"There is not a whole lot of intellectual content we can talk about here."

These are not my words, but those of director Michael Schultz. Perhaps nothing more true has ever been said.

All films have an intended level and tone. One of the things a reviewer must evaluate is whether or not the film reaches it. Care must be taken to not only recognize a film's intent, but also to avoid the traps of preconceived notions. With that in mind, can The Last Dragon be criticized for being a goofy, corny, cheeseball film when every indication says this is exactly what it strives for?

Let's face it. This is a bad movie through and through. The story is silly, the acting is bad, the action is often slow...and yet, I liked it just the same.

The Last Dragon is at once an homage to and a spoof of the martial arts genre. The main character is a black man named Bruce Leroy (Tiamak), who seems to think he's Chinese. He walks the streets of New York, wearing his Kung Fu clothes and eating popcorn with chopsticks. Leroy is on a mission to find "the glow," a supreme martial arts energy that allows the mind, body and spirit to act as one.

Early in the film we find Leroy sitting in a theater, picking at his popcorn and watching Bruce Lee's Enter The Dragon. The film suddenly stops and making a grand entrance is Sho'Nuff, the Shogun of Harlem (Julius J. Carry, III). Sho'Nuff strolls in wearing a martial arts uniform comprised of football pads and Converse tennis shoes. He declares himself the "meanest, badest and prettiest mo-fo low down 'round this town" and proceeds to have his gang kick people out of the seats he wants. It's about this time that someone calls out that Bruce Leroy can beat up the Shogun of Harlem.

The moment Sho'Nuff appears on screen, we know that he and Leroy are destined to fight. This is an unbreakable rule dictated by the genre. Furthermore, we know that Leroy won't want to fight -- he's a good-natured pacifist, so the rest of the film must be spent finding ways to get Leroy mad enough to confront Sho'Nuff.

There is a subplot in the film that involves rich arcade owner, Eddie Arkadian, and his attempts to get his girlfriend's music video played on a local video show. The host of the show, Laura (Vanity) wants nothing to do with the video, so Arkadian hires several thugs to "convince" her. Naturally, Leroy saves the day, thus setting up a love interest. Ever conscious that this is unerringly a genre picture, this alerts us to the notion that eventually Arkadian will use Sho'Nuff against Leroy and that Laura will be the bait to get Leroy to fight.

Since this is a martial arts film, some attention must be given to the quality of the fight scenes. Unfortunately, such scenes are too few and far between for the film's own good. The initial fights are rather sloppy and way too short. The final battle is an all-out brawl between Arkadian's hired thugs and Leroy's martial arts students. This bit is actually quite energetic and has some interesting choreography, even if it does come across as a bit "too" staged. Taimak is impressive in his final confrontation with Sho'Nuff, but Julius J. Carry, obviously not a martial artist, was woefully under-prepared.