- IFDB
- Fanedit Listings
- FanFix
- Year of the Dragon: Rourke's Redemption
Year of the Dragon: Rourke's Redemption
Updated
Faneditor Name:
Original Movie/Show Title:
Fanedit Type:
Original Release Date:
1985
Original Running Time:
134
Fanedit Release Date:
Fanedit Running Time:
104
Time Cut:
30
Subtitles Available?
Additional Links:
Brief Synopsis:
“Year of the Dragon” is a great ride. The worldbuilding, the cinematography, Michael Cimino’s direction, Mickey Rourke’s gritty performance as NYC police Captain Stanley White, his balanced contrast with smooth-talking Chinese gangster Joey Tai (John Lone); it all equates to one seriously entertaining film. The flack that Rourke (and Cimino) got for this movie is unfortunate, but understandable. There’s a key issue that makes our flawed protagonist too unlikable, jarringly disrupts the core crime-thriller narrative, involves bad acting, and pushes dopey sexploitation: White’s adulterous pursuit of local Chinatown reporter, Tracy Tzu (Ariane Koizumi; AKA “Ariane”).
By removing the White/Tracy adulterous relationship subplot entirely, I’ve attempted to redeem Mickey Rourke’s character in “Year of the Dragon” as much as possible. I’ve also streamlined the plot to keep focus on what matters: ‘renegade cop who doesn’t follow the rules is on a fanatic moral crusade to clean up crime in Chinatown, colored by his past as a Vietnam vet, and ultimately accelerated by personal vengeance.’
By removing the White/Tracy adulterous relationship subplot entirely, I’ve attempted to redeem Mickey Rourke’s character in “Year of the Dragon” as much as possible. I’ve also streamlined the plot to keep focus on what matters: ‘renegade cop who doesn’t follow the rules is on a fanatic moral crusade to clean up crime in Chinatown, colored by his past as a Vietnam vet, and ultimately accelerated by personal vengeance.’
Intention:
My primary areas of focus in creating this fanedit were:
- Redeeming Mickey Rourke’s character to the greatest extent possible by removing his adultery subplot / forced relationship with Ariane’s character.
- Adjusting the ending of the film to better fit the new overall tone and natural denouement of a more hellbent mission-focused character arc for Mickey Rourke.
- Increasing the accessibility of the film’s story by adding English subtitles to the extensive Cantonese (and Mandarin) dialogue throughout the film.
- Cutting a few lengthy scenes that I felt distracted too much from our main character and setting.
- Redeeming Mickey Rourke’s character to the greatest extent possible by removing his adultery subplot / forced relationship with Ariane’s character.
- Adjusting the ending of the film to better fit the new overall tone and natural denouement of a more hellbent mission-focused character arc for Mickey Rourke.
- Increasing the accessibility of the film’s story by adding English subtitles to the extensive Cantonese (and Mandarin) dialogue throughout the film.
- Cutting a few lengthy scenes that I felt distracted too much from our main character and setting.
Special Thanks:
Special thanks to spicediver for previewing my edit, offering feedback, and inspiring me to give fanediting a shot myself after watching his impressive “Dune: The Alternative Edition Redux.”
Release Information:
Digital
Editing Details:
*Warning: The Info Below Contains Spoilers*
The trope of Mickey Rourke’s character, Stanley White, being “tempted” into lusting after the Asian “exotic beauty,” Tracy Tzu, over his neglected wife Connie (Caroline Kava) not only bogs down the story, but it’s boring, and it makes White way more of an unsympathetic protagonist than he needs to be (which, given that he’s already a racist, is actually pretty impressive). The fact that Ariane is a poor lead actress, and she and Mickey Rourke have no chemistry onscreen, also doesn’t help…
This fanedit is not a wholesale redemption of Stanley White. That outcome wasn’t possible, or desired. Here, White is still a flawed protagonist, but his most narratively important flaw, his racism, is the primary one on display.
By removing the White/Tracy adulterous relationship angle, the film is able to elevate the breakdown of White’s marriage to Connie to something more connected to the central crime-thriller throughline. Now, the rocky marriage goes south not because White is committing adultery with a younger woman, but because he’s hellbent on his crusade at work, to the detriment of his personal relationship with Connie. This also makes Connie’s murder that much more impactful as a driver for White’s vendetta to take out Joey Tai in the third act.
As an added bonus, this edit somewhat redeems Ariane as well. Tracy Tzu is now simply a supporting character, the local hard-hitting reporter laying out criminal goings-on in Chinatown. Tracy’s function here, as primarily an in-world narrator of events, is where Ariane best shines in the film, and gives some dignity back to her character (as opposed to her scenes of full-frontal nudity and being sexed up by White throughout the original for no good reason).
Finally, because of these changes, the film’s original ending where White makes a run at the remaining Chinatown gang bosses at Joey Tai’s funeral to arrest them, is pulled out unharmed, and then “gets the girl” (walking off with a smooch from Tracy and a throwaway line), would be even more ridiculous than it already was. So, I’ve now made it so White is a martyr of his crusade in Chinatown, and is killed by an angry mob of mourners at Tai’s funeral while trying to make his final arrests (or, at best, his fate is left unknown). As White himself foreshadows earlier in the film, he wasn’t going to bend in his efforts to take down crime in Chinatown, he was going to break. (Although, White does still manage to keep his promise to Tai: “I’m gonna burn you down. I'm gonna drag you... and your dirty laundry out on the street. And I’m gonna humiliate you. … I’ll last long enough to piss on your grave.”)
There are three other notable edits I’ve made to the film:
1) I completely removed Joey Tai’s trip to Thailand/Burma to reestablish the gang’s heroin supply in the third act. There are a few neat things there, but I felt it was, overall, a superfluous diversion from the action and White’s investigation back in NYC.
2) There is a TON of Chinese spoken in this film (largely Cantonese, but some Mandarin). I love it, personally. It really adds a lot to the dual Western/Chinese flavor of the story, but, at least in the version I own (the most common version available as I understand), these lengthy scenes of non-English dialogue lack English subtitles. Not being able to understand what our Chinese characters are saying, often for many minutes at a time, obviously takes us out of the story. So, while I can’t speak Cantonese or Mandarin myself, I added in 245 subtitles to the film using an all-English transcript I found online and context. These subtitles really improve the audience’s experience in my opinion.
3) To better match the tone of this edit’s ending, I overlaid Track #5 (“Tai Tries to Bribe Stan”) from David Mansfield’s “Year of the Dragon (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)” there and into the credits. (Some nice parallelism between the placement of Track #5 here, and its other location during the earlier bribe attempt scene between Tai and White). Following this, I also substituted the original end-credits song, “Honey” (Track #15, a reprise from the lovely Tian Mi Mi, who performs earlier in the film), for a portion of Track #3 (“Procession to Ban Sung’s Camp”), bleeding into a reprise of Track #1 (“Main Title”). The soundtrack is really good, so I wanted to hear more of this great score over the credits.
(I highly recommend checking out the full soundtrack, which includes some cool 80’s synth-wave pieces too!).
The trope of Mickey Rourke’s character, Stanley White, being “tempted” into lusting after the Asian “exotic beauty,” Tracy Tzu, over his neglected wife Connie (Caroline Kava) not only bogs down the story, but it’s boring, and it makes White way more of an unsympathetic protagonist than he needs to be (which, given that he’s already a racist, is actually pretty impressive). The fact that Ariane is a poor lead actress, and she and Mickey Rourke have no chemistry onscreen, also doesn’t help…
This fanedit is not a wholesale redemption of Stanley White. That outcome wasn’t possible, or desired. Here, White is still a flawed protagonist, but his most narratively important flaw, his racism, is the primary one on display.
By removing the White/Tracy adulterous relationship angle, the film is able to elevate the breakdown of White’s marriage to Connie to something more connected to the central crime-thriller throughline. Now, the rocky marriage goes south not because White is committing adultery with a younger woman, but because he’s hellbent on his crusade at work, to the detriment of his personal relationship with Connie. This also makes Connie’s murder that much more impactful as a driver for White’s vendetta to take out Joey Tai in the third act.
As an added bonus, this edit somewhat redeems Ariane as well. Tracy Tzu is now simply a supporting character, the local hard-hitting reporter laying out criminal goings-on in Chinatown. Tracy’s function here, as primarily an in-world narrator of events, is where Ariane best shines in the film, and gives some dignity back to her character (as opposed to her scenes of full-frontal nudity and being sexed up by White throughout the original for no good reason).
Finally, because of these changes, the film’s original ending where White makes a run at the remaining Chinatown gang bosses at Joey Tai’s funeral to arrest them, is pulled out unharmed, and then “gets the girl” (walking off with a smooch from Tracy and a throwaway line), would be even more ridiculous than it already was. So, I’ve now made it so White is a martyr of his crusade in Chinatown, and is killed by an angry mob of mourners at Tai’s funeral while trying to make his final arrests (or, at best, his fate is left unknown). As White himself foreshadows earlier in the film, he wasn’t going to bend in his efforts to take down crime in Chinatown, he was going to break. (Although, White does still manage to keep his promise to Tai: “I’m gonna burn you down. I'm gonna drag you... and your dirty laundry out on the street. And I’m gonna humiliate you. … I’ll last long enough to piss on your grave.”)
There are three other notable edits I’ve made to the film:
1) I completely removed Joey Tai’s trip to Thailand/Burma to reestablish the gang’s heroin supply in the third act. There are a few neat things there, but I felt it was, overall, a superfluous diversion from the action and White’s investigation back in NYC.
2) There is a TON of Chinese spoken in this film (largely Cantonese, but some Mandarin). I love it, personally. It really adds a lot to the dual Western/Chinese flavor of the story, but, at least in the version I own (the most common version available as I understand), these lengthy scenes of non-English dialogue lack English subtitles. Not being able to understand what our Chinese characters are saying, often for many minutes at a time, obviously takes us out of the story. So, while I can’t speak Cantonese or Mandarin myself, I added in 245 subtitles to the film using an all-English transcript I found online and context. These subtitles really improve the audience’s experience in my opinion.
3) To better match the tone of this edit’s ending, I overlaid Track #5 (“Tai Tries to Bribe Stan”) from David Mansfield’s “Year of the Dragon (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)” there and into the credits. (Some nice parallelism between the placement of Track #5 here, and its other location during the earlier bribe attempt scene between Tai and White). Following this, I also substituted the original end-credits song, “Honey” (Track #15, a reprise from the lovely Tian Mi Mi, who performs earlier in the film), for a portion of Track #3 (“Procession to Ban Sung’s Camp”), bleeding into a reprise of Track #1 (“Main Title”). The soundtrack is really good, so I wanted to hear more of this great score over the credits.
(I highly recommend checking out the full soundtrack, which includes some cool 80’s synth-wave pieces too!).
Cuts and Additions:
Throughout - Added 245 English subtitles to the film’s extensive Cantonese and Mandarin dialogue.
0:00:00 - Added fanedit.org intro clip and fanedit disclaimer.
0:00:40 - Added personal faneditor plate.
0:01:08 - Added fanedit title.
0:20:17 - Moved first scene of White and Connie to after the restaurant shootout scene (*), to get to the action earlier. It also makes more sense narratively for White to have been late getting home to Connie because he was focused on having a meeting with Tracy to try and get a leg up on Chinatown’s criminals, and then was in a shoot-out.
0:28:45 - Cut White creepily taking advantage of a vulnerable Tracy, who has just experienced a terrifying shoot-out, by kissing her on the lips as she’s inconsolably weeping while having an emotional breakdown. Then, added the White and Connie scene discussed above (*) afterward.
0:48:56 - Cut two lines of dialogue after Tracy’s “What’s the matter with you?” > White: “You don’t know, you don’t know.” Tracy: “You’re acting like there’s something between us.” Also cut Connie’s first reaction shot regarding White and Tracy arguing on the street.
0:55:10 - Cut White’s first scene coming on to Tracy, and his first visit to her luxury apartment.
1:09:16 - Cut a line of dialogue from Lou Bukowski (Raymond J. Barry): “We all had flings when we were young, I’m not a prude.”
1:09:52 - Cut White’s second visit to Tracy’s apartment, including Tracy’s random full-frontal nudity shot and sex scene with White. Also cut the subsequent scene in Bangkok, Thailand between Joey Tai and White Powder Ma (Mei Sheng Fan).
1:10:35 - Cut White’s line of dialogue to Connie: “I don’t know what got into me with this Chinese girl.”
1:11:01 - Cut Connie’s line of dialogue to White, and his reply. > Connie: “You wanna marry her? You wanna have babies with her?” White: “Look, I didn’t plan for things to happen this way. It just happened.”
1:11:17 - Cut Connie’s lines of dialogue to White: “And l was a rock. I carried the cross with you in Brooklyn and in Queens. I lived in a fuckin' war zone with you. Now, you're gonna go off and have babies with a woman ten years younger than me.”
1:14:42 - Cut Tai’s scene visiting the camp of drug lord Ban Sung (Yukio Yamamoto) in Burma. Also cut several reaction shots of Tracy at Connie's funeral, moved one reaction shot of her to earlier in the scene, and cut some additional footage to make the new version of the scene version flow better.
1:17:13 - Cut Bukowski’s line of dialogue to White in the next scene: “She said it wasn’t that Chinese girl. Connie was a bigger person than than.”
1:20:43 - Cut White’s angry phone call (regarding his investigation) in Tracy’s apartment (his third visit), his subsequent argument with Tracy when she arrives, and a brief exchange with Herbert Kwong (Dennis Dun) regarding Tracy.
1:31:18 - Cut the scene where Tracy is randomly raped at her apartment by gang thugs.
1:33:27 - Cut the scene where White speaks with Tracy at her news studio and she indirectly reveals to him that she was raped.
1:40:33 - Added appropriate music for the new ending, Track #5 (“Tai Tries to Bribe Stan”) from the “Year of the Dragon (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack),” starting in with a swell from the moment when White rushes into the Joey Tai funeral procession to arrest the remaining Chinatown gang bosses.
1:40:56 - Cut out the end of the original film, before White emerges from the mob crush at the funeral of Joey Tai, enters the arms of a relieved Tracy, and White and Tracy have a strange cringe-inducing final exchange before White ‘gets the girl’ with a final smooch: White: “You know, you were right. I was wrong. Sorry. I'd like to be a nice guy. I would. I just don't know how to be nice.” Tracy: “You're really cracked, you know that?” (as head-scratching triumphant music swells). With the new ending, White’s fate is now more appropriate for the overall story trajectory of the film and character. He either died a martyr to his own headstrong crusade against the gangs in Chinatown, having been crushed by the mob of angry Chinese mourners, or his fate is, at best, left unknown.
1:41:55 - Transitioning from Track #5 from the Official Motion Picture Soundtrack, I added a portion of Track #3 (“Procession to Ban Sung’s Camp”), which then bleeds into a reprise of Track #1 (“Main Title”), as the rest of the credits role. This is a substitution for a reprise of Track #15 (“Honey”) performed by Tian Mi Mi, which she sang earlier in the film during the restaurant scene.
Original Length: 2 hours, 14 minutes
Fanedit Length: 1 hour, 44 minutes
Removed: 30 minutes
0:00:00 - Added fanedit.org intro clip and fanedit disclaimer.
0:00:40 - Added personal faneditor plate.
0:01:08 - Added fanedit title.
0:20:17 - Moved first scene of White and Connie to after the restaurant shootout scene (*), to get to the action earlier. It also makes more sense narratively for White to have been late getting home to Connie because he was focused on having a meeting with Tracy to try and get a leg up on Chinatown’s criminals, and then was in a shoot-out.
0:28:45 - Cut White creepily taking advantage of a vulnerable Tracy, who has just experienced a terrifying shoot-out, by kissing her on the lips as she’s inconsolably weeping while having an emotional breakdown. Then, added the White and Connie scene discussed above (*) afterward.
0:48:56 - Cut two lines of dialogue after Tracy’s “What’s the matter with you?” > White: “You don’t know, you don’t know.” Tracy: “You’re acting like there’s something between us.” Also cut Connie’s first reaction shot regarding White and Tracy arguing on the street.
0:55:10 - Cut White’s first scene coming on to Tracy, and his first visit to her luxury apartment.
1:09:16 - Cut a line of dialogue from Lou Bukowski (Raymond J. Barry): “We all had flings when we were young, I’m not a prude.”
1:09:52 - Cut White’s second visit to Tracy’s apartment, including Tracy’s random full-frontal nudity shot and sex scene with White. Also cut the subsequent scene in Bangkok, Thailand between Joey Tai and White Powder Ma (Mei Sheng Fan).
1:10:35 - Cut White’s line of dialogue to Connie: “I don’t know what got into me with this Chinese girl.”
1:11:01 - Cut Connie’s line of dialogue to White, and his reply. > Connie: “You wanna marry her? You wanna have babies with her?” White: “Look, I didn’t plan for things to happen this way. It just happened.”
1:11:17 - Cut Connie’s lines of dialogue to White: “And l was a rock. I carried the cross with you in Brooklyn and in Queens. I lived in a fuckin' war zone with you. Now, you're gonna go off and have babies with a woman ten years younger than me.”
1:14:42 - Cut Tai’s scene visiting the camp of drug lord Ban Sung (Yukio Yamamoto) in Burma. Also cut several reaction shots of Tracy at Connie's funeral, moved one reaction shot of her to earlier in the scene, and cut some additional footage to make the new version of the scene version flow better.
1:17:13 - Cut Bukowski’s line of dialogue to White in the next scene: “She said it wasn’t that Chinese girl. Connie was a bigger person than than.”
1:20:43 - Cut White’s angry phone call (regarding his investigation) in Tracy’s apartment (his third visit), his subsequent argument with Tracy when she arrives, and a brief exchange with Herbert Kwong (Dennis Dun) regarding Tracy.
1:31:18 - Cut the scene where Tracy is randomly raped at her apartment by gang thugs.
1:33:27 - Cut the scene where White speaks with Tracy at her news studio and she indirectly reveals to him that she was raped.
1:40:33 - Added appropriate music for the new ending, Track #5 (“Tai Tries to Bribe Stan”) from the “Year of the Dragon (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack),” starting in with a swell from the moment when White rushes into the Joey Tai funeral procession to arrest the remaining Chinatown gang bosses.
1:40:56 - Cut out the end of the original film, before White emerges from the mob crush at the funeral of Joey Tai, enters the arms of a relieved Tracy, and White and Tracy have a strange cringe-inducing final exchange before White ‘gets the girl’ with a final smooch: White: “You know, you were right. I was wrong. Sorry. I'd like to be a nice guy. I would. I just don't know how to be nice.” Tracy: “You're really cracked, you know that?” (as head-scratching triumphant music swells). With the new ending, White’s fate is now more appropriate for the overall story trajectory of the film and character. He either died a martyr to his own headstrong crusade against the gangs in Chinatown, having been crushed by the mob of angry Chinese mourners, or his fate is, at best, left unknown.
1:41:55 - Transitioning from Track #5 from the Official Motion Picture Soundtrack, I added a portion of Track #3 (“Procession to Ban Sung’s Camp”), which then bleeds into a reprise of Track #1 (“Main Title”), as the rest of the credits role. This is a substitution for a reprise of Track #15 (“Honey”) performed by Tian Mi Mi, which she sang earlier in the film during the restaurant scene.
Original Length: 2 hours, 14 minutes
Fanedit Length: 1 hour, 44 minutes
Removed: 30 minutes
Faneditor Name:
Original Movie/Show Title:
Fanedit Type:
Original Release Date:
1985
Original Running Time:
134
Fanedit Release Date:
Fanedit Running Time:
104
Time Cut:
30
Subtitles Available?
Additional Links:
Brief Synopsis:
“Year of the Dragon” is a great ride. The worldbuilding, the cinematography, Michael Cimino’s direction, Mickey Rourke’s gritty performance as NYC police Captain Stanley White, his balanced contrast with smooth-talking Chinese gangster Joey Tai (John Lone); it all equates to one seriously entertaining film. The flack that Rourke (and Cimino) got for this movie is unfortunate, but understandable. There’s a key issue that makes our flawed protagonist too unlikable, jarringly disrupts the core crime-thriller narrative, involves bad acting, and pushes dopey sexploitation: White’s adulterous pursuit of local Chinatown reporter, Tracy Tzu (Ariane Koizumi; AKA “Ariane”).
By removing the White/Tracy adulterous relationship subplot entirely, I’ve attempted to redeem Mickey Rourke’s character in “Year of the Dragon” as much as possible. I’ve also streamlined the plot to keep focus on what matters: ‘renegade cop who doesn’t follow the rules is on a fanatic moral crusade to clean up crime in Chinatown, colored by his past as a Vietnam vet, and ultimately accelerated by personal vengeance.’
By removing the White/Tracy adulterous relationship subplot entirely, I’ve attempted to redeem Mickey Rourke’s character in “Year of the Dragon” as much as possible. I’ve also streamlined the plot to keep focus on what matters: ‘renegade cop who doesn’t follow the rules is on a fanatic moral crusade to clean up crime in Chinatown, colored by his past as a Vietnam vet, and ultimately accelerated by personal vengeance.’
Intention:
My primary areas of focus in creating this fanedit were:
- Redeeming Mickey Rourke’s character to the greatest extent possible by removing his adultery subplot / forced relationship with Ariane’s character.
- Adjusting the ending of the film to better fit the new overall tone and natural denouement of a more hellbent mission-focused character arc for Mickey Rourke.
- Increasing the accessibility of the film’s story by adding English subtitles to the extensive Cantonese (and Mandarin) dialogue throughout the film.
- Cutting a few lengthy scenes that I felt distracted too much from our main character and setting.
- Redeeming Mickey Rourke’s character to the greatest extent possible by removing his adultery subplot / forced relationship with Ariane’s character.
- Adjusting the ending of the film to better fit the new overall tone and natural denouement of a more hellbent mission-focused character arc for Mickey Rourke.
- Increasing the accessibility of the film’s story by adding English subtitles to the extensive Cantonese (and Mandarin) dialogue throughout the film.
- Cutting a few lengthy scenes that I felt distracted too much from our main character and setting.
Special Thanks:
Special thanks to spicediver for previewing my edit, offering feedback, and inspiring me to give fanediting a shot myself after watching his impressive “Dune: The Alternative Edition Redux.”
Release Information:
Digital
Editing Details:
*Warning: The Info Below Contains Spoilers*
The trope of Mickey Rourke’s character, Stanley White, being “tempted” into lusting after the Asian “exotic beauty,” Tracy Tzu, over his neglected wife Connie (Caroline Kava) not only bogs down the story, but it’s boring, and it makes White way more of an unsympathetic protagonist than he needs to be (which, given that he’s already a racist, is actually pretty impressive). The fact that Ariane is a poor lead actress, and she and Mickey Rourke have no chemistry onscreen, also doesn’t help…
This fanedit is not a wholesale redemption of Stanley White. That outcome wasn’t possible, or desired. Here, White is still a flawed protagonist, but his most narratively important flaw, his racism, is the primary one on display.
By removing the White/Tracy adulterous relationship angle, the film is able to elevate the breakdown of White’s marriage to Connie to something more connected to the central crime-thriller throughline. Now, the rocky marriage goes south not because White is committing adultery with a younger woman, but because he’s hellbent on his crusade at work, to the detriment of his personal relationship with Connie. This also makes Connie’s murder that much more impactful as a driver for White’s vendetta to take out Joey Tai in the third act.
As an added bonus, this edit somewhat redeems Ariane as well. Tracy Tzu is now simply a supporting character, the local hard-hitting reporter laying out criminal goings-on in Chinatown. Tracy’s function here, as primarily an in-world narrator of events, is where Ariane best shines in the film, and gives some dignity back to her character (as opposed to her scenes of full-frontal nudity and being sexed up by White throughout the original for no good reason).
Finally, because of these changes, the film’s original ending where White makes a run at the remaining Chinatown gang bosses at Joey Tai’s funeral to arrest them, is pulled out unharmed, and then “gets the girl” (walking off with a smooch from Tracy and a throwaway line), would be even more ridiculous than it already was. So, I’ve now made it so White is a martyr of his crusade in Chinatown, and is killed by an angry mob of mourners at Tai’s funeral while trying to make his final arrests (or, at best, his fate is left unknown). As White himself foreshadows earlier in the film, he wasn’t going to bend in his efforts to take down crime in Chinatown, he was going to break. (Although, White does still manage to keep his promise to Tai: “I’m gonna burn you down. I'm gonna drag you... and your dirty laundry out on the street. And I’m gonna humiliate you. … I’ll last long enough to piss on your grave.”)
There are three other notable edits I’ve made to the film:
1) I completely removed Joey Tai’s trip to Thailand/Burma to reestablish the gang’s heroin supply in the third act. There are a few neat things there, but I felt it was, overall, a superfluous diversion from the action and White’s investigation back in NYC.
2) There is a TON of Chinese spoken in this film (largely Cantonese, but some Mandarin). I love it, personally. It really adds a lot to the dual Western/Chinese flavor of the story, but, at least in the version I own (the most common version available as I understand), these lengthy scenes of non-English dialogue lack English subtitles. Not being able to understand what our Chinese characters are saying, often for many minutes at a time, obviously takes us out of the story. So, while I can’t speak Cantonese or Mandarin myself, I added in 245 subtitles to the film using an all-English transcript I found online and context. These subtitles really improve the audience’s experience in my opinion.
3) To better match the tone of this edit’s ending, I overlaid Track #5 (“Tai Tries to Bribe Stan”) from David Mansfield’s “Year of the Dragon (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)” there and into the credits. (Some nice parallelism between the placement of Track #5 here, and its other location during the earlier bribe attempt scene between Tai and White). Following this, I also substituted the original end-credits song, “Honey” (Track #15, a reprise from the lovely Tian Mi Mi, who performs earlier in the film), for a portion of Track #3 (“Procession to Ban Sung’s Camp”), bleeding into a reprise of Track #1 (“Main Title”). The soundtrack is really good, so I wanted to hear more of this great score over the credits.
(I highly recommend checking out the full soundtrack, which includes some cool 80’s synth-wave pieces too!).
The trope of Mickey Rourke’s character, Stanley White, being “tempted” into lusting after the Asian “exotic beauty,” Tracy Tzu, over his neglected wife Connie (Caroline Kava) not only bogs down the story, but it’s boring, and it makes White way more of an unsympathetic protagonist than he needs to be (which, given that he’s already a racist, is actually pretty impressive). The fact that Ariane is a poor lead actress, and she and Mickey Rourke have no chemistry onscreen, also doesn’t help…
This fanedit is not a wholesale redemption of Stanley White. That outcome wasn’t possible, or desired. Here, White is still a flawed protagonist, but his most narratively important flaw, his racism, is the primary one on display.
By removing the White/Tracy adulterous relationship angle, the film is able to elevate the breakdown of White’s marriage to Connie to something more connected to the central crime-thriller throughline. Now, the rocky marriage goes south not because White is committing adultery with a younger woman, but because he’s hellbent on his crusade at work, to the detriment of his personal relationship with Connie. This also makes Connie’s murder that much more impactful as a driver for White’s vendetta to take out Joey Tai in the third act.
As an added bonus, this edit somewhat redeems Ariane as well. Tracy Tzu is now simply a supporting character, the local hard-hitting reporter laying out criminal goings-on in Chinatown. Tracy’s function here, as primarily an in-world narrator of events, is where Ariane best shines in the film, and gives some dignity back to her character (as opposed to her scenes of full-frontal nudity and being sexed up by White throughout the original for no good reason).
Finally, because of these changes, the film’s original ending where White makes a run at the remaining Chinatown gang bosses at Joey Tai’s funeral to arrest them, is pulled out unharmed, and then “gets the girl” (walking off with a smooch from Tracy and a throwaway line), would be even more ridiculous than it already was. So, I’ve now made it so White is a martyr of his crusade in Chinatown, and is killed by an angry mob of mourners at Tai’s funeral while trying to make his final arrests (or, at best, his fate is left unknown). As White himself foreshadows earlier in the film, he wasn’t going to bend in his efforts to take down crime in Chinatown, he was going to break. (Although, White does still manage to keep his promise to Tai: “I’m gonna burn you down. I'm gonna drag you... and your dirty laundry out on the street. And I’m gonna humiliate you. … I’ll last long enough to piss on your grave.”)
There are three other notable edits I’ve made to the film:
1) I completely removed Joey Tai’s trip to Thailand/Burma to reestablish the gang’s heroin supply in the third act. There are a few neat things there, but I felt it was, overall, a superfluous diversion from the action and White’s investigation back in NYC.
2) There is a TON of Chinese spoken in this film (largely Cantonese, but some Mandarin). I love it, personally. It really adds a lot to the dual Western/Chinese flavor of the story, but, at least in the version I own (the most common version available as I understand), these lengthy scenes of non-English dialogue lack English subtitles. Not being able to understand what our Chinese characters are saying, often for many minutes at a time, obviously takes us out of the story. So, while I can’t speak Cantonese or Mandarin myself, I added in 245 subtitles to the film using an all-English transcript I found online and context. These subtitles really improve the audience’s experience in my opinion.
3) To better match the tone of this edit’s ending, I overlaid Track #5 (“Tai Tries to Bribe Stan”) from David Mansfield’s “Year of the Dragon (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)” there and into the credits. (Some nice parallelism between the placement of Track #5 here, and its other location during the earlier bribe attempt scene between Tai and White). Following this, I also substituted the original end-credits song, “Honey” (Track #15, a reprise from the lovely Tian Mi Mi, who performs earlier in the film), for a portion of Track #3 (“Procession to Ban Sung’s Camp”), bleeding into a reprise of Track #1 (“Main Title”). The soundtrack is really good, so I wanted to hear more of this great score over the credits.
(I highly recommend checking out the full soundtrack, which includes some cool 80’s synth-wave pieces too!).
Cuts and Additions:
Throughout - Added 245 English subtitles to the film’s extensive Cantonese and Mandarin dialogue.
0:00:00 - Added fanedit.org intro clip and fanedit disclaimer.
0:00:40 - Added personal faneditor plate.
0:01:08 - Added fanedit title.
0:20:17 - Moved first scene of White and Connie to after the restaurant shootout scene (*), to get to the action earlier. It also makes more sense narratively for White to have been late getting home to Connie because he was focused on having a meeting with Tracy to try and get a leg up on Chinatown’s criminals, and then was in a shoot-out.
0:28:45 - Cut White creepily taking advantage of a vulnerable Tracy, who has just experienced a terrifying shoot-out, by kissing her on the lips as she’s inconsolably weeping while having an emotional breakdown. Then, added the White and Connie scene discussed above (*) afterward.
0:48:56 - Cut two lines of dialogue after Tracy’s “What’s the matter with you?” > White: “You don’t know, you don’t know.” Tracy: “You’re acting like there’s something between us.” Also cut Connie’s first reaction shot regarding White and Tracy arguing on the street.
0:55:10 - Cut White’s first scene coming on to Tracy, and his first visit to her luxury apartment.
1:09:16 - Cut a line of dialogue from Lou Bukowski (Raymond J. Barry): “We all had flings when we were young, I’m not a prude.”
1:09:52 - Cut White’s second visit to Tracy’s apartment, including Tracy’s random full-frontal nudity shot and sex scene with White. Also cut the subsequent scene in Bangkok, Thailand between Joey Tai and White Powder Ma (Mei Sheng Fan).
1:10:35 - Cut White’s line of dialogue to Connie: “I don’t know what got into me with this Chinese girl.”
1:11:01 - Cut Connie’s line of dialogue to White, and his reply. > Connie: “You wanna marry her? You wanna have babies with her?” White: “Look, I didn’t plan for things to happen this way. It just happened.”
1:11:17 - Cut Connie’s lines of dialogue to White: “And l was a rock. I carried the cross with you in Brooklyn and in Queens. I lived in a fuckin' war zone with you. Now, you're gonna go off and have babies with a woman ten years younger than me.”
1:14:42 - Cut Tai’s scene visiting the camp of drug lord Ban Sung (Yukio Yamamoto) in Burma. Also cut several reaction shots of Tracy at Connie's funeral, moved one reaction shot of her to earlier in the scene, and cut some additional footage to make the new version of the scene version flow better.
1:17:13 - Cut Bukowski’s line of dialogue to White in the next scene: “She said it wasn’t that Chinese girl. Connie was a bigger person than than.”
1:20:43 - Cut White’s angry phone call (regarding his investigation) in Tracy’s apartment (his third visit), his subsequent argument with Tracy when she arrives, and a brief exchange with Herbert Kwong (Dennis Dun) regarding Tracy.
1:31:18 - Cut the scene where Tracy is randomly raped at her apartment by gang thugs.
1:33:27 - Cut the scene where White speaks with Tracy at her news studio and she indirectly reveals to him that she was raped.
1:40:33 - Added appropriate music for the new ending, Track #5 (“Tai Tries to Bribe Stan”) from the “Year of the Dragon (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack),” starting in with a swell from the moment when White rushes into the Joey Tai funeral procession to arrest the remaining Chinatown gang bosses.
1:40:56 - Cut out the end of the original film, before White emerges from the mob crush at the funeral of Joey Tai, enters the arms of a relieved Tracy, and White and Tracy have a strange cringe-inducing final exchange before White ‘gets the girl’ with a final smooch: White: “You know, you were right. I was wrong. Sorry. I'd like to be a nice guy. I would. I just don't know how to be nice.” Tracy: “You're really cracked, you know that?” (as head-scratching triumphant music swells). With the new ending, White’s fate is now more appropriate for the overall story trajectory of the film and character. He either died a martyr to his own headstrong crusade against the gangs in Chinatown, having been crushed by the mob of angry Chinese mourners, or his fate is, at best, left unknown.
1:41:55 - Transitioning from Track #5 from the Official Motion Picture Soundtrack, I added a portion of Track #3 (“Procession to Ban Sung’s Camp”), which then bleeds into a reprise of Track #1 (“Main Title”), as the rest of the credits role. This is a substitution for a reprise of Track #15 (“Honey”) performed by Tian Mi Mi, which she sang earlier in the film during the restaurant scene.
Original Length: 2 hours, 14 minutes
Fanedit Length: 1 hour, 44 minutes
Removed: 30 minutes
0:00:00 - Added fanedit.org intro clip and fanedit disclaimer.
0:00:40 - Added personal faneditor plate.
0:01:08 - Added fanedit title.
0:20:17 - Moved first scene of White and Connie to after the restaurant shootout scene (*), to get to the action earlier. It also makes more sense narratively for White to have been late getting home to Connie because he was focused on having a meeting with Tracy to try and get a leg up on Chinatown’s criminals, and then was in a shoot-out.
0:28:45 - Cut White creepily taking advantage of a vulnerable Tracy, who has just experienced a terrifying shoot-out, by kissing her on the lips as she’s inconsolably weeping while having an emotional breakdown. Then, added the White and Connie scene discussed above (*) afterward.
0:48:56 - Cut two lines of dialogue after Tracy’s “What’s the matter with you?” > White: “You don’t know, you don’t know.” Tracy: “You’re acting like there’s something between us.” Also cut Connie’s first reaction shot regarding White and Tracy arguing on the street.
0:55:10 - Cut White’s first scene coming on to Tracy, and his first visit to her luxury apartment.
1:09:16 - Cut a line of dialogue from Lou Bukowski (Raymond J. Barry): “We all had flings when we were young, I’m not a prude.”
1:09:52 - Cut White’s second visit to Tracy’s apartment, including Tracy’s random full-frontal nudity shot and sex scene with White. Also cut the subsequent scene in Bangkok, Thailand between Joey Tai and White Powder Ma (Mei Sheng Fan).
1:10:35 - Cut White’s line of dialogue to Connie: “I don’t know what got into me with this Chinese girl.”
1:11:01 - Cut Connie’s line of dialogue to White, and his reply. > Connie: “You wanna marry her? You wanna have babies with her?” White: “Look, I didn’t plan for things to happen this way. It just happened.”
1:11:17 - Cut Connie’s lines of dialogue to White: “And l was a rock. I carried the cross with you in Brooklyn and in Queens. I lived in a fuckin' war zone with you. Now, you're gonna go off and have babies with a woman ten years younger than me.”
1:14:42 - Cut Tai’s scene visiting the camp of drug lord Ban Sung (Yukio Yamamoto) in Burma. Also cut several reaction shots of Tracy at Connie's funeral, moved one reaction shot of her to earlier in the scene, and cut some additional footage to make the new version of the scene version flow better.
1:17:13 - Cut Bukowski’s line of dialogue to White in the next scene: “She said it wasn’t that Chinese girl. Connie was a bigger person than than.”
1:20:43 - Cut White’s angry phone call (regarding his investigation) in Tracy’s apartment (his third visit), his subsequent argument with Tracy when she arrives, and a brief exchange with Herbert Kwong (Dennis Dun) regarding Tracy.
1:31:18 - Cut the scene where Tracy is randomly raped at her apartment by gang thugs.
1:33:27 - Cut the scene where White speaks with Tracy at her news studio and she indirectly reveals to him that she was raped.
1:40:33 - Added appropriate music for the new ending, Track #5 (“Tai Tries to Bribe Stan”) from the “Year of the Dragon (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack),” starting in with a swell from the moment when White rushes into the Joey Tai funeral procession to arrest the remaining Chinatown gang bosses.
1:40:56 - Cut out the end of the original film, before White emerges from the mob crush at the funeral of Joey Tai, enters the arms of a relieved Tracy, and White and Tracy have a strange cringe-inducing final exchange before White ‘gets the girl’ with a final smooch: White: “You know, you were right. I was wrong. Sorry. I'd like to be a nice guy. I would. I just don't know how to be nice.” Tracy: “You're really cracked, you know that?” (as head-scratching triumphant music swells). With the new ending, White’s fate is now more appropriate for the overall story trajectory of the film and character. He either died a martyr to his own headstrong crusade against the gangs in Chinatown, having been crushed by the mob of angry Chinese mourners, or his fate is, at best, left unknown.
1:41:55 - Transitioning from Track #5 from the Official Motion Picture Soundtrack, I added a portion of Track #3 (“Procession to Ban Sung’s Camp”), which then bleeds into a reprise of Track #1 (“Main Title”), as the rest of the credits role. This is a substitution for a reprise of Track #15 (“Honey”) performed by Tian Mi Mi, which she sang earlier in the film during the restaurant scene.
Original Length: 2 hours, 14 minutes
Fanedit Length: 1 hour, 44 minutes
Removed: 30 minutes
User reviews
There are no user reviews for this listing.