Synopsis
A young man searches for the "master" to obtain the final level of martial arts mastery known as the glow. Along the way he must fight an evil martial arts expert and rescue a beautiful singer from an obsessed music promoter.
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Cast
- TaimakLeroy Green
- Julius CarrySho'nuff / The Shogun of Harlem
- VanityLaura Charles
- Christopher MurneyEddie Arkadian
- Faith PrinceAngela Viracco
- Leo O'BrienRichie Green
- Mike StarrRock
- Jim MoodyDaddy Green
- Glen EatonJohnny Yu
- Ernie Reyes Jr.Tai
- 88
Chicago Tribune
The new martial-arts picture The Last Dragon is first and foremost a romantic comedy, and a very sweet one at that, and that's why it's martial-arts combat scenes work so well. We've been given enough time to care about who's kicking the stuffing out of whom. - 75
Washington Post
An intoxicating blend of comedy, kung fu, corny romance, special effects and rock videos, it's as electrically sleepless as the New York it's set against. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon is a fun, frisky R&B/pop musical with touches of such recent hits as Purple Rain and The Karate Kid, but heavily sugar-coated with the glossy style of video music-movies like Flashdance and Footloose. - 63
Chicago Sun-Times
Take out the gangsters, pump up the Shogun role, give Taimak and Vanity a little more screen time, and you'd have a great entertainment instead of simply a great near-miss. - 63
Miami Herald
The Last Dragon doesn't aim to be more than it is -- a good funny Afro-Japanese-American-hi tech-martial arts- archetypal-fairy tale. But that's something. [30 Mar 1985, p.D7] - 50
TV Guide Magazine
An enjoyable pastiche of martial arts, romance, music, and video, THE LAST DRAGON presents a likable young hero, Leroy (Taimak), who aspires to become a kung fu master. - 40
Time Out
The juxtaposition of head-spinning break dancing and mild martial arts (in which the fighters glow to show their level of mental attainment and nobody gets badly hurt) provides lots of whirling limbs, but the working into the storyline of a crook who wants to take over the nightclub to provide valuable exposure for his aspirant rock-goddess girlfriend seems lame indeed. - 30
The New York Times
Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon is a multimedia movie of sorts, designed for those who can't bear the monotony of only one thought or sound or activity at a time.