Double Dragon (1994)
The futuristic video game brawler known as “Double Dragon” was, for a period of time, the number-one coin-operated game in America. It was created by the Japanese game company Technos in 1987 and became a smash hit both in arcades and home consoles. Up-and-coming film producer Don Murphy came out of USC film school and connected with fellow producer Jane Hamsher. They were looking for ideas to turn into a feature film. While Hamsher wanted to do more serious films, such as Natural Born Killers, Murphy was a huge comic book geek and his interests tended toward fun action-packed adventures.
It was one fateful day while Murphy was hanging out at a comic book store in Los Angeles, he decided to play their arcade game “Double Dragon 3” Murphy noticed that there seemed to be standard quest mythology to the game, something that could work if adapted into a gritty martial arts movie. Murphy made calls to various companies in Japan to find out who owned the “Double Dragon” rights. Eventually, Murphy was directed to a video game called Tradewest, which published certain game titles for the North American market. After settling into an informal agreement with the Lelands, who owned Tradewest, Murphy shopped the idea around to his Hollywood connections. His friend, Peter Rice recommended talking to Ash Shah, who ran the film and home video company Imperial Entertainment with his older brothers Sunil and Sundip. Imperial, who has action-movie clout after producing several starring vehicles for Jean-Claude Van Damme, forged the contract with Tradewest.
Imperial announced the Double Dragon adaptation in February 1991, with a target release date of September. Imperial had a ten-picture deal with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Universal Pictures negotiated one of the slots in the contract to cast JCVD in their film Sudden Death in exchange to distribute Double Dragon. Paul Dini, the Emmy-award-winning writer of “Tiny Toon Adventures” and the future co-creator of Harley Quinn, was signed to script what was then called Double Dragon: The Movie. After several drafts, future young-adult novelist Neal Shusterman came in to revise when Dini left the project to work on “Batman: The Animated Series.” The script incorporated the game’s characters plus ones newly created, including the main villain of the film. The attempt to push the game into the mainstream spun off into other media, including a Marvel comic book, DIC’s animated series, and other merchandise tie-ins.
The script was later rewritten by two guys just out of film school looking to get into the screenwriters guild, Michael Davis, future writer-director for the action-comedy Shoot-em-Up, and Peter Gould, future producer for shows like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Their agent had shopped around their spec script for a superhero feature called The Sensor which the Shah brothers enjoyed for its lighthearted humor. They thought the Shusterman script Schechter commissioned was too hard-hitting and expensive. Davis and Gould raced to complete five drafts over five weeks to hone things down to appeal to the kids who loved the games, not easy to do for the game involving two guys beating people to a bloody pulp. Imperial was going to lose their distribution deal with Universal if they didn’t get the film ready by a certain date and needed to get a new script immediately, which is why Davis and Gould were hired. Universal pushed it out through Gramercy Pictures, in which they partner with PolyGram because Universal had a similar property in Street Fighter released just six weeks later.
A “Double Dragon” animated series was slated to debut in the fall of 1993 to generate buzz for the film’s new Christmas release date. Emmy-winning music video and concert video director Jim Yukich was encouraged to take on Double Dragon as his first feature by Joel Silver protege, Alan Schechter. Schechter worked for Yukich and producer Paul Flattery as a production assistant on many of Flattery/Yukich Inc,’s music videos and shows (their resume included Pat Benatar, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and Phil Collins), and he felt that Yukich had the vision to make a dynamite action flick. The Shah brothers approved, hoping that Yukich’s music connections would result in bringing aboard incredible music talent.
The budget was to be $8 million with a production start date of May 1993. Yukich envisioned Double Dragon as a ninety-minute music video to appeal to kids and teens with a light-hearted and funny rather than an all-out violent brawler. Yukich felt dubious about the film’s title, Double Dragon. It did carry the name recognition they wanted to bring in the kids that love the game of the same name, but adults and those unfamiliar would think it was merely bad martial arts flick solely from the title.
The release and subsequent failure of Super Mario Bros might have made most other productions of video game properties pause. However, Yukich said it did the opposite for them, because they felt, at the very least, they could make a much better movie than that. However, the wrong lessons from Super Mario Bros were learned. Rather than realize that the film was bad because it lacked a quality story, dialogue, and characters, the producers observed that Super Mario Bros didn’t deliver in the action department, and action is what people like the video games for, not the story. Double Dragon doubled down on delivering double the action.
Set in 2007 in New Angeles, a city reconstructed after a giant earthquake struck Southern California, where gangs and criminals have their run of the streets at night. Outside of the ineffective police department, a vigilante group called the Power Corps, organized by teenager Marian Delario, is the only force willing to take on gangs. Marion stumbles across a couple of martial-artist orphaned brothers named Jimmy and Billy Lee and she recruits them to the good guys. Their top adversary is a megalomaniac tycoon named Victor Guisman, aka Koga Shuko ‘The Shadow Master’, who’s taking over the streets with his ability to change into shadow form and jump into the bodies of others to control them. The Lee brothers and their guardian Satori have half of a powerful, mystical ancient Chinese medallion/ Koga has the other, and he’ll do whatever it takes to unite them for unlimited power (how convenient that the second half of the medallion he stole from a miniscule village in China would be in the very same city).
Mark Dacascos was the first hired. Dacascos was the son of martial arts teachers so he had been exposed to martial arts his entire life, though he channeled his physical training to other physical activities like sports, gymnastics, ballet, and jazz. He sprained his ankle shortly before shooting and did most of his scenes for the first few weeks with his ankle taped tightly.
Scott Wolf was hired for Billy Lee because Dacascos provided so many martial arts skills but so little acting experience. Though he looks nothing like Dacascos to play his twin brothers, they wanted Wolf specifically for his comedic acting chops. Wolf said he related to the character because he too had to mature prematurely and uses his childlike persona to try to reclaim that sense of being the kid he was never quite allowed to be.
Alyssa Milano, sporting a short blond hairdo, plays the tough and streetwise Marian Delario. Milano was pursued for the role because she carried a huge following in Japan, where the game is from, so, if nothing else, it should be a hit there. Marian’s the daughter of a cop but also secretly the leader of a peacekeeping gang of vigilantes called the “Power Core,” who are trying to take the city back from the criminal elements.
Robert Patrick, hot off of his portrayal of the T-1000 in Terminator 2, plays the main bad guy, Koga Shuko. Patrick says that his role in Double Dragon was the most he’d ever been paid for any acting gig, but that he accepted the role because it was in many ways the opposite of his role in T2 due to the flamboyance and humor in his personality. He called his Koga Shuko very fun to play, a vain megalomaniac psycho character he called a cross between Donald Trump and Charles Manson.
Milano found love at first sight with co-star Scott Wolf. after they went to a dance club with members of the film crew. They played games like “20 Questions” and “Truth or Dare” and felt sparks fly when someone dared them to kiss. After dated the rest of the shoot, Milano wrote a lengthy, heartfelt love poem after they returned to Los Angeles. The lovebirds soon moved in together. Believing she’d found her soulmate, Milano tattoed Wolf’s initials on her right ankle and told her mom early on that he was the man she was going to marry. After a few months, Wolf popped the question by hiding a vintage 1940’s engagement ring in a pumpkin. Milano carved a heart and the phrase, “Alyssa loves Scott.” It is unknown what caused their breakup the following year, but Milano divulged years later about undergoing two abortions in this period, feeling like she wasn’t ready to be a mother. Milano was heartbroken but remained friends with Wolf, eventually collaborating with him as the main voice talent 2001’s Lady and the Tramp 2: Scamp’s Adventure.
The script was acceptable, but they determined that it didn’t have the kind of comedic energy they were hoping for, so they brought in an uncredited Mark Brazill, a friend of Yukich’s who worked on his writing team, Brazill would later create “Third Rock from the Sun” and co-create “That 70s Show”, to punch up the comedy, giving lines to Alyssa Milano, star of TV’s “Who’s the Boss” meta lines like, “Who’s the boss now?” and says to Kristina Wagner, who worked on the TV soap opera “General Hospital”, Generally, I put people in the hospital.” Koga Shuko’s henchmen are named Huey and Lewis, resulting in the line, “Huey. Lewis. Any news?”
Because of the Los Angeles riots of 1991, they made care to not choose a specific ethnic slant when depicting the gangs dominating the city, looking toward the 1979 film The Warriors for the overall composition, though with a much more comedic vibe. Each gang would have its own look and vibe, from The Clowns to the Mohawks to the Maniacs to the Geeks (pocket protector-sporting computer nerds) to the Postmen (who use their mailbags as weapons).
Cinematographer Tony Mitchell was someone brought in because he’d worked with Yukich and Schechter before. However, he only lasted a couple of days after suffering a back injury filming a hand-held camera sequence during an action scene. He tried to continue working while laying on a stretcher. Sunil Shah said they couldn’t work that way and called for another cinematographer to be hired so they got Gary Kibbe at the last minute. Kibbe didn’t have the sense of style Mitchell did so Yukich thinks the film lost something in the switch over. .
They also shot extra footage for an interactive video game tie-in by Tradewest, though the game was scrapped when they determined it wasn’t going to be completed in time to coincide with the movie. The film was shot in Schechter’s hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, with the Pacific Ocean represented by Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga River substituting for the fictional Hollywood River that was once Hollywood Boulevard before the big earthquake. Famous Hollywood landmarks (Mann’s Chinese Theater, the Capitol Records Building) were recreated as crumbling edifices around the river, including a half-scale version of the world-famous Hollywood sign, to give the semblance of authenticity. The use of the river necessitated its own river of red tape with federal and state agencies, especially as to operate speedboats and set a portion of the river on fire following a controlled explosion.
Special effects wizards who worked on such films as Apocalypse Now, Joseph Lombardi and his son Paul, handled the explosive sequence where five-hundred feet of the Hollywood River is engulfed in flames. The stunt took 6,000 to 8,000 gallons of propane and a mile of 2.5-inch pipe, as well as thirty-two electronically controlled fire-station floats in the water. Yukich jokingly placed two beef franks on a stick on the bank of the river to see if the heat would cook them enough to eat, but was disappointed they remained raw. Although there were warnings on local news stations that the pyrotechnics would be occurring, uninformed nearby residents in Cleveland were not amused, the explosion resulting in 210 calls within ten minutes of the explosion to 911 emergency services.
Producers Allan Schechter and Ash Shah wanted the future to look like a realistic portrayal of what things might look like in fifteen years in terms of vehicles, weapons, wardrobe, and technology. It shouldn’t include space travel, laser guns, or cars that fly. The guns were based on actual modern gun designs and they modified a bit to have grenade launchers under the barrel for crowd control and a fancier scope that could be used at night in any weather. The guns were realistic enough for a real-life cop to take a look, who commented about how he would like to use something like them out in the field.
However, partway through the shoot the Shah brothers wanted to move back to Los Angeles to film the Power Corps scenes and other sequences because of the inconsistent Cleveland weather and better areas for locale work. Due to the move, the union contract needed to get renegotiated, which took weeks.
When the MPAA bestowed a PG-13 rating, Yukich offered to edit the film’s violence enough to get a PG, as they were hoping to aim at younger kids. Alan Schechter waved him off saying that the PG-13 could work in the movie’s favor because the kids and some adults would think it’s even hipper and cooler than a Disney movie. Also, the script was too long and the footage became difficult to edit down without the story seeming choppy. They wanted to make a film that would appeal to everybody and managed to make one that didn’t appeal to anybody.
A mish-mash of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book-caliber camp, Home Alone style pratfalls, “Power Rangers” color schemes, and Super Mario Bros. mucky visuals, Double Dragon is one of the worst and least memorable of the 1990s video game film adaptations. With grating characters, clueless direction, and a story lost under rampant CGI and cluttered sets, it’s an ugly, unpalatable mess. Despite a sizable budget for sets, costumes, and special effects, the film failed to crack the top 10 and made a paltry $2.3 million domestically. By the time it was released, the game’s cor fans had grown too old to be entertained by such a kiddie movie (the PG-13 rating didn’t help it reach its pre-adolescent audience), and they’d moved on to better fighting games like ‘Street Fighter II’ and ‘Mortal Kombat’, months later.
Although playing brothers trained in martial arts, only Dacascos had the fighting skills to deliver any on-screen whoop-ass. Wolf was hired primarily for his comedic personality,. Obvious stunt doubles were used whenever scenes necessitated physical feats. If Dacascos’ fighting skills weren’t the most impressive aspect of the movie, perhaps there might be more of interest for the duration. Robert Patrick gets top billing, but whatever malice his character must evoke is lost under a look that crosses Vanilla Ice with Wesley Snipes in New Jack City. It’s a wasteland of botched ideas, with cluttered, ugly visuals and noise to try to hide that there aren’t many ideas underneath.
Yukich says that he made many mistakes as a first-time director, most notably in not putting his foot down when none of the producers couldn’t agree on which direction they wanted to take the film. Schechter brought him in to make a top-flight action flick, but Yukich would have wanted a kids movie that had adult appeal, much like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. However, as Schechter was a friend, he found it difficult to say no. Schechter was someone into end-of-the-world scenarios and pushed for the post-apocalyptic setting.
Yukich claims he never thinks about making Double Dragon anymore for a variety of reasons. He says the problem was that there was never a clear and uniform direction for where to go with the film from the outset, with everyone from the various producers to the writers to him to the actors having their own visions of what Double Dragon was and should be. Yukich blames himself for not securely taking the reins and insisting on doing things his way, but was a bit overwhelmed by the experience of directing a high-profile feature with a substantial budget for its era. Also, a factor was that there was no one around who really had any relation to the original game that could give feedback on what “Double Dragon” was in concept and what should and shouldn’t occur in a story based on the game.
Double Dragon is a disappointment as a humorous martial arts film, as it is neither funny nor well choreographed from an action perspective. The biggest disappointment will come for fans of the video game, which the film barely adheres to. Only recommended to those who saw the film through the undiscriminating eyes of youth and are unapologetically nostalgic or movie masochists that enjoy kitschy, wrong-headed attempts to capitalize on a popular trend. Even those viewers looking to make fun of an unintentionally funny camp comedy will succumb to boredom from the brain-numbing, soul-sucking experience of Double Dragon‘s boundless ineptitude.
Qwipster’s rating: D-
MPAA Rated PG-13 for violence and language
Running time: 96 min.
Cast: Scott Wolf, Mark Dacascos, Robert Patrick, Alyssa Milano, Kristina Wagner, Julia Nickson, Nils Allen Stewart, Leon Russom, Al Leong
Cameo: George Hamilton, Vanna White, Andy Dick, Gilbert Gottfried
Director: James Yukich
Screenplay: Michael Davis, Peter Gould