In this multi-national production of the film ‘Dance of the Dragon’, the character of Tae-Kwon, played by Korean actor Hyuk Jang, just wants to dance. Ever since his mother took him to a concert as a little boy all he ever wanted to do was dance. His father on the other hand sees very little benefit to the pursuit of that discipline. His father, a hard working man who repairs shoes for a living, pretty much believes that life should consist of getting a job, building a family and then dying. I kid you not, that’s his belief system. So when his adult son, who has tried living life his dad’s way for about a decade informs his father he is going to Singapore to attend dance classes, the pain on my mans face is real and palpable.

Spending his last remaining dime to get to Singapore, Tae-Kwon has his ‘Fame’ style dance audition and though his style is raw and though he possesses none of the gear that a dancer needs to dance properly, one of the judges, the incredibly beautiful Emi played by the incredibly beautiful Fann Wong, sees enough in the young man to offer him a spot at her school.

Emi, for her part, is dealing with her own issues. First she has this raw student of hers that she is drawn to, who for all his talents seems to lack all of the basic skills required for dancing excellence. Then there is the fact she is still recovering from a fractured ankle which has limited her ability to compete, though she strongly believes she is still capable of doing so. Finally for Emi there is the issue of her boyfriend, or husband… we’re not totally sure what their exact relationship is, but her man Cheng (Jason Scott Lee) does everything in his power to discourage her attempts to return to competitive dancing. Cheng claims he doing her a favor, Emi believes he just a spotlight hogging jealous asshole. Cheng himself is a former martial arts champion who now teaches his craft at his own school and who has also suffered a career ending injury. But as Cheng has informed Emi over dinner, a champion knows when to retire.

Just so you know ‘Dance of the Dragon’ is a movie heavy on the melodrama and thus Cheng has HIS issues to deal with. His main issue is that he does NOT like the way his girl’s new student, Tae-Kwon, holds his woman during their lessons. So opposed to Tae-Kwon’s existence, he first attempts to bribe the young man to go away, then failing that he challenges him to fight. In addition to his insane jealousy Cheng is also in a bad way with some underground type cats he owes money too.

So we have a lot of issues that need to come to a head here. Tae-Kwon needs to find a way to resolve the issues with his father, we have an impending fight between a martial arts master and a dancer with the dancer having to use some fancy footwork to change the terms of this fight, and of course there is a dance competition at the end with the damaged swan and her talented but raw ingenue teaming up for potential dance greatness. Listen to the music soar.

When we ask you to ‘listen to the music’ those aren’t simply fleeting words my friend. Composer Ricky Ho’s score, even more so than the performances of the actors which were good, dominates this movie. His score, which is omnipresent in this movie, drives everything in this movie. The score tells you what to feel and when to feel it and the score generates almost all of the drama and tension in this film. ‘Dance of the Dragon’ just might be the most music centric non-musical film that I have ever seen.

The good thing is that this is a very effective story telling technique employed by directors Max Mannix and John Radel. I will be the first to admit that I am not a big fan of movie melodrama and you will be hard pressed to find a movie that is as melodramatic as ‘Dance of the Dragon’ turned out to be, but this is a melodrama that brings you in, in no small part due to Johnny Ho’s ubiquitous score and the genuine performances turned in by the leads.

The early scenes in the movie detailing how the young Tae developed this love for dance were very well done and very effective, because otherwise there is no basis for this somewhat obscure desire of his and the movie has little to stand on. Actor Hyuk Jang easily carries this genuine desire into his adulthood and you can feel his characters drive to fulfill this dream of his. The directors were also wise to stay out of the way of Fann Wong’s beauty and allow that beauty to almost be a character in itself. That and the actresses ability to cry on cue. Girlfriend can let it spill with the best of them. Jason Scott Lee was burdened with the thankless role as the narrow eyed asshole in this movie and the writers seemed more confused exactly with what to do with his character than the others. On one had they made some feeble attempts to make his character seem somewhat sympathetic and his feelings towards the character of Emi somewhat genuine, but on the hand there was this completely throwaway scene in which his character was taking money from mobsters and the getting his ass kicked for his trouble which did nothing for this movie. It was already established that his character was an asshole and there was nothing else done with this scene after it happened, and if it were excised from the movie it wouldn’t have been missed. I assume there was more to it, it just didn’t make it in the final cut.

‘Dance of the Dragon’ was a surprisingly entertaining and heartfelt bit of melodrama featuring some solid performances, a little spirited dancing, a touch of kung fu and of course a phenomenal musical score. And kudos to Hyuk Jang who was wearing this suspect caballero dance costume during the final dance number and managed to maintain a little masculine dignity while sporting it. Not easy to do.