VIDEO VISIONS - Double Dragon (1994)

Double Dragon: The Movie was released to audiences in 1994, a mere month before the Street Fighter film so I guess the video game trend was really kicking in at this point. Being loosely based on the superb 1987 arcade game by Technos, Double Dragon is an action adventure film with a little martial arts thrown in for good measure but is it any good?

I knew of this film's production back in the day and I deliberately avoided it because I pretty much knew it wouldn't be accurate to the game and was probably shite. Cut to 21 years later and I finally sit down to watch it and in doing so I am nostalgia free and 100% objective. To kick us off, Double Dragon has to be one of the most 90's looking films ever made. Flannel shirts and floppy hairdo's abound along with colourful distressed graffiti style art and costumes. Even the music in the film sounds a bit like a SNES in places. The film is set in a post apocalyptic style world where cyber punks roam the streets and scum lurks in every corner, which sounds pretty much like the game but there are changes present although seemingly unnecessary ones. The action has shifted from New York to some form of futuristic Los Angeles and instead of being a post nuclear war world like in the game it's set after a huge earthquake. The pseudo news reports give a small but comical Robocop waft to the proceedings but they disappear in the second half of the film leaving you wondering if they were really any good at all!

Shouldn't one of you be blonde?

One wonders why they even bothered to make these changes but the fact is that the script for Double Dragon probably started out life as a completely different action story and lay dormant on someone's desk in Hollywood in a pile of 'stock' screenplays. With the gathering pace of the 'game to film' trend these scripts were probably rummaged through to find the one that was 'sort of' closest to the arcade game plot and tweaked to fit in the Lee brothers and had the other characters names changed to that of the game. Presumably due to some sort of artistic rights for the writer and to save time plus not really giving a shit, the major points of the script remained unchanged and that's probably why some of the differences such as Machine Gun Willy (the final boss from the game) has been omitted completely in favour of Robert Patrick's character Koga Shuko.

Have you seen this boy?

To get to the film itself I'm surprised to say that Double Dragon is actually quite good fun! Unlike the hideous Street Fighter film where only Raul Julia's theatrics and Kylie Minogue's arse were any kind of plus points, Double Dragon has a borderline amount of charm to it which is surprising considering the script is (really) terrible even for a film of this kind and the acting isn't much better but it's executed fairly competently and it's really rather hard to hate despite it's glaring flaws. The Lee twins look absolutely nothing like their arcade counterparts (or twins for that matter) although the effort has been made to nearly always dress Billy in some sort of blue coloured clothes and similarly Red with Jimmy as in the game. The characteristics are somewhat present and correct though I had always assumed Billy to be the sensible one whereas Jimmy was the hot headed impulsive twin but whether this is a result of study of the game or just common traits for protagonists of a film of this kind is unknown but there it is.

Lovely biscuits

The cast is a rather peppered array of talent with lots of what you would expect and a few surprises too. Scott Wolf as Billy Lee is the most annoying prick you are likely to encounter this side of the millennium and his brattish antics chip away at you like a neighbour's bad techno party at 2am. Add to the fact that Wolf can't even act the goat ranks him even higher on the arsehole meter than everyone else. On the flipside Mark Dacascos does rather well. Mark is a very accomplished martial artist in real life and after Double Dragon starred in top notch action films such as 'Drive' and even won the part in The Crow TV series due to his rather eerie likeness to Brandon Lee. Robert Patrick is just Cheesehammer 5000 in the film as he swans around the set completely hamming it up to the point if you don't know if he is taking the piss or not. It’s a major change from the icy and iconic role he played as the T-1000 in Terminator 2 three years earlier but I chose to find it charming and fun and although he is no patch on Raul Julia in Street Fighter he certainly looks like he's having some giggles as he struts around the wobbly sets chewing his terrible dialogue. Nils Allen Stewart plays the character of Abobo, a very major and recognisable character in the game but here he is reduced to some sort of walking scrotum with layers of fake looking prosthetic make up plastered on a man who really should be no where near a film set in the first place due to his borderline suicidal acting ability. Contrary to this is the rather nice point is that Linda Lash (Linda from the game) is given rather a substantial role in the film. Looking like a complete whore and rather tasty with it she is Koga Shuko's right hand woman and hold a position of some authority which is rather nice given her rather limited role in the game of basically fist fodder and (presumably) gang pump. Alyssa Milano as Marion is neither here nor there and seems to simply be in the film to give the occasional arse flash to the boys and act cringingly tough with her faux tank girl attitude, pseudo suspendered jeans and lesbian haircut and bears no resemblance to the game character whatsoever.


The film actually looks not bad in places. The special effects are without a doubt TV quality, even for the 90's but some wide shots with nice looking matte paintings of crumbling buildings and futuristic skylines occasionally appear and make you sit up slightly and go “Oh!” although it would have been nicer if they were used more but the fact they are there at all is something good. Make no mistake about it, this really is a kids film. The action is exactly what you would expect from it's ilk with some tame, cartoonish style fight scenes with only Dacascos getting to show off some flashy kicks now and then, all interlaced with Gorgonzola smothered humour that's laughable more for the execution rather than the content.

Not a terrific likeness!

It's such a shame that a more accurate film that followed the arcade game wasn't made because really, the plot of the game is honestly no worse than the medallion cobblers that is presented in the film and it would have been a superb chance to hear that absolutely glorious game music being played fully synthed up and to a proper fight scene!


To summarise, Double Dragon is a fun film that is a slice of pure cheddar. It's a complete product of it's time so for that it has quite a bit of viewer pull and is reminiscent of what Masters of The Universe did for the 80's although Double Dragon is nowhere near as good but the feeling is similar. I who is detached emotionally and nostalgically from the film found some enjoyment in viewing although I doubt it will have much, if any repeat value as I don't think I'll ever watch it again but the fact remains that it is somewhat enjoyable and surprisingly inoffensive fluff that didn't leave the bad taste in my mouth that I was so rabidly expecting.......nay hoping!


If you sit your kids down to this they will probably love it, but do them a favour and make them play the game first!

Striding forth from his lair at Castle Stareskull one morning, Prototron decided to not reign down terror on the villagers, but instead go back inside, crack open a beer and load up Streets Of Rage 2. One hundred years later, he's still there.  A avid music maker (of TERROR!) and retro gamer, he can be found whooping any and all heroes at all manner of SNK-based challenges.