Roaring Dragon, Bluffing Tiger -- which, of course has no relation at all to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon besides having Chinese people in it -- is the type of so-called "film" that makes you wistful for the panache and subtlety of Godfrey Ho's oeuvre. If you're not familiar with Mr. Ho, consider yourself lucky first off that you haven't been subjected to his cinematic ineptitude, which includes gems like Catman in Lethal Track, which is as about as well-made as the barely legible title employs. Then, just understand the reference above was just a way of saying that this movie sucks without coming across as crude, which I just did. Damn.

Form that first rambling opening paragraph, you can probably tell that this is not going to be any sort of in-depth philosophical critique. Frankly, I'm too tired, and this movie, which was not even palatable even after a couple of frosty cold tallboys of tasty Surly Cynicale, isn't worth the effort to dispose any amount of thought upon, other than thinking of more important things you could be doing other than watching Roaring Dragon, Bluffing Tiger, like playing with your belly button lint.

Director Kant Leung initially held some promise, such as with the delightfully wacky and gory The Demon's Baby. But, for whatever reason, his career went down the crapper quicker than the aftermath of a night of binging on White Castle and Old Milwaukee. So, unfortunately, we're left with dreck like this, which has apparently was supposed to be released with the dreadfully generic name Heroes on Fire but was quickly re-titled to try and dupe audiences that they might be settling down to watch a good movie.

I know Anthony Wong was hard up for money around this time due to medical bills, but was he really that broke? Did he need the $50 he made from working on this movie to cover the rent and ramen? He seems to be phoning in his performance, and his work is stellar compared to the rest of the cast, whose wooden-looking performances are made even worse by a terrible overdub, which is present on both the Cantonese and Mandarin soundtracks. I was actually wishing for a bad English dub so I could maybe get a few laughs out of this lump of cinematic coal in my DVD player's stocking. No such luck.

Roaring Dragon, Bluffing Tiger saves itself from being a total bomb on the order of Where is Mama's Boy via a handful of short fight scenes featuring Billy Chow, who must have been drugged and dragged on to the set. But that's not really saying much. This is just simply one of the most awful excuses for a movie that I've seen in a long, long time -- yes, even worse than the much-crapped upon and recently reviewed Michael Wong classic Super Car Criminals. Even if you dig checking out bad movies, Roaring Dragon, Bluffing Tiger offers nothing to potential viewers besides boredom, a headache, and possible liver damage from all the beer you had to swill just to sit through the damn thing.

RATING: 2