When you tell your movie poster designers to include ALL the action from your movie...
The Dragon Family is a 1988 Hong Kong Heroic Bloodshed action movie starring Andy Lau, Alan Tam and Max Mok.
One of Hong Kong's leading triad family, the Lung triad led by Lung Ying, is waning in power. Lung Ying has decided to no longer dabble in the drug trade and go straight with legitimate business, but his right-hand man, White Wolf and frequent collaborator, Tsui, persists on continuing with the drug trafficking business. When Lung Ying threatens to have them expelled, they instead decide to have the entire Lung family executed and take over.
After assassinating Lung Ying and killing off most of the Lung family in a shockingly long and brutal massacre scene during Lung Ying's funeral, three brothers - Lung Ka-wah (Andy Lau), Lung Ka-yip (Alan Tam), Lung Ka-chung (Max Mok), not biologically related but sharing the same surnames for being part of the family, have to work together and avenge the Lung family.
This film contains examples of:
- Acrofatic: Sergeant Po, played by the chubby Kent Cheng, who can kick a surprising amount of ass despite his size. Unfortunately, he doesn’t fare as well in a foot chase when outnumbered, which results in him tiring out from running and quickly shot dead.
- Alliterative Family: Lung Ka-wah (Andy Lau), Lung Ka-yip (Alan Tam), Lung Ka-chung (Max Mok).
- Badass Pacifist: Lung Ka-wah stays out of violence and killings throughout the movie, but he can still kick ass and fight. And when pushed too far, he’s willing to finally break his Thou Shall Not Kill rule and start taking names.
- Badass Family: The Lung brothers, Lung Ka-yip, Lung Ka-wah, and Lung Ka-chung.
- Bad Boss: Tsui, who is willing to backstab anyone on the same ranks as him to earn his Klingon Promotion in the triads, and when finding out his right-hand man, Kui, was captured by the Lung brothers and taken hostage, nonchalantly orders his mooks to kill everyone – Kui included.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Caught in the cross fire of the final shootout, Kui ends up wetting his pants. And slips on the puddle of his own piss!
- Death of a Child: During the Lung family massacre, Lung Ying’s grandson, barely 6 years of age, is among the casualties.
- Desecrating the Dead: White Wolf shows up during Lung Ying’s funeral, but only with the intention to repeatedly gloat about how his new triad business will flourish and that the Lung family are fools for not following into the drug business. Of course, his arrival is actually to signal his henchmen to ambush and massacre everyone in the funeral.
- Drugs Are Bad: Lung Ying, patriarch of the Lung family, is willing to have his syndicate perform any kind of illicit activities, except drugs. In fact, his refusal to partake in the drug business ends up causing a schism in his subordinates, triggering the bigger plot of the movie.
- Family Title: Lung means "Dragon" in Chinese, and most of the movie features thew ups and downs of the Lung triad family.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Lung Ka-wah delivers one of these to the youngest brother, Lung Ka-chung, after their mother's death telling him to snap out of his Heroic BSoD.
- Human Shield: Kui ends up being one held by Lung Ka-chung during the final shootout. He's also a Bulletproof Human Shield, soaking more than a dozen rounds before being flung aside as a distraction.
- Improvised Weapon: More than once, notably during fight scenes.
- Lung Ka-chung strangles an assassin sent by Tsui after him using a clothes hanger.
- While fighting the American drug dealer working for Tsui, Lung Ka-yip bites a shard of glass and use it to slice his opponent's jugular.
- In the same fight scene, the second American drug dealer tries to retaliate by using his Briefcase Full of Money as a club. Predictably, his briefcase ends up getting kicked out of his hands sending loads and loads of hundred-dollar bills all over the air, with him exasperatedly shouting, "My money!"
- While Tsui tries swinging a sword towards the unarmed Lung Ka-wah, Lung momentarily grabs a table lamp to block the sword, and fend off his opponent as he makes his way to another sword nearby.
- Karmic Death:
- Wolf decides to betray his closest ally, Lung Ying, to take over his position in the triad. He gets immediately betrayed and killed by his newest closest ally, Tsui, roughly ten minutes later.
- Tsui, in an effort to Leave No Survivors, had his henchmen kill off the Lung brothers’ mother by lighting her on fire. In the climatic finale the Lung brothers roasts Tsui alive.
- Last Disrespects: The Lung family massacre happens during Lung Ying’s very funeral, with the mourners actually being Tsui’s minions waiting to whip out machine-guns from their robes and start killing everybody.
- Man on Fire: Tsui’s final fate, being set on fire after Lung Ka-chung smashes a Molotov Cocktail on where he stands. For good measure, he ends up jumping out of a nearby window as he burns, forgetting that he is currently on the penthouse level.
- Mexican Standoff: Happens briefly in the climax, when a bunch of mooks gets the drop on the Lung brothers just as the brothers holds a Mook Lieutenant at gunpoint too.
- Rage Breaking Point: Lung Ka-wah is a pacifist and despite losing most of his family to Tsui, he’s more willing to work as a pimp to support his ill and crippled mother rather than try to seek revenge. But when Tsui had his mooks kill off Lung’s mother, finally Lung Ka-wah decides to grab his shotgun and go on a rampage.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Wolf, after deciding to work with Tsui to betray Lung Ying and initiate the family massacre, congratulates Tsui on becoming his newest partner. Tsui is not amused and shoots Wolf in the gut repeatedly from point-blank range, and throws Wolf off a balcony. The camera even zooms in on Wolf’s face that simply says "WTF"?
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The final shootout between the Lung brothers and Tsui’s syndicate, where the three brothers are pretty much on a Self-Destructive Charge to kill absolutely everybody affiliated with Tsui before offing Tsui in the most painful way possible to avenge their massacred family.
- Speak Ill of the Dead: White Wolf shows up in Lung Ying’s funeral, claiming that he’s to pay his last respects, but ends up gloating in a passive-aggressive way about his superiority in the drug trade.
- Sword Fight: A very fierce and bloody one happens between Lung Ka-wah and Tsui in the final battle, as both combatants uses up all their firearms' ammunition and decide to grab swords which are hanging from the walls as decorations.
- The Triads and the Tongs: Most of the movie is about a power struggle in a once-flourishing triad family, and the consequences it leaves on three brothers which are part of it.
- Trouser Space: In the final shootout, Lung Ka-wah hides a shotgun in his trousers. Which allows him to gun down mooks by shoving his hand in his pockets and pointing his foot at his target.
- Water Torture: Part of the Lung brothers’ method of grilling Kui, as part of their Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique to force Kui to reveal Tsui’s private hideout.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: There are two American drug dealers working for Tsui in the finale, and while one of them is killed by Lung Ka-yip, the other is beaten into a pulp and collapses on a nearby armchair, but didn't die. He never shows up for the rest of the film.
