempt by the film to help motivate the boys, nobody cares (including one of the boys!), because she was never given a chance to actually do anything worthy of being remembered or mourned for. And then the movie suddenly remembers she exists at the end, and has her pop up again for a hot second looking like the sun-baby in that Teletubbies show for toddlers. Like, seriously movie, WTF?


Oh, gods, they added sparkles… As if it needed to look more like a cheesy LSD trip. You deserved better, Julia!

But the movie isn’t all bad though, as it does have two tiny wins in its favor. The first is that the choreography is actually pretty decent. Which is good cause, you know, this is an action film and all. It’s still cheesy, yes, and you can tell a couple punches clearly aren’t landing like they’re supposed to. But overall it’s pretty good. Even Alyssa Milano gets to throw a few punches, and it doesn’t look like she’s just flailing around, so I assume she got at least some decent direction/lessons, so that’s a small win in my book. And Mark Dacascos is actually a martial artist, so that helps too.



The other is that the movie looks very nice. The framing is good, the gang costumes are all diverse and matchy-matchy, colors pop…overall, it’s ain’t a bad looking film. Campy oftentimes, yes. But not necessarily bad….mostly. There are several instances involving the villain where they use some very early CGI that naturally looks pretty cheesy today, but thankfully it’s not too bad and it’s kept to a minimum. And while most of the costumes are okay, the brother’s final Gi uniforms are downright laughable (please note how they edited out all the sparkly shit in the posters and other production material). It looks like somebody in costuming got a new rhinestone machine, because they bedazzled the hell out of those outfits, which I’m sure was a major letdown to the gaming fans. On the plus side though, the backgrounds they used for the devastated city are absolutely excellent. I don’t know what person or group was responsible for those, but I hope they were paid well, cause those things were stunning.


I mean…for 1994 this could have been way worse.


This…couldn’t be much worse.


This isn’t bad though!

So, uh, yeah…. Double Dragon is a mess. Not as much of a mess as it could be, and there’s still a ton of stuff that I didn’t touch on, but it’s still pretty bad. I could probably write a thesis on how almost every choice they made here was a terrible idea. I mean, I’m not, because that would be a lot of work and I’m lazy, but the point is I COULD if I were so motivated. It’s that bad. But it’s still not the worst I’ve seen (not by a long shot) and it’s campy as hell, so I was entertained. Confused and bemused perhaps, but still entertained. Fans of the video game series this is based on will likely absolutely hate this, as will any people hoping to find a coherent plot. But if you like cheesy 90s action movies, this one might be worth the watch just for the craziness. And while it’s okay for the kids (they’ll probably love the silly action sequences), I can’t imagine too many of them being all that impressed with this. There is way better entertainment out there for them these days that contains better stories, better characters, better pacing and doesn’t involve disturbing obsessions with Alyssa Milano’s ass.

Double Dragon is available on a variety of streaming services.

Double Dragon is also available on DVD and Bluray.

Helpful Links: