Linkshoch Wonderful Movie

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Micransix Crappy film

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

rockoforza This martial arts action movie should be titled Latin "dragons," because most every fighter in it is a latino badass. The hero is Fabian Carrillo, a martial arts champion in real life, cast as a former hit-man for the CIA. We see him in his past life, assassinating whomever the government told him to, but leaving him scarred and wanting to do right. His brother is a tough L.A. street cop, played by Luis Ramos. Together they are trying to protect the residents of the barrio from a gang of vatos working for Gary Busey and his main enforcer, Lorenzo Lamas.The movie is non-stop action with shootouts, street fights and assassinations -- with the violence mostly latino on latino. Carillo and Ramos are both well-muscled studs whose brutal skills raise the body count early and often. The vatos are led by Robert LaSardo, whose ripped physique is covered in gang tats, and who kills without remorse. His crew is, likewise, street-muscle bodybuilders. Though impressive, their size doesn't help when Carillo raids the vatos's headquarters and, in a series of awesome fights, slays most of these inked latino musclemen with his bare hands.There are crosses and double crosses, including when Busey coldly discards his henchman LaSardo by ordering Lamas to put a bullet in the vato's head so he can set up Carillo for the murder. Lamas carries out the assignment, leaving the alpha dog's body on display for the cops – including Carillo's brother – to find. His arrest leads to a series of showdowns and more surprise double crosses, with Carillo first taking down a huge anglo biker named "Mad Dog" (pretty much the only non-latino he ices in this flick,) before savagely executing Lamas in a vicious fight. Finally the evil Busey is made to pay the ultimate price at the lethal hands of the Latin Dragon.This movie might be the first martial arts flick to feature a goodlooking latino stud as a kickass hero and Carillo definitely fits the bill. Though a villain, LaSardo's powerful physical presence spotlights him, especially in his fight scenes. In fact, most of the fights feature built young latinos whose martial arts moves and sculpted bodies make for some convincing action. Whether you are latino or not, if you enjoy martial arts, you'll like "Latin Dragon."

dee.reid There's a certain kind of movie that should always appeal to anyone who truly appreciates movies, and that's of the late-night variety. No, I'm not talking about late-night soft-core porn shows/movies, but it's really more of the late-night, "B"-movie action fanfare.2004's "Latin Dragon" is one of those movies.The film was directed by Scott Brown and co-written by Fabian Carrillo (who according to the blurbs on this movie's cover art), is the world's first Latin martial arts hero/sensation. Now I'm not sure about the exact validity of such a claim, but I guess I'll have to take it as the literal truth since as a fan of martial arts and martial arts movies, I cannot come up with a single martial arts actor who is said to be of Hispanic heritage.According to his biography here on IMDb, Carrillo was born in South America (his specific country of birth is not listed), but was raised in The Bronx, New York; having been raised here in the United States, it certainly explains his surprisingly firm grasp of the English language, despite the occasional odd word or two of Spanish-language dialogue in the movie. He is also a three-time national Karate champion and holds five black belts in three fighting disciplines. So he certainly has the goods as a fighter, but can he act?For my late-night viewing pleasure, watching a Latin martial artist on TV was a welcome change. Carrillo is a dynamic presence on the screen and he definitely has a future in American martial arts movies, if he ever gets that big - he appears to be a likable all-around good guy, and all he really needs to do is develop the necessary acting skills to better carry a film production. Hence, that's what I got out of watching "Latin Dragon": he is certainly one to look out for, though I am kind of surprised that this movie came out in 2004 and he has not been picked up yet for at least an appearance as a villain in a mainstream American studio production (you hearing me calling you, right, Mr. Robert Rodriguez, Mr. Quentin Tarantino?)."Latin Dragon" has a by-the-numbers plot that is also an iconic riff on western movies: Carrillo plays the typical lone hero Danny Silva, a world-weary expert in Karate and former government assassin, who returns to his old neighborhood in East Los Angeles riding high a ruby-red Kawasaki motorcycle. He discovers that the neighborhood is being terrorized by violent Latino gang members under the leadership of Paco (Robert LaSardo), who also happens to be in league with Bishop Thorn (all-purpose bad guy Gary Busey, hamming it up as a stereotypical villain in the film's most enthusiastic performance), a greedy land developer who wants the poor working-class Hispanics and Asians to move out so he can build a major city. Danny goes to work beating up the legions of bad guys sent in his general direction, while also reuniting with his cop-brother Rafael (Luis Ramos) and childhood sweetheart Claudia (Joyce Giraud), while also trying to save his community that he loves so much.As I stated earlier, the movie is pretty typical martial arts/action movie fanfare. I wouldn't expect much considering it's a low-budget production, but it's an interesting one with promise for its chief protagonist. It certainly kept my attention, since Carrillo proves to be a dynamic fighting presence on the screen, even if he isn't really the best actor in the world.One thing that may annoy some people are the "Matrix"-like CGI special effects that pop up during some of the film's action sequences. But I guess that since it was made in 2004 - one year after the dual threats of "The Matrix Reloaded" (2003) and "The Matrix Revolutions" (2003) and every other clone in the wake of "The Matrix" (1999) and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000) - every action movie big & small had to have slow-motion "Matrix"-inspired action sequences. And Carrillo's most impressive fight scene has him battling Thorn's right-hand man Frank (Lorenzo Lamas).It'll be interesting to see what the future holds in store for Fabian Carrillo.5/10

lloyd-49 This movie has a real story behind all the action with finally, a Latino action hero! The acting is good and the fighting is great and feels real as well as unique, not all the fancy wireworks like most of the martial arts action movies today. It's edgy and depicts the bad guys as what we see in true life today! It's almost scary. Fabian Carrillo did great first time out of the gate as compared to Jean Claude and Steven Segal in their first movie. He has presence on screen and at times has hints of very successful actors. In the cemetery scene he looks like Nick Cage, in the suit he looks like Stallone and at times like John Cusack. He's going to be a big star. This movie kicks ass!

tequila_mockingbird This movie made me think of what it might be like if Ray Romano decided to do martial arts. Fabian Corillo looked just like Ray in that one where Ray was trying to act cool and got a tan and dyed his hair black.Seriously, the acting was pretty bad, and the fighting was pretty... eh. The shots were edgy for the first 3 minutes and then they over-did it with 'edgy'. Then they over-did it with 'edgy'. Then they over-did it with 'edgy'. It was like a broken record with the speeding up and slowing down and almost stopping the camera. It's like back in school if you had the hyper kid running the movie projector. "Stop playing around Tommy!"Still, there was some minor charm in this film. And to quote Jules Winnfield (Pulp Fiction), "Charm goes a long way." Still, watching it only one time would be fine with me.Interesting house "the Dragon" has at the end. If you go for that "post-hurricane" look. Was that supposed to be his "Fortress of Solitude"??If this comes to television, it's worth watching. In fact it has a made-for-TV look to it. 4/10