The Pete Quiñones Show - Pete and J. Burden Discuss Michael Cimino's 'Year of the Dragon' (1985)

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

61 MinutesSome Strong LanguageJ. Burden is a content creator and the host of The J. Burden Show on YouTube and all podcatchers. J. invited Pete to come on his show to talk about the 1985 film "Year of the Dragon"J's SubstackJ's PatreonJ's YouTube ChannelJ's Find My Frens PagePete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

All right, Pete, welcome back to the Jay Bird and show. How are you doing, man? Doing good, man. I'm so happy to be talking about anything other than what's in the news today. Yeah, it's funny because the current events shows, and I'm sure it's the same period, they always do really well. But anytime, I say anytime, the times that I do talk about, you know, cars or gun autism or a random movie, I get dozens of,

of messages of people saying, oh, thank God, something else, right? Something to keep me from going crazy. Like one of the local OGC guys sent me a message about that. I did a recent episode with Bagby on Hail Caesar. And I feel like it's a common feeling where a lot of us just sort of feel, not to say overwhelmed, but just depressed by the news, right? It's bad. It was bad two weeks ago.

It's probably going to be bad two weeks from now. And so, yeah, it's good to sort of get your head. head above the water. Yeah, man, I'll let you introduce our subject because, really, before you recommended me this movie, I'd never heard anything about it. I'd never seen it. And so, yeah, man, I'll let you start. So this movie is, okay, this is how I found this movie. I'm old enough to have gone to video stores. And you go to a video store, you've seen everything already. And you're like, okay, what is there out there? And there's this Mickey Rourke movie, and I liked Mickey Rourke at the time, and it has all this like Asian stuff on it. And I'm like, all right,

this looks pretty good called Year of the Dragon, came out in 1985. And I look at it and I see, oh, co-written by Oliver Stone. This should be interesting. I liked Salvador at the time. I thought that was maybe his best picture, one of the best pictures he ever made. And then I watch it. And I'm like, everything in this movie is over the top. The violence, the women, the racism, everything is just like, oh, I'm like, oh, this is the kind of movie that I can watch over and over again because there's great lines in it, the actions. insane. There are hitmen dressed like new wave artists for no reason whatsoever. And you're, and you're like, they could be, they could be hit men. They could also be in Kajagugu. I have no

clue what's going on with the, um, what like who did the costuming on this movie. But the movie is just literally insane from start to finish. So yeah, I went when I saw that you and, um, You and Andy talked about Angel Heart, which is another, that's an insane, insane movie. And I was like, hey, you know, if you think Mickey Rourke was good in that, check this out. And Mickey Rourke is just way over. I mean, they just, I think they just went to him. I think Simeino went to him and just said, look, you can do anything. You can say anything.

And we're going to keep it in the movie. Yeah, this movie is. So, like, there's this kind of meme idea. of like the 80s B movie, right? You know, the kind of stuff that's like parodied in like the Simpsons and stuff like that. And if you actually go and watch like the old canon films or stuff like that, they're not actually that good. They're really boring.

The production value was too low. So like you might see an old junker, you know, blow up. But really like the, the actual real B movies of the era weren't that good. This is what you want it to be. As you've said, it's an insane movie. And that's part of why I. was so entertained by it is because consistently through the whole thing, like, don't get me wrong. There's a lot of those kind of classic detective cop movie tropes in there. But things

escalate so quickly and kind of out of nowhere that for your first viewing, you're just a long for the ride. Like, it's a long movie. It's what? Two hours, 15 minutes plus or minus. It does not feel like that. It is from go. You're just on for the ride. And I mean, you mentioned Mickey Rourke, who I was talking to one of my buddies about this movie. And they were, they described kind of the second Mickey Rourke right after he went back to boxing and then tried to get back to acting as a man made out of Oreo filling, which is a pretty good description. But to see him, you know, kind of when he was still in his heartthrob era, and again,

just chewing the scenery. Like there is no emotion he doesn't give to you at, you know, an 11 out of 10. It's, I mean, it's incredibly interesting. And so, like, right off like the very beginning of the movie, you get what you kind of expect from, you know, a New York cop movie, right? We're going through. It's a funeral, I believe, of a, you know, a figure in kind of in Chinatown. And you see one of these, it's kind of funny because you're, the cops in this are almost using the like New York post euphemisms the whole time, right? The, the rowdy youths, you know, break into this. store. And the sort of broader conflict of this is basically the Chinese triads have had a deal with both the Italian mafia and NYPD to sort of keep crime under wraps. So there's drugs, there's gambling, but it's kept within a certain range. And there's a new up-and-comer, you know, in the Chinese mafia, you know, there's a new generation who's going crazy. And the start to this,

again, if we're talking about that escalation, it's right off the rip because, you know, you're going through this sort of funeral scene. It's, it's, you know, very Chinese or at least I guess it's Chinese. And you see this kind of like old-timey New Yorker shopkeeper. And, you know, he's arguing with this kid like, oh, I pay my protection money to the Italians, not to you. And the kid just blast his brains out all over the store, like the 92nd mark. I mean, it's the whole idea behind it. First of all, I mean, there's so much we can say about this because there are Oliver Stone being one of the main writers on this. And Michael Simino, the director who, Michael Simino directed the deer hunter, which was considered to be, you know, one of the, it's considered one of the greatest movies of all time.

And I'm pretty sure he won the Oscar for that. and he, so he directs this. And you have a Vietnam movie. And then you have a movie, which I look at this movie and I'm like, this movie is just like a guy came home from Vietnam and he's still fighting the war, but he's fighting it in New York City. And he's fighting it like not against the Vietnamese, but he's just like, well, they look alike. So let's go to war with the Chinese. But yeah, right off the rip, I mean, you get this, you get this. a murder and then you get

of a, what looks like a Jewish shopkeeper. And then like, I think what, a minute and a half later, you get another, you get like an assassination of, I mean, it's like it's one thing after

another and you realize what this up-and-comer, Joey Tai, played by John Lone, is doing is, is he's creating chaos. And he's doing the, you know, a lot of what we see politicians doing now, what we see a lot of countries, a lot of regimes do, where if they want to take control of something, they think that what they can do is they can create total chaos of a situation. And then they, and they actually are directing the chaos or controlling the height of the flame, to use another term. and he thinks that, oh, if I can do this, I'll be able to take over everything. And I'll be able now, Chinatown, now this heroin trade, this opium trade belongs to me.

And, you know, I mean, not to get too far into the movie, but you know, you get to the point where you can see in his eyes where he's like, oh, I've lost control. And I don't know what I'm going to do to get it back. And this is a sort of a background conflict you see in the movie is, you know, our main villain kind of budding up against the other crime bosses. There's a moment we'll get to later where he, you know, has a sort of blow up with the, you know, Italians, which is one of the greatest scenes in the movie, right? The Italian mob boss, he's at a trachectomy, so he's got a little voice box. And so it's like Stephen Hawking talking like a, you know, an 80s New York mobster. which, but in that, you know, earlier in the film, he's talking to, you know, the other kind of Chinese triad leaders. And, you know, they are, you're constantly talking about, you know, oh, the need for harmony, the need to not rock the boat.

And this kid's just going in guns blazing. So this assassination is, honestly, it's such a great, like, set piece action scene. So our main character, Officer White, which is. a little on the nose. That's just a little bit of like, all right, guys, come on. Like, could you give us at least something, you know, make him like a Puerto Rico. And we call him Blanco or something. Well, then we find out he's a Polack who's changed his name.

So, yeah. Yeah. But so he's meeting with his love interest, this Chinese American reporter who primarily reports on Chinese issues for an English language magazine. Oh, by the way, or by the way, let me interrupt for a second. her acting is horrible it's the worst part of the movie is her acting yes uh yes she's a model she was she was a model they brought her in we know why she's there yeah exactly yeah yeah i get the feeling just from listening to her she didn't go to julietard uh but this seems so and honestly it really

kind of reminded me of uh the night club she shootout in Temple of Doom, right? Obviously, that's a different style of movie, but it is similarly

over the top. So these two kids come in with Uzi's, which, by the way, 80s crime Uzi's are the coolest thing ever. It really are,

man. That's why I always wanted one. Yeah, exactly. It's the same thing with a Mac 10 where it's like, okay,

obviously a Mac 10 is way worse than an Uzi, but it's the same like part of my brain that's like, yeah, I want to look like an 80s new wave Chinese hitman who's 14.

I don't know, whatever, it's cool. And they just hose down this entire restaurant with bullets to assassinate one guy. And they're, like, he's blasting people in the restaurant. Like,

when we hear the, like the gunshots, this random woman in the background, like rose up her arms in the air and we just see the squibs, like stitching across her body. She almost gets cut in half. have. And so, you know, Mickey Rourke leaps into action, right? He starts returning fire in this restaurant, shoots one of them, and then wrestles another one down the stairs. So they're

wrestling down the stairs. The oozy is just ripping off into the ceiling. And one of these kids ends up shooting themselves in the foot. So, you know, they escape. And I can't remember if it's right before or right after, but, oh, it's right after. Because we see another great stock character, right? The police chief, which I mean, this is like something out of lethal weapon, which I realize, you know, that was less of a kind of a trope at the time. This is like this is the New York cop movie of your dreams, the best way to describe it. Yeah, the, the captain who does, you have the captain who wants to keep his cool, but he also has Mickey Rourke's like childhood friend there who's not, his boss, not his boss, but a colleague, I think he is.

It never really makes it clear exactly what they are other than like childhood friends. And it seems like the captain is the one who's like, yeah, I'm just, I mean, to use lethal web, but I'm too old for this shit. I don't want to deal with this. We, we, these people police themselves. We will kick ass on the gangs if things get out of hand. down there, but we leave the gambling alone, we leave the drugs alone, we leave everything alone, you know, and it's one of those things that you can make political because you look at

it now when you're like, yeah, this is just another example of importing another group of people into your country who are going to start doing things their way, and they're going to get power. I mean, at one point, they say Joey Tai gives, a hundred, donates $100,000 a year to the mayor. And it's like, okay, well, you bring this captain in who wants to kick ass on the Chinese and isn't just kicking ass on the gangs, but the young kids, but is kicking ass on gambling and anything else they have. He's upsetting the apple cart while Joey's upsetting the apple cart. So you have these two forces that are hitting each other causing chaos.

and it's like, okay, well, that's how you get fucking squibs, you know, you get people cut in half by a fucking oozy in a restaurant. It's just, I mean, it's, but you're right. The, the amount of tropes as far as like NYPD, like the first, like in the first scene when, when Tracy is trying to interview the captain on the, on the, the horse, that guy is a cop in like every 80s movie. There's, it's like they couldn't, they couldn't like pick somebody else. It had to be that one guy who was just like going to speak in the euphemisms, no comment.

We're, you know, we're, we're just here to try to keep the peace and help whenever we can. And then, you know, Stanley comes in and it's just like, yeah, we're just, I'm, I'm just going to blow this place up. The great scene is when he says, what does he say about, he's addressing all the cops, all the uniformed officers. And he said, if you, if I hear any of you on the take, you know, I'm going to hit you. I'm going to punch you in the mouth. And he says, what if, and the woman, she's one of the female cops goes, what if it's a woman? He goes, well, then she better bend over. Yeah.

Just way over. Everything in this movie is just like, they just told Mickey Rourke fucking act like, take the stereotype New Yorker, times it by 10 and make him a New York police captain that wants to kill every Chinese person he meets. Yeah, and that's basically, that's basically the movie. So another one of the ongoing plots is that, you know, Mickey Rourke has his wife. who is seemingly grew up in the same neighborhood as him and his childhood best friend that comes relevant later in the film. They're trying for a baby. He's obsessed with the job. You know, he missed, he missed the window. She's real mad at him. We also see some, again, this movie moves at like 100 miles an hour. So we see that he's not helping out around the house,

right? Everything's run down. When we meet her, his wife is like rebuilding a washing machine, you know, on the kitchen floor. And so they have a, they have a fight, of course. You know, their relationship obviously goes south over the course of this film. But when we, we sort of, you know, get back kind of into the action, right? Obviously, we have this tension between, you know, Mickey Roark's character, Officer White, who basically says, you know, this is all in the Chinese triad. The higher ups are saying, like, what are you talking about?

This is just some youth gang, you know, going crazy. and to sort of wage, I guess you could say, kind of a guerrilla war campaign. He pulls this reporter into it to try and expose this story. But as part of this, he realizes, well, I'm going to need a Chinese guy to go in undercover, right? Because they'll all know me. We need to find someone who isn't known as a cop. So they go to the police academy and they pick out this kid. is his name

Harry, right? Harry Young, isn't that his name? Yeah, yeah. Or something like that. It's a fake name. He even says, like, my Chinese name's too complicated. And, you know, they pick him up. He's not even a full police officer yet.

So one of my, and I figured you and I would have an interesting conversation about this one, the scene where they meet this kid is at the qualification range, where you see the greatest old-timey Hollywood. Like pistol shooting you can imagine. It's just so, it's so good when there's, well, another thing is, is I love how they, they shot it to go down the line and he's literally like a head shorter than everyone else. And so you have all these guys who were there and they're all, you know, they're like, I guess proto-tactical, because police weren't really tactical back then that, that came much later. And they show him shoot the target.

He's nowhere near the center of the target. It's like, oh, we're going to throw this guy out of the street. And it's just, I mean, it's just it was at least the other movie that did this where they went into the police academy was the unsouchables. They went out of Andy Garcia out of the police academy and everything. I mean, lethal weapons got another one, right? very famous range scene. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

And so Andy Garcia comes in, but at least he could shoot. I mean, you knew that they were. And when they're driving in the car, when they pick this kid up and they tell him what he's going to be doing, his reaction is just a bad. He doesn't care that this guy is a police captain. I mean, the way they're talking to each other is just, it's just like, it's like Simeino told them, oh, just like talk to each other. like, I mean, be as belligerent to each other as possible.

Well, and to that point, like, his objections are so hilarious because he's like, I still have a part-time job. You want me to quit my job? Like, I'm sending money back home. Like, you think I could just quit? And he's just like, yeah, quit your job tomorrow. You work for us. But the sidebar, and it's kind of funny because this movie has a very, very slight figly where it's like, oh, Officer White had to learn to not be racist a little bit.

But it's a really, really little figly. Because when they're driving around, they've got this young kid driving. And he is a horrible driver. Stay in the middle of the conversation. Stay in the left lane. And these guys are making fun of him for the whole time. And he's getting more and more mad. It's just like genuinely a ridiculous situation.

So in the background, while all this is happening, the two shooters, right, both of whom have been wounded in this assassination attempt, are kind of hold up in a safe house. And we hear Officer White even say, like, look, if they're wounded, it's going to be real hard to hide. You know, they'll show up in a hospital or something. And we see a scene where our main villain, right, Johnny Ty, comes in, you know, offers these guys cigarettes. at joey july tie be respectful i'm sorry i'll i'll be honest this isn't me making a point uh names and faces are tough in this movie that's all i'll say uh what did you what did you text me earlier he texts me my biggest complaint with this movie is i can't tell half the cast apart well it's true because what would happen is there'd be a dramatic reveal where like the camera

and be like, oh, it's him. There's a sting. And I'm sitting there. And I'm like, do we, do we know who that is? Is that him? Or I just can't. And it doesn't help that even the main romantic lead has a very androgynous haircut. So unless it's a close up, you're kind of guessing based on contact of who anyone is.

And obviously, there are some characters who are much more visually distinct than others. but also the fact that everyone's especially the criminals are dressed like lunatics at all moments right it's actually pretty hard to tell so point is when when tie comes in obviously he gives these guys cigarettes ask how they're doing and then you know brings in a guy to shoot them is the guy who shot them a notable person or is he just the guy who pulled the trigger because i couldn't remember if that was or i couldn't tell if that was another character or not I think that the, if I remember, the original VCR had subtitles on that point, and he was like a new guy.

And they were like, okay, we got to, we got to, you know, break him in. So you're going to kill these two guys. And that's why he's very, he's very hesitant when he's doing it. He doesn't want to do it. You can tell he's not like, he hasn't killed anybody yet. Yeah, subtitles are 100% necessary for this movie because there's probably like 30% of it that's in Chinese. And hypothetically, if you watch the movie through an illegitimate source, your subtitles might not have been great. Speaking from experience.

So there are several ports to this movie where I'm like, I feel like I got what happened. But so yeah, obviously we see the, you know, just ties absolute absolute. absolute ruthlessness there. And later when we kind of pick up with with Officer White, he's he's discovered their bodies. And their bodies have been dumped in like a noodle factory. It's super gross. Yeah, it's a, I think they said it was a soybean vat or something like that.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And they said something like, oh, we wouldn't. I'm surprised we discovered it. They could have gotten lost down there forever. It's like, what the hell's going on in Chinatown? It's like, literally, what are you talking about? You're supposed to be making food down there.

How do you have bodies in a bat? You're not going to know that. It's like they're going to the top. Well, this is one of my favorite background characters is the old Chinese guy who discovered these. He's just, while they're doing the examination while, you know, the police officer's like, you know, kind of like examining these bodies. And again, as we've mentioned before, the violence is crazy over the top. Like, these guys have like bullet holes in their head. One of the weird ones is a lot of people get shot through the cheek in this movie. Yeah.

Which is the face. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, it is what it is. But he's just going on about how young people these days don't have no respect and how they don't think with like no interruption. He's just rattling off for like five minutes. It's hilarious. And Stanley finally goes, you're a good man. There should be more like you. And he turns around and just goes, a bullshit.

It's like what? And Stanley just looks at him like, what the hell is going on here? He says he's been working down there for 40 years. I mean, that is, to bring it back, You're talking about a fucking, this is not a civilization.

This is not, what have you imported? What have you allowed to come here? You know, and like one thing that Joey says at one point is extortion and bribery when it comes to the Chinese is a thousand years of business. You know, and yeah. So how, where do you want to go from there? I mean, there's a whole lot more. Yeah, so in the kind of secondary plot,

uh, our main character has, you know, to sort of patch things up with the misses, uh, you know, says, you know,

we'll go out to a, you know, a fancy restaurant, right? And this restaurant is, you know, seemingly owned by, you know,

Joey Tai, or at least he's in there. And so he basically sits down, he's late for a date with his wife, sees Joey Thai and just goes apisht. Like he just, just starts punching him. As part of that, a pack of cigarettes is, I think he offers him a cigarette before the,

you know, the fight breaks out. And he realizes that's the same brand that the guys in the soy vat had. So he's sort of starting to build the connection there. And, you know, that seems funny in its own right. But when he comes back, you know, his wife is stormed out. She's gone. He comes back to their place and all of his clothes are just out in the front yard. He's done with him.

So he basically gets drunk, drives down the street, finds this reporter, and just starts sexually harassing her from a moving car. She invites him back to her place. He comes over. They like kiss for a little bit. And she's like, yeah, I can't do this. I've got my, you know, I always just, you know, making love with my boyfriend all day. He just loses it, right? Because this fake boyfriend, we later find out he's fake, is a lawyer.

And he starts going off about lawyers. How they're everything wrong with society. She gets mad. He gets mad. He leaves. Walks out the door. Walks back in the door. Walks in.

Slaps her in the face like four times. And then, you know, they go to bed together. And again, this is what I'm talking about where this movie, it never slows down. And it's like zero to 60 in no sense. no time flat, right? Yeah, the, that whole, the whole dynamic with the, uh, the Chinese reporter is, is probably, yeah, if I wasn't so immune to charges of racism and stuff like that, I would just say that's the most over the top thing in the whole movie.

Because it's like, I mean, she's, she's literally, he's literally just, treating her like a Vietnamese prostitaph the whole time, the whole movie. And I think even, she even says that at one point. She says, makes a comment about him not, still not being in Vietnam, you know, I'm not, I'm not a, I'm not a hooker in, in Vietnam and everything. And it's just like, you're looking at this dynamic. And the dynamic is basically he's using her. when she says anything that insults him, he just absolutely loses it. And then what Leo,

later, he finds out that she's been hurt. And he's not mad that she got hurt. He's mad that like a piece of my property, you messed with like, you messed with a tool that I'm using for my job. And now it's like, I'm not going to be able to use this tool anymore.

He's so insane. It's just, you realize, like, you start to realize at one point, we'll talk about that point. There's a marker in the movie that shows where he,

like, where everything starts escalating in his mind. So, yeah, the Chinese reporter is just, honestly, the most offensive character in the whole movie. Well, and there's a, there's a scene, which again, is so over the top.

It's like the second time he, ends up in her place, where she's like, you know, oh, you're, you know, you're a racist. And he gets like kind of offended for a little bit. But then he's like, yeah, I hated you in Vietnam. I hated it. And he's not talking about her. He is talking about Charlie. Well, we'll keep it at that, right?

And so, and he goes on this insane rant where he's like, yeah, I hated you on TV. I hated the first time I heard you. I hated the first time I saw you. it's the most insane over-the-top rant possible. And she's kind of bothered, but also not really, which, you know, if you've been around right-wing people before, you will have seen this dynamic, right? As a white man would have said, never ask a white nationalist the race of his girlfriend. But it is not only in that dynamic over the top, but there are other. moments will get too kind of closer to the end of the film where it's just berating her constantly.

So there's sort of a, the one time we really leave. Oh, actually, I guess first we have to have this is his, the conversation with the Italian mobs guy with, you know, Joey Tai. and basically what they're he is with you know kind of the other members of the chinese mafia he is on paper sort of a junior partner but through this conversation and his actions of the film we we realize what's going on here right he wants to take over and basically they're renegotiating a deal between these italian guys and an earlier generation of uh you know kind of triad guys and you know ties strongarmes them. The Italian guy. So one of the kind of background henchmen is this sort of like, like

he looks like a character from a black exploitation film. Right? He's just kind of ties hired muscle. But he's got like an afro. He dresses kind of like a pimp. He's got a bunch of rings on. And you'll have to watch it for yourself. I can't say this on YouTube. But the way the Italian guys refer to him

is equally over the top. But as I said earlier right, the mobster, he has the voice box, right? The trachectomy. And I think that's how you say it. But point is, it's just like the best gangster speech ever delivered through a little like speak and spell. It's hilarious.

Yeah, the, uh, the having to include the Italians is really, is really important if you're going to talk about New York because, um, maybe a lot of people don't understand the geography of New York, but the Chinese are in Chinatown. and Canal Street runs across Manhattan Island, and Mott Street and Chinatown are on the south side of the island. Just right over Moth Street, on the other side of Moth Street is Little Italy. Carmine Street, places like that. I mean, they're right next to each other.

There's just one big avenue separating them. So they have to have a, if they're going to do, be able to do business, there has to be some kind of truce. There has to be some kind of, um, some kind of understanding. And if you're going to say, well, we had this, you know, we've had this agreement with you talking to the Italian mob for X amount of years and really X amount of decades and now I'm changing it.

and you're going to have the kind of attitude that Joey Tai has that he knows more than them. He's the young guy. He understands everything. You're going to expect to, you're going to expect an Italian guy, even one who's had a tracheotomy or something. I don't even know what that is. Even a guy with that, he's going to, you're going to hear it. And especially after that, the assassination at the beginning of that, Jewish business store owner, you're basically taking out, that's one stream of income gone

now. And you have to be, they're going to see that this is, the Italians aren't stupid enough to think that that was just gangs. They're going to know something's going on. So that's how they went into that meeting. They went into that meeting that knowing that someone's making a move. And, you know, it was when I think once he starts seeing the way Joey Tai talks and speaks to them that, yeah, this is this is a guy who's basically pulling the strings right now. So next we have kind of a diversion, right, where in order to secure his supply, right, Thai needs to go back to Thailand, which is where this heroin is coming from. there are triad figures there who he has a deal with and then there's also this sort of like group of guerrillas it's never explicitly said you know who they are apparently they were fighting with the Burmese maybe we can ask Carl Dahl who they're supposed to be I don't know jungle Asians who hate the Burmese right but point is so he goes back to Thailand he's got his hired muscle with him which again it's a very funny like it's never explicitly drawn attention to, but seeing this sort of like stereotypical New York pimp walking through like rice patties in the middle of nowhere is really funny. So he goes back and he meets with this guy called

it's white powder towel. White powder ma, white powder ma. Yeah, yeah. Look, man, I'm American enough that any Asian name, I'm lucky to get a half of it. But he goes back, right, to sort of work on his deal with with this guy, at least so we think. So he's meeting with one of his associates, meets up with Ma, and then we see, you know, he says, hey, you know, let's meet for dinner. And then the film moves on. They're driving in this kind of like absurd rickety four by four out to the middle of nowhere, him and his kind of jive muscle like slumped in the seat next to him. They're going around like water buffalo and stuff. And they get out to this rebel camp out in the middle of nowhere.

You later find out it's like 500 miles away from the airport. And, you know, apparently these two guys have history. They both served under the same general, right? The general we see who is senile and just on a constant drip of heroin, right? His mind is basically gone. Kind of disturbing, too. Yeah, no, it's definitely. It was very disturbed.

That's when you start seeing the deer hunter, like the disturbing parts. the deer hunter in the jungle kind of stuff come out. Yeah, like, I don't know if you notice, but he has like completely black teeth. Like they're just rotted out of his head. Yeah. And so, you know, he sits down across from this general and,

you know, they're talking business. They're sort of negotiating, you know, back and forth over the details of obviously the, the general wants more money. He says, you know what, we'll refine it to an additional stage for you,

ship you refined product. You're going to have to pay for it. you know, Ty disagrees. And again, this kind of repeated, you know, motif of basically, you know, being for or being kind of encouraged to kill someone to prove a point. The general brings out, you know, that this mentor and says like, all right, like, you know, you've got to shoot him. He passes the gun down the desk. And obviously, you know, Ty has been shown to be completely and totally ruthless. But we see a rare moment of conscience where he basically says like, no, I'm not going to do it, but I'll pay you five grand for him.

I'll buy him. And, you know, after that, the negotiations kind of go south. He basically says, like, look, like, you're insignificant. I've got, you know, white powder ma. What do I need you? And he reaches into his bag, pulls out a box and pulls out white powder ma's head by the hair and, like, throws it down the table. Oh, actually, one other thing. speaking to this movie going from from like zero to 60 when he refuses to shoot him the general's

like okay well we don't need to waste a bullet on him so they tie him to a stick in the back and one of his goons has like a tree branch and he's about ready to smash his head in with a stick yeah the um it just goes to show that he at that point anyone who really knows anything about Organized crime, government, same thing. He's so out of control that there's no way he's going to be able to pull this back in. He's trying to kill, he's trying to consolidate everything to himself. And as smart as he is, he just, you can't do that with that culture. You know, it's like people who, it's like getting rid of Saddam Hussein.

okay Saddam Hussein kept that country basically from like devolving into people could say whatever oh his kids went around doing this and doing that okay maybe I don't know never really seen any evidence of that it could be legend it could be

if they were I hope they're burning in hell if they were doing that I hope they're burning in hell but um you have to have a certain order in order for certain cultures to be able to exist and to be prosperous. I mean, look at Singapore. If Singapore wasn't the most totalitarian, one of the most

totalitarian countries on the planet, they would devolve into chaos overnight. You have Chinese and Japanese. I mean, you have all these Asian groups that absolutely hate each other. There is no better racism on the planet than the racism between Asian groups. They absolutely cannot stand each other. And you just see Joey is just devolving into this. He thinks that he's going to be able to rule this all by himself with a couple of gangs on the street. He doesn't have any plans.

He doesn't. There is no, it's very much like a lot of politicians you see nowadays. They get things rolling, but they don't have an end, like they think they have an end game, but the end game is, cannot be had the way they're playing. it. And yeah, I think that's why when Joey gets back to New York, I think you see a sense of urgency there, a sense of he's not the calm guy he is the first half of the movie before he goes to Thailand. And one of the scenes that I forgot to mention that is important is that when Joey is sitting down with the Italians, our main character, right, Mickey Rourke has successfully gotten the ability to wiretap it. So they're listening it.

And the higher ups are like, there's nothing in this conversation. They didn't say anything illegal. They're speaking in code. There's nothing here. You're just making it up. So, you know, of course, when he gets back, the pressure's mounted. You know, the higher ups are saying, telling him to drop it. He's unwilling to.

And so as, you know, obviously he's been. seeing this Chinese reporter, even though his wife kind of kicked him out, when they finally, you know, meet back up, right? She basically says, like, I'm done. You know, you're running around with a woman who's 10 years younger. I don't have much time. I can't afford to waste it on you. And lest you think that this is going to be a scene where two characters talk without something interesting happening. She goes into the bathroom. He's talking to her through the door. She's crying. and then all of a sudden more sort of

of random new wave Asians kick down the door with garrotes and they grab Mickey Rourke, grab his wife, very brutally kill his wife. He, you know, fights one of them off,

shoots him, you know, goes into the drawer, picks out a gun, chases him out the front door, and shoots him through the rear glass. Like, he sees brains all over the front.

And his child, childhood best friend, apparently lives next door. He runs out with a shotgun, right? And as they're chasing down this little side street, the F-body, look at F-body Camero, I think, hits the end of the block and just erupts into an explosion. Like, full-on 80s car explosion. And sorry. Well, and Mickey Rourke, like, runs to the explosions.

It pull the body out while his, while his friend is like, Stanley, Stanley, stop. What are you doing? He says he's wasted. What do you can do? So he's evidence. He's evidence. Again, there are multiple parts. Like, this movie's not a comedy.

Like, there's not a lot of jokes in it per se, but it is really funny. And one of the funniest shots is, you know, he's dragging the body over and he's like bent over. And so he sort of picks himself up out of the bottom of the shot. And he's like smoking covered in soot. Like his jacket. It's on fire. It's just a, like, if the movie were, like, at a slightly different tone, it would be, like, roll out of your seat hilarious. Like, it's a very funny movie.

One thing I noticed about that scene where he goes to talk to his wife and they both end up getting attacked and she ends up getting frigging her throat slit. He's wearing his military jacket. And he wears his military jacket for the rest of the movie. It's almost like a signal that like he's going now it's war. It's like it's just going to be a battle from here on out. And I thought that was something I picked up on just. I mean, I've probably seen the movie 10 times.

I just picked up on that this last time because I was watching, you know, we're going to do this. I was watching it for little things to see if there was anything I could pick up on. But another thing in this movie, and I will say this because this movie was made in, It was released in 1985, which means it was made in 83 or 84. The Chinese, they keep mentioning their friends in Toronto.

So if you think Canada was just invaded by Chinese in the last 10 years, think again, they're basically telling you in this movie 40 years ago that, yeah, yeah, Chinese are already taking over, the Chinese are already in Canada. the next scene in the nightclub is probably the best scene in the movie. It's such an awesome scene because obviously, you know, as you said, and I did pick out that he was wearing his military jacket. Because when he's sitting down talking to his wife, you have a chance to actually look at him. And obviously, it's not, you know, it's not his police uniform. It's not his long kind of detectives overcoat.

So he's mad, right? He's going after this guy. So he goes into this nightclub. And again, as we've said, this is full on new wave. We've got like dyed hair, crazy makeup, people wearing like fishnets. And he just walks in and starts beating the hell out of them. And he drags him into a bathroom. You know, there's bouncers behind him.

There's other kind of, you know, criminals following him in there. And in a very kind of what would be a stock action movie moment, he's punching him through stall doors in the bathroom. but every single stall has like four people in it, all doing drugs. It's like every time he punches him through a door, it's like some girl like snorting coke and there's like a guy in a suit like pulling his pants up. Like every, it's there's like four stalls. And, you know, eventually like more people come in. Someone pulled out a gun. It's these two girls, I think.

You know, his one of the other policemen I think is running in to provide back. up, he gets gutshot. But our main character basically chases them. They start booking it out of there, the club, everything's going crazy, like the music's pounding. He's chasing them through New York. They're trading bullets.

And he just blasts this woman. She gets basically, like, hit by a car, spun around. She's lying out, like, on the pavement, breathing her last. And he just looks over at her. And I don't know the exact line, but he basically

is like, tells her, like, you're going to die. Yeah, you're going to die, honey. Yeah. Yeah. It's so incredible. Like, it's, it's very cold. And I think it's safe to say that Mickey Rourke's character is not what we would define as a good person in this movie, but it is super entertaining. The, um, yeah, the, the, the whole thing with him is, is, it's just, he's kind of, if,

he's kind of the idea of the cop that if you have like an area of the city that has been absolutely taken over and is being run by a you know by a mob he's the kind of guy who you would want to go in there and he could get the job done you know the problem is is that it's just decades and decades and decades of people not doing anything. So nobody wants to, the police don't want to do anything. The mayor doesn't want to do anything. The chief of police doesn't want to do anything.

So he's, I mean, he's making this up as he goes along. He doesn't really have any idea what he's doing. He's, he's basically doing, like I said earlier, he's basically doing what Joey's doing

as he's trying to create as much chaos as he possibly can. And he thinks if he creates enough chaos, it will be able to bring, bring him down. And yeah. And I guess shortly after this is the, he figures,

this is when Joey figures out that there's a wire there. And he lines up everybody who works in the, in the restaurant, in the kitchen. By the way, if you're wondering the exact moment when I texted you, it was during this lineup. Because I'm like,

I know. it's like obviously i know that like this kid they pulled out who isn't on screen much he's one of the guys in the restaurant but when they're lining him up until the camera focuses i was like i mean beats me i don't know which one of them has the wire and you know it just you see at that point that harry um cannot he's not ready for the street he's not ready for undercover he can't keep is cool. It's obvious who it's obvious who the outsider is. It's obvious who has who the

who's planted the bug. And so after that, you see Harry, he's leaving the restaurant that they're in and he's walking across the street and you see someone run up behind him. Now, I know you're not really good with Chinese faces, but did you notice who the, who,

ran up and shot Harry was. No, I didn't. Of course not. It was that kid who they staged the two kids in the beginning. Now he's like, now he's like a full, I've killed two people. Now I can now I can go kill a cop basically. And he shoots him in the face like a couple of times. He shoots him like it might be a through and through through the cheeks, both cheeks,

but I mean, it's just fucked up. And like we find out that Stanley is just like right down the street because that's where they're running the wire from and everything. And he runs up to get the information from him because it turns out that Harry's found out how the opium, the heroin is coming in. Well, and this is, and I forgot to mention this, one of the best background characters in this whole film is the person translating what they're hearing over the wire. It's two nuns, one of whom is Chinese, the other one's like a 90-year-old. old woman. And the way we were introduced to her is

she's just harassing Mickey Rourke for eating meat. And then he's like, what? You're old. You're going to die soon. And she just rattles off like all of her, like her blood pressure, her hemoglobin, like all this stuff. Just a very funny background character. And every time they're on the, and it's

you know, like you've seen this scene before, right? It's the hard-boiled detectives. You know, the signal cuts. They're like, oh, gosh, shit. And then he looks over to the call, sorry, sister. But she obviously isn't the very dramatic moment, but she is there reading last rights while he's trying to get, you know, from this from this guy with the wire, you know, basically, you know, the information like what boat is the heroin coming in on? Uh, so in between, I should have mentioned this. Uh, I saw this movie like I finished it, you know, a couple hours ago. So to be fair, I, uh, I have a few things out of order.

But we find out that again, you know, White has been using this Chinese reporter. And the moment where she's finally done with him is she comes back to her place after he's invited himself over and realizes that he has set up a full like investigation in her house. Like there's other people she doesn't know, including this kid who was, you know, killed for wearing the wire, another kind of like old-timey New York cop. And they have a massive blowout where she kicks him out. but one of the funniest interactions is an interaction between you know him and the kid where he's basically like you can't treat her like that like she's her family aristocrats like she's not going to put up with that then he decides to quit he's like you can't you can't just keep calling me like harry the china man apparently that doesn't like rourke kind of gets him

back on side uh again this movie is just constant racism throughout the whole thing thing. The point is, so in his dying words, he understands like, okay, this is where, you know, this is the ship that it's coming in on. And his Chinese girlfriend has kicked him out. But because she is in on the investigation, she goes after, she goes after Johnny, right? She knows extra information. And so she's bugging him. He's trying to get into this, you know, Mercedes. And she's like, why were you in Thailand? Do you know anything about white powder ma? And he basically says like, oh, I know your sources. I'll speak to legal. And what he actually does is send a bunch of thugs over to, you know, rough her up, right? And that goes back to what we were talking about earlier, right?

Where, uh, you know, white is more upset that his ability to use her as part of this investigation has been harmed than the fact that this woman has been like, you know, pretty savagely abused, which again, right? Like Mickey Work is, he's playing a psycho in this. Actually, one thing we forgot, speaking of Mickey Work chewing the scenery,

is his ex-wife's funeral. It was so, that part is so over the top. Okay, so I don't know. It's one of the parts of the movie that, like, bothers me.

It's like, I wouldn't have done it, where he's there, trying to grieve and the Chinese reporter is like there at the door like trying to report on what's happening but also looking at him grieving and having being sort of upset that he's grieving over someone that he's you know over his wife and someone he's known since they were like little kids and they're and she yeah that like I said she's like my least favorite character in the movie and at that point she is exceptionally.

annoying and it's just like yeah, can we just please, Joey, kill her. And he plays. Let's get her out of the way. So we're building to write this big crescendo, right,

the showdown. And he goes and talks to the port authority. They're having none of it, not interested. They're like, what do you want me to do? You know, search an entire container ship.

We don't have the time. You don't have a living witness to attest to this. So, you know, pound sand. And so, basically with no real support Mickey Rourke goes in and this is not

he is not looking to arrest anyone here. He is looking to kill Joey. And so again, more over the top like craziness. Joey's driving in, right? You know, we see him talking to some other guys. With his pimp buddy.

Yeah, yeah. And as he goes to like circle a block or something, Mickey Roark gets into like a 60 mile an hour head-on collision, comes out with a gun, tells the, you know, the pimp to beat it. And then they get into a fight. Someone's hand gets blown open, like right through the middle of the palm. The gore in this, if you're the kind of psycho that, you know, is into that is really good. Like they're doing good practical effects in this. And they just start, he just starts chasing him.

They're going down train tracks. And I don't want to say it's the most over-the-top moment in the movie, but it's got to be pretty close. The climax, the way that this fight concludes. Do you want to describe it, Pete? Well, first they start, Joey starts trying to drive across a train bridge. Of course, and Mickey Roark is chasing behind him. And of course, the train starts coming, so he has to back all the way up. and then he jumps out of the car,

they jump out of the car. And now Joey starts running across the bridge. Mickey Rourke is shooting now with his left hand because he just had his right hand shot all the way through. And they're just shooting at each other and they're screaming at each other. And they're like, they're like they've gone fucking native. They're just like they're not even human anymore the way they're screaming at each other.

And, you know, finally, he gets the better at Joey, even though he's been shot. And then, I mean, did you expect Joey to do exactly what he did? Oh, by the way, Mickey Rourke, of course, has a desert eagle. Yeah, yeah, of course. It's like, where are you carrying that? What are you doing here? No, no, no. I got a meme gun.

Very serious green berets. When they plan a bombing of a Trump Tower and a Tesla full of fireworks, they use Desert Eagles. So I'll have you know it's a very serious gun. Because he must have got that from Joey Tai because that's when they're standing. They're like on their knees looking at each other. And Joey asked for his gun because he's had a bullet. Joey just puts it under his chin and blows the top of his fucking head off. And that's, yeah.

And then you, we see that they're doing the same thing that they always do. In Chinatown, they're having a walking, they're having their kind of funeral thing where they have right back to the beginning of the film. Yeah. It's just exactly the way the film started. And the reporter is they are covering it. And fucking Stanley shows up, runs into the fucking crowd of people. And just, we have to arrest these people.

I mean, he's just losing his. shit and they just start beating the living hell out of them. And like the frigging reporter like finally, I think she, we're supposed to believe that she tore everybody off of him while he's on the ground. And, um, you know, they, they walk away together off into the rising sunset. I don't know. So, and, and another thing is. is like her last line is Stanley,

you're really cracked. It's just such a terrible like B movie kind of 80s line, which is another reason why God, I hate her character so much. But I mean, her character is important to the whole plot. But do you have something on the ending there?

Yeah, I mean, obviously, this is a really fun movie. And we talked about a lot of what happened. There's things that we didn't just for the sake of time. And also like, you know,

if you wanted to. to understand the plot of the movie in over an hour, watch the movie. You know, don't listen to two guys talking about it. But obviously, you have the element that this is, this is cyclical, right? Chinatown is still there. You know, the forces that created, you know, this whole situation are still there. Yeah, this guy, you know, Thai, he burned out. But it's just like that, like, it is cyclical, you know, despite all of Mickey

Rourke's effort, nothing systemic. Somebody's taking over. I hope that the opium is still going to be coming in. The girls are still going to be prostituted and the gambling is going to continue. Nothing is going to change. And apparently there is no stronger bond between a mentally unhinged racist and his non-white girlfriend.