For a movie I knew nothing about and had only read a generic one-sentence description, this film turned out to be a good movie!The story is entertaining and fascinating, the violence is story driven and not unnecessarily used but while the movie did start out entertaining, it did start to lose it's way after the halfway point.There is very little action, it's mostly drama driven, but there is a graphic torture scene. It's well acted mostly by unknowns (well to me anyway) with the only people I knew were Harry Shum Jr (Glee) and Ray Liotta (Goodfellas). There is twist at the end and because it's based on a true story, there are some details on where some the characters are now.This is a film that is okay to watch once but I don't see myself watching it again.

Revenge of the Green Dragons is US debut of Hong Kong's celebrated director, Wai-Keung Lau (who co-directs) famous for Infernal Affairs.Revenge of the Green Dragons has Martin Scorsese as Executive Director. Scorsese won a Best Director Oscar for The Departed which was the American remake of Infernal Affairs, so he repays the favour.The film follows Sonny and Steven, two Chinese immigrant kids who become best friends and become involved with a Triad gang called The Green Dragons in 1980s New York. The films see these two friends rise amongst these ruthless gangsters and eventually Steven makes a fatal mistake while Sonny has had enough of the senseless violence and abuse such as the casual rape of Chinese women.The film's narration overpowers the film. It looks cheap with horrible cinematography. The acting is two dimensional and so is the script. You would not think this film is made by a legend of Hong Kong cinema.You might as well watch Year of the Dragon if you want to see a superior film about Chinese gangsters in America.

This movie was bad, really really bad. Where the hell was Scorsese? Did they just stick his name in the credits to trick unsuspecting movie goers to go and watch a mediocre movie? Because if they did it definitely worked on me.The only good thing about this movie is that luckily it is only 90 minutes long. If it was any longer I would have stopped watching.Even the big twist at the end was boring as hell. I was sitting there waiting for the big climactic finale and then it was just like oh yea, that just happened. Thanks for coming. This is a typical movie where the trailer has the best parts and it only serves to lure you to watch a mediocre film.

While watching this film I could not believe that it was made by the same director responsible for the excellent Young and Dangerous and Infernal Affairs sagas. What went wrong here? I suppose its the director's inability to understand American culture which I find rather surprising since this is not the first time he makes a film outside Hong Kong. It is obvious he doesn't know very well the society he wants to talk about therefore the film fails both as a crime film and a study of the life of Chinese living abroad. It's more Tokyo Drift than Once Upon A Time in America, the casting and accents are terrible, there is no third act, and a couple of decent actors get entirely wasted in this cliché ridden mishmash. It's not even worth watching for the violence. Even though there is a certain amount of bloodshed there is nothing memorable or too shocking. I'm sure that the director will continue to make good films in the future but this effort falls flat on its face.