A rap, kung-fu melodramatic fever dream | City Dragon (1995)
Every once in a while I find a movie that makes me wonder how I somehow missed it during all those years working in a video store.
City Dragon is one of those movies.
Released in 1995, it stars Stan Derain - credited onscreen as MC Kung Fu - as Ray, a martial artist whose life involves fighting random people, chasing women, dealing with relationship problems and, most importantly, speaking in rhyme.
Calling City Dragon a martial-arts movie doesn't really explain it. Calling it a comedy doesn't either. It's part kung-fu movie, part sex comedy, part relationship drama, part hip-hop musical and eventually something resembling a workplace melodrama.
It has to be seen to be fully understood.
Watch the City Dragon Video
5 Reasons to Watch City Dragon
1. City Dragon Accidentally Becomes a Movie About Work and Capitalism
City Dragon begins like someone threw a martial-arts movie, a rap video and a late-night cable sex comedy into a blender. Then something incredibly strange happens…it becomes a movie about getting a job.
Ray eventually has responsibilities. He needs money. He needs to support a family. Suddenly this guy who has spent much of the movie fighting people and rhyming at women is dealing with bosses, promotions, workplace pressure and the things people are willing to put up with because they need a paycheck. I'm not suggesting City Dragon secretly set out to dismantle capitalism. I am suggesting that it's hilarious how much of the movie eventually revolves around the reality that being an adult means somebody has to pay the bills.
Somewhere underneath everything else, there's almost a recognizable story about a guy reluctantly realizing that responsibility isn't nearly as fun as the life he was living before. That absolutely was not where I expected City Dragon to take me.
2. MC Kung Fu Speaks in Rhyme
This is probably the reason most people are going to remember City Dragon. Ray doesn't just rap when music starts. He'll simply start rhyming during normal conversations. His friends do it too. Arguments become rhymes. Pickup lines become rhymes. Exposition becomes rhymes. At some point, you stop asking why anybody is doing this and simply accept that you've entered a universe where men occasionally communicate exclusively through hip-hop couplets.
And then Ray might kick somebody.
Stan Derain performs the character under the name MC Kung Fu, which may be one of the most efficient pieces of character branding in cinematic history. There's something genuinely endearing about how completely committed the movie is to this idea. Nobody appears embarrassed by it. City Dragon knows exactly what MC Kung Fu is supposed to be.
Whether the audience is prepared for him is another question entirely.
3. The Music Is Better Than It Has Any Right to Be
Here's something I wasn't expecting:
Some of the music in City Dragon is actually pretty good. There's a strong mid-'90s West Coast/G-funk flavor running through portions of the soundtrack, and instead of feeling like generic royalty-free music slapped underneath the movie, a lot of it gives City Dragon a genuine personality. Stan Derain contributes material as MC Kung Fu, and Philthy Phil is involved with several tracks as well. But one name worth highlighting is Leo Fox, the film's credited composer, who also produced, wrote or performed a substantial amount of the soundtrack. Songs like “Scandalous,” “Booty Quake,” “Chemistry” and others make the movie feel even more like some strange artifact pulled from a forgotten corner of 1995.
I'm not going to tell you this is Above the Rim. But I am telling you there were multiple moments where I stopped laughing at City Dragon long enough to think:
“Wait…why does this kind of slap?”
4. It Is an Absolutely Untouched 1995 Time Capsule
There are movies set in the '90s, and then there are movies that could only have been made in the '90s.
City Dragon belongs firmly in the second category.
The clothes, hair, dialogue, sexual politics, music and attitudes are all 90’s. The entire concept of a guy calling himself MC Kung Fu and apparently believing this makes him irresistible. Watching it now occasionally feels like somebody buried a VHS tape in 1995 and we just dug it out. That also means parts of the movie have aged spectacularly badly. There are jokes, situations and character behaviors that would be extremely difficult to put into a mainstream comedy today without substantially changing the context. But that's also part of what makes old exploitation and direct-to-video filmmaking fascinating. Movies like this aren't merely stories, they're cultural evidence. Nobody went back and cleaned this up for modern sensibilities. City Dragon is just sitting there waiting to remind us that 1995 was a very different place.
5. City Dragon Is an Incredible Vanity Project
One of my favorite categories of filmmaking is what I affectionately call the vanity project. Somebody has an idea and they don't wait for Hollywood to call. They make the movie themselves.
City Dragon has two guys putting their fingerprints absolutely everywhere. Stan Derain stars as Ray/MC Kung Fu. He receives story and screenplay credits. He produced the movie. He also worked on the fight choreography. Then there's “Philthy” Phil Phillips. Phillips directed the movie, co-wrote it, produced it and appears onscreen as Ray's friend Philthy. There's something genuinely admirable about that level of commitment. Maybe nobody else was going to make a movie about MC Kung Fu…so they made one. This isn't polished studio filmmaking. That's part of the appeal.
City Dragon feels like something made because a group of people really wanted this thing to exist, and three decades later, here I am making a video telling you to watch it.
In its own bizarre way, they won.
Who Should Watch City Dragon?
City Dragon is for a very specific type of movie fan.
If you love movies like Miami Connection, Samurai Cop, Hard Ticket to Hawaii, Death Promise or the stranger corners of '80s and '90s direct-to-video filmmaking, put this on your radar.
It's especially worth seeking out if you enjoy martial-arts oddities, homemade auteur projects, hip-hop time capsules, video-store-era obscurities and movies that are infinitely more entertaining with a few friends in the room.
If you need technically accomplished martial arts, sophisticated comedy or conventional storytelling, there are significantly safer options.
But safe is not why you watch a movie called City Dragon starring a man named MC Kung Fu.
Where to Watch City Dragon
This is unfortunately the difficult part.
As of October 2026, I can't find City Dragon available through any major legitimate U.S. streaming, rental or digital-purchase service.
The film has previously been released on physical media, including DVD, as well as VHS under the alternate title Warrior Brother, but those releases are long out of print and generally have to be found secondhand. I would love to see a boutique label rescue this one.
Until then, keep an eye on legitimate streaming and physical-media listings. If a new release is announced, I'll update this page.
Prefer to Listen?
You can also listen to this Force Five recommendation as a podcast episode.
City Dragon on the Force Five Top 5 Radar
Top 5 Bruce Lee Tributes
MC Kung Fu's martial-arts persona gives me a perfect excuse to eventually dive into the enormous world of movies and characters built in the shadow of Bruce Lee. Some are sincere tributes while others are blatant exploitation.
Some are both.
City Dragon absolutely belongs somewhere in that conversation.
Top 5 Worst Fake Babies in Movie History
There are fake babies in movies, and then there are fake babies that immediately make you wonder whether anyone involved had ever actually seen a baby.
City Dragon has entered the competition.
More Force Five
Vice Academy (1989)
If your favorite part of City Dragon is its low-budget, video-store-era insanity, Rick Sloane's completely ridiculous police comedy belongs on the same shelf.
Tiger Claws (1991)
For another trip into early-'90s American martial-arts cinema, Cynthia Rothrock and Bolo Yeung investigate a string of kung-fu murders.
Martial Law (1991)
More wonderfully dated early-'90s martial-arts action, with Cynthia Rothrock, Chad McQueen and David Carradine.
5 Great Exploitation Films
Want to go further down the rabbit hole? Here's a Force Five starter pack for exploitation cinema and some of its wonderfully disreputable subgenres.
