Twin Dragons
The film also goes by titles such as Brother vs. Brother, Duel of Dragons, When Dragons Collide and Double Dragons.
Plot
In 1965, a
Hong Kong couple are doting on their newborn identical twin boys. Meanwhile, a dangerous gang leader named Crazy Kung is being transported as a captive in the same hospital. Crazy Kung escapes and attempts to take one of the twins hostage, and in the ensuing chaos the twins are permanently separated. One of the twins, named Ma Yau, is taken to America by his parents and grows up to be a concert pianist and conductor. The other twin, Ma Wan, is found and raised by an alcoholic woman named Tsui, and becomes a street racer and martial artist named Bok Min. For years, neither of them is aware that he has an identical twin brother.
26 years later, the twins' lives intersect again: Bok Min and his best friend Tarzan get mixed up with a dangerous gang, while Ma Yau prepares to conduct a major concert in Hong Kong. In addition, the twins gain romantic interests: Bok Min meets Barbara, a club singer Tarzan is interested in, and Yau becomes acquainted with Tong Sum, a young woman from a respectable family who has a secret passion for fighter types. Eventually, the twins meet and discover that they Twin telepathy with each other. As a result, a string of comedic mix-ups ensues when Ma Yau is accidentally enlisted by the gangsters to participate as an escape driver in the liberation of none other than Crazy Kung; Bok Min in turn is forced to conduct Yau's concert (which becomes a smash hit despite him having absolutely no musical talent); and the two of them end up with the other's girl as their respective love interest.
Eventually, things come to a head when the gangsters kidnap Tarzan to make Ma Yau surrender a briefcase meant for Crazy Kung, which Ma Yau had accidentally nabbed. The twins join up to defeat the gang that has turned their lives upside down, and in a showdown in a vehicle testing center Crazy Kung dies in a runaway crash test car. The film ends with the impending double wedding of the twins to their girls and Bok Min's introduction to his real parents, but when Bok Min gets cold feet and Ma Yau goes looking for him, a final gag falls into place when the wedding guests catch the two twins together and are unable to tell them apart.
Cast
Production
According to co-director
Tsui Hark,
Ringo Lam handled most of the action scenes in the film.
[ The action in the film has a larger focus on actual martial arts than on Jackie Chan's usual comedic style.][
]
Music
Ma Yau's Concert depicted in the movie is the Ruslan and Lyudmila Overture, by Mikhail Glinka.
Release
The film received an American release on 9 April 1999 in a dubbed version.[ The American release of the film cuts 16 minutes of scenes involving Wong Jing and Lau Kar-leung in a hospital and a fantasy scene involving Maggie Cheung singing.][
]
Reception
Box office
On the film's release in Hong Kong, Twin Dragons was the ninth highest-grossing film of the year, earning 33,225,134 during its theatrical run.[Morton, 2009. p.186] In Taiwan, it was the twelfth top-grossing film of 1992, earning .
Upon release in North America, the film grossed US$8,332,431 in the United States,[ ending its North American run with a total of US$8,359,717 in the United States and Canada.]
Critical response
At Metacritic, which assigns a Standard score rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an weighted mean score of 54, based on 15 reviews.[Witterstaetter. 1997.]
Remakes
The film spawned several Indian film remakes. Hello Brother (1994) is a popular Telugu film based on Twin Dragons.
See also
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Hong Kong films of 1992
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Jackie Chan filmography
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List of action films of the 1990s
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List of comedy films of the 1990s
Bibliography
External links
