Max Havoc: Curse Of The Dragon (2004)

I love this movie so much

Don't listen to the negative reviews

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Due to the controversy involving a defaulted loan secured by the government of Guam, I had a particular interest in getting to watch this movie. More than the usual, being an Albert Pyun fan as I am.Pyun goes back to the late 80's and early 90's with this movie, the days when he directed wooden martial artists like Jean Claude Van Damme, Olivier Gruner and Sasha Mitchell.This movie revolves around a former kick-boxing champ turned sports photographer, and his peculiar ability to run into trouble wherever he goes. Funny enough, his name is Max Havoc. Mr. Havoc is sent to Guam for an easy job and to relax. BUt he runs into, first, with two troublesome teen sisters, one smart and one brain-dead (guess for which he fell?), and then with an entire Japanese organization, who's after a stolen jade dragon.The lead is the Swiss nobody Mickey Hardt. He has the charisma of an amoeba, and his acting skills leave much to be desired. But this is not a dramatic piece, or the tale of an epic battle. This is a martial arts flick and in what regards kicking and punching and beating, Hardt does not disappoint. And despite this, Havoc is a well-natured fellow. Probably the guy every father'd want for her daughter (I just said that? Lame.) There're some strange surprises on the cast. Richard Roundtree ("SHaft") plays Havoc's former trainer now antique dealer. Carmen Elektra tries to "show her place" to Havoc during four scenes, for which she got one hundred grand. David Carradine plays Bill... again. All in automatic. Don't expect any acting shocking you.Then there are these two sisters. Neither of them can act well and there's this strange lesbic trend in their scenes together. Not as evident as in Bill's...sorry, Carradine's assistants, and way too subtle.Pyun's directing is normal here. The fights are well-choreographed yet there's an unnecessary over-repetition of the flashback scene that could have been done without. It lacks that special something though.Far better than some action junk Lorenzo Lamas has done. It has good martial arts, nice scenes, beautiful views of Guam, plenty of girls in bikini, but you'll want to press MUTE when the sisters start talking. It's a watchable flick. For only one watch.

It's so god d*mn awful that you feel genuinely sorry for the director and producer and all the awful people that made max havoc: curse of the dragon a reality. The film is so bad you feel like tossing everyone involved a quarter so they can get some food, water, and a room to get out of the rain for the night.It's about a sport's photographer, Max Havoc, who goes to Guam to take some pictures of a hotel and ends up in a fight over a jade dragon. It's a stupid 80's action movie made in 2004, how stupid is that?it's painful to sit thru the whole thing, but me and my friends did. It's bad, start to finish. It's 90 minutes of my life I will never get back

When the movie ended, I pondered what I had just viewed. I had already wasted time watching the movie, now I wasted time contemplating all that was wrong with the movie.It's no secret that less-than-adequate acting is a common trait in action movies, but this was extremely bad. It was as if the director accepted the first take for every scene. Some of the well known names in this movie did fine, but the two main characters were awful, as were the no-name actors.Looks like this was filmed on location at an island resort. I'm guessing the crew either forgot to bring the lighting sets, or the budget wasn't big enough to cover the cost of transporting the lights to the location. Indoor and evening scenes were too dark. Maybe the darkness was intentional. Maybe the director realized the lame attempts at expressions needed to be concealed. If the cast of female babes in skimpy outfits was an attempt to make up for the acting, the effort failed due to lousy lighting.If you do decide to rent this, I recommend fast forwarding to the fight scenes. They are somewhat decent. I was disappointed that Johnny Nguyen didn't do more fighting.David Carradine, Richard Roundtree, Johnny Nguyen, Danielle Burgio, Arnold Chon, and even Carmen Electra should hang their heads in shame for signing up for this one.I hope Hardt does better in the European scene. As for Krupa, she needs to stick to modeling.

Don't believe all these negative reviews here for MAX HAVOC: CURSE OF THE DRAGON, it's worse. Way worse.This is one of those films you sort of stumble upon at the video store, and everything else good or halfway good is already checked out, so you give it a shot, knowing full well the film is going to suck. But just how bad MAX HAVOC sucks may shock you: It's dull, boring, tiresome, listless, etc, etc. You get the idea.Someone on one of these reviews here compares MAX HAVOC to an episode of MANGNUM P.I., except MANGNUM P.I. is at lest a competent product. MAX HAVOC is wretchedly bad. It's the kind of bad-film in which you wonder while watching it: "How do films like this get made?" A very good question.MAX HAVOC was made by consistently bad film maker Albert Pyun. You wonder why anyone would knowingly hire this hack. The film is full of stock footage, bad acting, the list can go on forever.There is currently some kinda controversy over the financing of the film. The island of Guam put up the money for this film (who can say why. I guess they have never seen an Albert Pyun film because that's exactly what they got: An Albert Pyun incompetent sh*t film.)Folks, if you're a film investor and you see the name Albert Pyun attached to the film some slimy film producer is asking you to invest in, be afraid. Be very afraid.If this film were an animal it would be taken out back and shot and put out of it's misery. If you're unfortunate enough to have to endure this dung-heap DVD, you may wish someone would shoot you and put you out of your misery.MAX HAVOC: CURSE OF THE DRAGON is maximum incompetencey, maximum tedium, and maximum thievery.