Jackie Chan reunites with his "brothers" for the action love story DRAGONS FOREVER, on Blu-ray from 88 Films.

When local fishery owner Miss Yip (singer Deannie Ip, TWINKLE TWINKLE LUCKY STARS) threatens to file an injunction against a factory upstream owned by gangster Tung (Yuen Wah, HUMAN LANTERNS) that is polluting the river, he tries to buy her business but she refuses. Rather than having her killed, Tung decides to bury her in litigation, hiring morally dubious attorney Jackie Lung (Chan) – who is introduced questioning the character of a rape victim and subsequently beating up his own client after he wins the case – who then separately hires schizophrenic tech wizard Ling (Yuen Biao, DRAGON FROM SHAOLIN) to bug Yip's house and a private detective amusingly nicknamed Wong Fei-Hung (Sammo Hung, THE VICTIM) to romance Yip and try to convince her to sell the factory. Having neglected to tell the two men about one another, Chan finds himself running interference between the two when Wong mistakes Ling for a burglar in Yip's house, all the while also trying to keep Yip's cousin and the case's oceanography consultant Wan (Pauline Yeung, HOLY VIRGIN VS THE EVIL DEAD) from discovering his duplicity. It does not help, that his previous defendant has also sent his thugs after him to get revenge. When Wong falls in love with Yip for real, he thinks the only honorable thing he can do is try to deal with the factory himself; whereupon he discovers the true nature of Tung's manufacturing business and puts everyone in mortal danger.

Despite the title DRAGONS FOREVER, this was the last film in which Chan, Hung, and Yuen – popularly known as "The Three Brothers" since they grew up together in the Peking Opera school – would appear together in a film, having reunited after a falling out between Hung and Chan sometime after the historical comedy PROJECT A (in which all three also appeared). The same year, Chan helmed the highly successful POLICE STORY 2 while Hung directed himself and Biao in the more serious action flick EASTERN CONDORS (Chan would cameo in Biao's subsequent star vehicle KID FROM TIBET while Hung would choreograph Chan's THUNDERBOLT and cameo in the Australia-lensed MR. NICE GUY). While the climax of the film does boast an exhilarating extended fight scene with all three stars, spry Wah, Chan's entire stunt team of extras – not to mention karate champ Benny "The Jet" Urquidez, who had first appeared with The Three Brothers in the Spain-lensed WHEELS ON MEALS, as Tung's right hand man – the action set-pieces are actually few and far between, with much too much time spent on comedy and romantic romps set to the cloying theme song "When We Touch" performed by Chan and late actress Anita Mui (who would subsequently co-star with Chan in his A POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES remake MR. CANTON AND LADY ROSE as well as RUMBLE IN THE BRONX). Biao, who Hong Kong cinema critics (including those featured on this release) have characterized as being a great athlete but lacking the same degree of charisma as Chan and Hung, gets more to do here with his mental ticks, inventions, and two additional scenes that only appeared in export and overseas versions of the film (more on that below). All in all, while it is an entertaining venture, DRAGONS FOREVER is not the swan song to The Brothers' one would have hoped for (although there's still time).

Although a slightly longer English export version (98 minutes) of the film was prepared, DRAGONS FOREVER was unreleased in the United States at the time but it was picked up in the nineties by Miramax – who released redubbed, rescored versions of several Chan films like SUPERCOP, OPERATION CONDOR, TWIN DRAGONS, and the PROJECT A films among others through their Dimension Films label theatrically and direct-to-video and subsequently more faithful DVD versions of the POLICE STORY films and CRIME STORY through their short-lived HK cinema connoisseur label Dragon Dynasty – but they did nothing with the title. A laserdisc from Tai Seng Marketing featured a letterboxed transfer of the Hong Kong version (94 minutes) with English subtitles while their subsequent DVD was fullscreen with optional subtitles. The Hong Kong version got a theatrical and VHS release in the U.K., and owner Fortune Star subsequently provided a digital master of that cut when it was picked up for DVD by British boutique label Hong Kong Legends (although the export version-specific scenes were included as extras). The film's Blu-ray debut was in Hong Kong on the Kam & Ronson Enterprises label followed by a German release from Splendid Film and a Japanese release from Paramount but the master was an upscale as usual with the early Fortune Star Blu-rays. The Japanese version of the film titled CYCLONE Z having included not only the export version scenes but also a closing credit crawl with outtakes while the export and Hong Kong version ran the credits over the closing scene, and it was included as an extra on the Japanese disc, but only by way of augmenting the Fortune Star master with SD footage.

88 Films' 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray is derived from a brand new 4K restoration. While the film dates from a period where prettifying diffusion was sometimes used not only in romantic scenes but also in bright, sunny exteriors, the transfer is sharp throughout with colors that pop while night scenes have depth and inky shadows (most impressive is the introduction to Biao's character who lives in a workshop lit by vivid neon signs). The Hong Kong version of the film (94:25) includes the original Cantonese mono track in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 as well as a 5.1 remix created exclusively for 88 Films based on the mono track rather than the Fortune Star remix heard on other editions. Fortune Star also prepared a new English dub which is included here in DTS 5.1 while Golden Harvest's original export dub has been included here in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono as a hybrid track patched with Fortune Star's newer dub for scenes not included in the export version. While the Cantonese mono track is the way to go, the Golden Harvest track was actually one of the better English dubs prepared at the time for a Jackie Chan film and also features an English-language version of the Chan/Mui theme song. Optional English subtitles are included for the Cantonese track as well as a second track enabled with the English audio to translate Chinese text.

The film is accompanied by a new audio commentary by Hong Kong cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema – who have also contributed commentary tracks to Eureka Video's recent Hong Kong action film releases – discussing the Peking Opera training of Chan, Hung, and Biao, as well as reasons for their falling out including the clashing directing styles of Hung and Chan – Hung favoring more brutality mixed in with comedy – and notes that the film was not well-received because it characterized Chan's hero as a flirt in contrast to his usual attached hero with a long-suffering girlfriend/fiancée who gets jealous of other flirtatious females and put in danger constantly. They also discuss the co-stars and supporting performers like Crystal Kwok as Jackie's long suffering assistant (noting that she got out of acting because of being offered too many roles like this), and the various cuts of the film (including a video recording of a Thai screening in which one man dubbed all of the dialogue live).

The disc also contains a series of new and old interviews, starting with "Benny Forever" (24:35) in which actor Urquidez, the son of a Mexican wrester and boxer, recalls getting into martial arts specifically because he wanted to fight Bruce Lee who died before that could happen, and getting into other forms before being contacted to appear in WHEELS ON MEALS in Spain with Chan who built up crew morale by challenging him to a fight that was hotly anticipated but never happened, as well as working out their differing choreography in response to each other's moves, and learning how to act as an extension of his physical performance. In "Discussing Dragons Forever" (6:59), academic David Desser discusses the popularity of Chan's films internationally but noting that the golden age of his eighties films are often overlooked by those who appreciate his more widely distributed Hollywood product. In "Hong Kong Cinema Forever" (6:05), Leeder – who came to Hong Kong as a young man out of his love for the films that made their way to England and worked for a time in television commercials as an actor – discusses meeting Chan, Hung, and Biao on different occasions and how the latter is often underrated as an actor and performer.

In "Working with the Dragons" (6:15), British martial artist Jude Poyer discusses working with Chan on THE MEDALLION, Hung on KNOCK OFF, and Biao on A MAN CALLED HERO, and his opinion that Hung is the better director of action, Chan has the better onscreen persona, but that Biao is the superior athlete. In "Double Jeopardy" (26:36), Australian martial artist Brad Allen recalls getting a scholarship to study in China and working with him on the Australia-lensed MR. NICE GUY followed by the globe-hopping WHO AM I?, and continuing to work with him through 2012 with CHINESE ZODIAC. In "Beyond Gravity" (13:01), Canadian martial artist Joe Eigo recalls visiting Chan on the set of THE TUXEDO and training for a year with his stunt team and getting to work with him the next year on THE MEDALLION. In "Kick Fighter" (38:45), martial artist Andy Cheng recalls first working as a stunt double for Chan when he injured himself on MR. NICE GUY and Chan saving his life during an underwater stunt in a later film. "Thai Breaker" (34:10) is more of a short documentary on Thai kickboxer Billy Chow (HIGH RISK) featuring a long prologue of comments from his friends and family intercut with a match before getting to Chow twelve minutes in, discussing his fighting career and working first with Hung on EASTERN CONDORS and then Hung, Chan, and Biao on DRAGONS FOREVER on which he notes that there were actually three separate filming units consisting of Hung and his crew, Chan and his stunt team, and Wah and his team. "The Legacy of DRAGONS FOREVER" (2:33) is an extremely short featurette with soundbite comments from contemporary actors and martial artists: director Troy Sandford (SONG OF THE ASSASSINS), stuntman Chris Jones (BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE), director Ross Boyask (I AM VENGEANCE), actress/martial artist Maria Tran (FIST OF THE DRAGON), Leeder, stuntman Jean-Paul Ly (NIGHTSHOOTERS), stuntman Mark Strange (RED 2), stuntman Mike Moeller (PANDORUM), director George Clarke (ONUS), Poyer, and director Steve Lawson (HELLRISER).