- Kowloon: "So, where is hell, exactly?"Sinclair: "Hell, is where you die!"
The Invincible Dragon is a 2019 action-fantasy film directed by Fruit Chan (YES, that really is his name) starring Zhang Jin and long-time MMA professional Anderson Silva.
Kowloon (Jin) is a fighter-turned-policeman who claims to have encountered a nine-headed dragon as a child, and was inspired by the dragon to become a fighter. When Sinclair (Silva), a former rival of Kowloon he defeated years ago, returns a criminal and serial killer, Kowloon had to stop Sinclair at all costs in a deadly rematch.
This film contains the following tropes:
- Action Prologue: Kowloon confronting Uncle and his mooks in the opening scene, where he takes them all down, One-Man Army style.
- All Just a Dream: The movie plays with this, implying that Kowloon's childhood encounter with the Nine-headed dragon is just a childhood dream his mind perceives as reality, until at the end of the movie the dragon finally appears and devoures the fleeing Sinclair, proving that Kowloon's childhood memory is Real After All.
- An Arm and a Leg: Kowloon, after killing off Uncle's thugs in the restaurant / wedding banquet shootout, disarms Uncle by shooting his wrist repeatedly. Resulting in Uncle's severed arm flying across the dining room and landing on a table where four guests are eating.
- Bald of Evil: Sinclair.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: Kowloon and Sinclair shouts, "That's my line!" to each other during their first mano-on-mano confrontation.Sinclair: "Thanks to you, I'm now stronger, that you expected."Kowloon: "That's my line."(minutes later, in the same brawl)Kowloon: "Bring it on, asshole."Sinclair: "THAT'S MY LINE!"
- Cop Killer: Sinclair, who killed four policewomen prior to the start of the movie. Most of the film is spent on finding out the mysterious policewomen-killer, which is later revealed to be Sinclair.
- Deliberately Monochrome: Sinclair's past, remembering how his son died from running into the crowded Hong Kong traffic, is filmed through a brown-white filter.
- Destination Defenestration: Sinclair, at the end of his first fight against Kowloon, ends up being shoved through a tall window where he ends up rolling down an adjacent slope. He gets better.
- Facial Horror: During the rematch between Kowloon and Sinclair in an office, both combatants knocks over a table full of equipment, causing boxes of thumbtacks to be scattered all over the floor. Sinclair managed to knock down Kowloon near to where the tacks are spilled and shoves Kowloon's face on them, and as Kowloon get back on his feet, several thumbtacks are visibly embedded all over his face. Unfazed, he responds by pulling out the tacks one-by-one, and audiences can clearly see the holes on his cheek.
- Fat Bastard: The triad boss only known as "Uncle", played by tubby actor Lam Suet.
- Firing in the Air a Lot: Kowloon, at the end of the film after wrestling Sinclair's pistol from him, decides to fire shots above, behind, below and beside him to intimidate Sinclair to take him on in a fist-to-fist brawl.
- Hanging by the Fingers: Kowloon, in the climax, ends up hanging on the girders of a skyscraper after attempting to tackle Sinclair off a balcony.
- Like Reality, Unless Noted: On one hand, this is a rather standard police action drama. On the other hand, there is a REAL, genuine, Nine-headed dragon that lives in the Bay of Hong Kong.
- A Minor Kidroduction: Kowloon's first scene in the movie, when he encounters the Nine-headed dragon as a child.
- Misplaced Retribution: Sinclair's vendetta against Kowloon is spurred by the death of his son... never-mind the fact that in actuality, after Sinclair lose to Kowloon in combat years ago, his son actually ran away from him out of shame and end up getting run over by a vehicle.
- Oh, Crap!: Sinclair, when his escape boat gets cornered by the Nine-headed dragon.
- Orochi: The Nine-headed dragon Kowloon believe he saw as a child invokes a traditional Orochi-like beast. At the end of the film, it's revealed that the dragon really did exist.
- Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: See the page quote.
- Reveal Shot: During Kowloon's narration of his childhood flashback, he narrates about his encounter with the dragon as a kid, where the beast resembles your average Chinese dragon. And then, Kowloon said it has nine heads, at which point eight additional dragon heads suddenly shows up from behind the first.
- Roofhopping: Occurs in the scene where Kowloon pursues Jane from her penthouse to balconies and high awnings above city buildings.
- Scary Black Man: Sinclair, played by Anderson Silva.
- Tattooed Crook: Kowloon, after his alleged childhood meeting with the nine-headed dragon, had a tattoo depicting the beast on his biceps. And at the end of the movie, Sinclair have tattoos all over his abs too when he remove his shirt to fight Kowloon.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: By the final battle, both Kowloon and Sinclair ends up stripping themselves of their shirts, and spends the second half of their fight bare-chested.
- Wedding Smashers: In the opening action scene, Kowloon pursues Uncle from his hideout to the banquet hall where a wedding is being held, where they both end up crashing between the bride and groom, leaping over dining tables, scaring away several guests and attendees, before culminating with Kowloon shooting Uncle dead in front of a hundred people. In the same hall where a wedding was being held.
