Fairly awful in every way you can imagine, Kill A Dragon is pure bad movie bliss
Believe it or not, Jack Palance was a major movie star at one time. Kill A Dragon is set in Hong Kong in 1967. It’s not every day Jack Palance plays a hero instead of a heavy. This is one movie that gets better with multiple viewings, it suffers from bad editing, cheap karate fighting, and liquor galore available to the actors on the set.
Soldier of fortune Jack Palance squares off against warlord Fernando Lamas (100 Rifles) in the explosive action-adventure, Kill a Dragon. When a dangerous load of nitroglycerin lands on a beach near Hong Kong, the islanders claim it as their own. But the powerful Nico Patrai (Lamas) threatens to destroy the island and its inhabitants if the cargo is not given to him in three days.
The villagers turn to swaggering mercenary Rick Masters (Palance) and his team of karate experts to help smuggle the nitroglycerin off their island and rid them of the ruthless Patrai and his henchmen once and for all. Helmed by veteran television and Hollywood filmmaker Michael D. Moore (The Fastest Guitar Alive) and co-starring Aldo Ray (And Hope to Die) and Aliza Gur (From Russia with Love), Kill a Dragon mixes rousing action with all the wonder and excitement of beautiful Hong Kong!
“The movie does, however, move at a great pace and feature some awesome footage of sixties-era Hong Kong. As such, it’s completely watchable in spite of the fact that the martial arts on display are terrible and that the score suits the film about as well as Lamas’ bizarre (though notably colorful) wardrobe. The real reason to watch this one, however, is Palance. He’s so miscast here and his performance so ridiculously over the top and out of place that you can’t help but love him. He not only chews through the scenery but just looks so amazingly out of place and delivers his bad one-liners with such bizarre hissing enthusiasm that he really does make for one of the strangest action movie heroes you’re ever likely to see.”