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Matt Glasby

It may sound like just another maverick cop film, but Michael Cimino’s 1985 thriller Year of the Dragon is a fascinating footnote in Asian-American cinema history.
Set in New York’s Chinatown, and starring Mickey Rourke as a police captain taking on the triads, it features breakout roles for Chinese-American actors such as John Lone and Dennis Dun, as well as an explosive combination of behind-the-scenes talent.
Director and co-writer Cimino, who died in 2016 aged 77, was New Hollywood’s ultimate crash-and-burn auteur, winning five Oscars with 1978’s The Deer Hunter, then nearly bankrupting production studio United Artists two years later with Heaven’s Gate.
Year of the Dragon was produced by Dino De Laurentiis (1919-2010), the flamboyant Italian behind everything from Death Wish (1974) to Dune (1984).


Co-writer Oliver Stone, meanwhile, would go on to court both controversy and acclaim with the likes of Platoon (1986), Wall Street (1987) and Natural Born Killers (1994).
But what might have been a powerful exploration of clashing cultures feels more like a clash between competing voices, with each of the filmmakers trying to tell a different story.

For De Laurentiis, it seems, Robert Daley’s 1981 source novel offered the chance to make an exciting epic about a crime organisation rarely seen on screen.
Cimino’s talent was in delving into the day-to-day lives of macho men, making them feel as real and vital as the brutalities they commit.
Vietnam veteran Stone, meanwhile, has never missed an opportunity to examine the deleterious effects of war and the media.
When I did The Deer Hunter they said I was a right-wing fascist. When I did Heaven’s Gate they said I was a left-wing Marxist. When I did this movie they called me a racist. Well, which is it?
Michael Cimino
Beginning with a dragon parade that quickly descends into violence, Year of the Dragon sees Captain Stanley White (Rourke) tasked with cleaning up Chinatown as Joey Tai (Lone), an ambitious new triad boss, rises to prominence.
Caught up in White’s mission, whether they like it or not, are reporter Tracy Tzu (model Ariane), rookie undercover cop Herbert Kwong (Dun) and White’s long-suffering wife, Connie (Caroline Kava).
Despite being recreated in De Laurentiis’ facility in Wilmington, North Carolina, Wolf Kroeger’s Chinatown set is extraordinary, even fooling the famously exacting Stanley Kubrick, a native New Yorker.
Combining studio work with locations across the United States, Canada and Asia, Cimino has the camera travelling through gambling dens, sweatshops and soybean factories to create a vibrant, believable backdrop punctuated with exciting action scenes.

Somewhere amid all this chaos is an attempt to explore the American melting pot from a unique perspective, but the filmmakers use painfully blunt tools to do so.
The characters are, to put it mildly, problematic.
Captain White is arrogant, abusive and wracked with self-loathing, constantly comparing his dealings with the triads to the time he spent in Vietnam.
“There, I never saw the enemy,” he complains. “Here, they’re right in front of my eyes.”

Rourke is charismatic but miscast, with greyed-up hair to make him look older and a ridiculous trilby he insists on wearing indoors.
As well as being patronised, sexualised and generally mistreated, Tzu is woodenly played by Ariane in one of her only two screen roles.
Indeed, the only performers who come out well are Lone, who looks every inch the movie star in his white suit and shades, and Dun, a likeable presence who does not stand a chance of making it to the end credits.

“They’re the most wonderful people to work with,” said Cimino of the Chinese cast on the DVD commentary. “I’m at home with them, they’re fun […] I’ve had several Chinese girlfriends, they’re beautiful, exquisite.”
And herein lies the issue. Just because the filmmakers are intrigued by Chinese culture, that does not mean they can articulate the complexities of Chinese-American interactions.
To its credit, the film tries to give an authentic voice to its Chinese characters.
There are scenes conducted almost entirely in Cantonese, for example, and it is made abundantly clear why the people of Chinatown would not trust the police.
But ultimately the mixing of cultures is presented as an insoluble problem, and the resulting film is wearyingly cynical, a racist work about racism.

Almost every character is either corrupt or corrupted, spouting offensive slurs about other ethnic groups, but White – our hero – is by far the most jaundiced.
“I’m tired of all this ‘Chinese this, Chinese that,’” he tells Lone. “You people, you think gambling, extortion, corruption are kosher, because it’s 1,000 years old? […]
“This is America you’re living in, and it’s 200 years old, so you better get your clocks fixed!”
He is even more unpleasant with Tzu. “The first time I saw you, I hated your guts,” he tells her before violently propositioning her. “I think I even hated you before I ever met you. I hated you on TV. I hated you in Vietnam.”
No matter that Ariane is an American with Japanese-Dutch parentage, and the character she is playing is Chinese.

When the film opened to understandably mixed reviews, the Federation of Chinese Organizations of America picketed cinemas, again understandably.
To appease them, a disclaimer saying, “The film does not intend to demean or ignore the many positive features of Asian-Americans and specifically Chinese-American communities […]” was added to the credits.
Cimino was perplexed. “When I did The Deer Hunter they said I was a right-wing fascist,” he said on the commentary. “When I did Heaven’s Gate they said I was a left-wing Marxist. When I did this movie they called me a racist. Well, which is it?”
The answer, as White ably shows, is that it’s possible to entertain several prejudices all at once. On this basis, perhaps it’s a good job that Year of the Dragon remains just a footnote.
Or as Jack Nicholson was told in another, rather better, film, “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.”


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Mickey Rourke and Ariane in a still from Year of the Dragon.

Mickey Rourke as a police captain and John Lone as a triad boss in a still from Year of the Dragon (1985), a crime thriller set in New New York’s Chinatown. 

Rourke as Captain Stanley White in a still from Year of the Dragon.

Ariane as reporter Tracy Tzu in a still from Year of the Dragon.

Rourke plays a Vietnam-vet police captain in a still from Year of the Dragon.

John Lone as triad boss Joey Tai in a still from Year of the Dragon.

Rourke and Lone in a still from Year of the Dragon.

Ariane as reporter Tracy Tzu and Rourke as Captain Whilte in a still from Year of the Dragon.

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Michael Cimino’s 1985 film, scripted by Oliver Stone, could have been a potent study of clashing cultures. Instead it is cynical and racist


Michael Cimino’s New York-set triad thriller Year of the Dragon, with Mickey Rourke and John Lone, wasted the chance to thoughtfully explore the American melting pot and instead went the racist route.
