Dragon Fury

In plague-ridden 2099 A.D., non-conformist warrior Mason (Robert Chapin) battles the Gestapo-style tactics of Vestor (Richard Lynch), a warlord determined to safeguard his world-domination at all costs. Having witnessed the rubbing-out of his own family by Vestor's nastiest persuader, Fullock (T.J Storm), Mason prevails upon quirky inventor Milton (Chuck Loch) to allow him and companion Regina (Chona M. Jason) to board his time machine to an epoch where he can acquire a vaccine for the deadly disease Vestor uses a form of population control.

In a flashback set in 1999, it is established that on the eve of a big earthquake in L.A., Dr. White was murdered for discovering an antidote for a disease artificially engineered by the medical establishment.

With an escape window of only 36 hours, Mason ends up in a 1999 hospital with buddy Regina and then Fullock and another cutthroat dogging his trail. Despite the skepticism of Dr. Ruth Ames (Deborah Stambler), Mason and Regina fend off dragon warriors from the future in the medic's parking garage. Although Mason and company escape after slaying Fullock's right-hand-assassin, Fullock survives a car crash in good enough shape to slaughter Regina outside a motel. With the cooperation of an associate of Dr. Ames, Mason obtains security codes enabling him to penetrate the facility where Dr. White secreted his formula. In defeating Fullock, Mason gets mortally wounded. When Vestor joins the 1999 free-for-all, dying Mason sets fire to the archfiend while Dr. Ames slips into the future to save mankind with the precious vaccine.

Directed with little skill and scripted with a staggering lack of imagination, DRAGON FURY is an insult to genre buffs. Not only does the camera always drift to the worst position for capturing the action, but the flaccid editing makes each mini-swashbuckling interlude seem like an unexpected visitor from a better film. Like punching bags, the groggy-looking extras stand poised waiting to get pummeled; the sound is so faded and the music so humdrum that they drag down the energy buzz of each martial arts sequence. In addition to its somnambulistic combat sequences, the film tumbles into a downward spiral through the insertion of extraneous, poorly integrated flashbacks that retard suspense.

Whereas Chapin bops about like a surfer with kung fu skills and Storm emotes in that constipatory Hulk Hogan style favored by many athletes-turned-actors, Chuck Loch is so weirdly over-the-top one would think his entire knowledge of acting was based on repeated viewings of SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS. And why, with only 36 hours to save humanity from enslavement to disease, does Mason pause for a lengthy hospital recuperation, numerous ruminative flashbacks, and an energetic bout of motel sex with buxom Regina? Clearly, this character exhibits more confidence than the numbingly familiar movie he inhabits.(Graphic violence, extensive nudity, profanity.) leave a comment