A man is tricked by his best friend, and he has to serve 8 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. His girlfriend has fled to Brazil, and she carries a little secret. What will happen when he’s released after 8 years?
This was the first feature movie in which Brandon Lee had the lead role. I don’t count the TV movie he starred in the year before. We all know that he wasn’t like his father when it came to martial arts, so he has to use a lot of weapons here, and it works well enough.
What disappointed me the most about Legacy of Rage is that the movie has too few action scenes. It spends a lot of time on the characters and their journey, where the antagonist steers them in different directions in life.
This feels more like a crime drama than an action movie. It also doesn’t help that Michael Wong plays the antagonist. He is a terrible actor who will get a special place in hell when he dies!
I never felt that the movie built up the hatred towards the injustice that the protagonist must endure. The script is thin, and the characters are poorly written. We have seen this before and much better.
The movie serves us the usual, thin Hong Kong script that’s in a hurry to tell its story. The action scenes are thankfully silly and energetic in the best Hong Kong style. So at that point, you cannot complain.
The antagonist in the movie is the weakest character of them all. He only does evil things. He has no normal human traits at all, so he isn’t a character who’s interesting to follow. The movie fails to make us hate the antagonist when he is so poorly written. But we can at least hate Michael Wong as an actor! Hell is waiting for you! Or maybe we are in hell and Michael Wong is Satan himself?
I was disappointed with Legacy of Rage. It’s a movie that belongs in the decade it was made. But you feel that 70% of the script is missing. You find little soul here. And with that, Michael Wong is the perfect match for this movie!