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Released
1985 · FILM

Year of the Dragon

A hard‑nosed NYPD captain races to crush a rising Chinese‑American Triad kingpin, but his relentless, rule‑breaking tactics pit him against his own department and threaten everything he loves.

“It isn't the Bronx or Brooklyn, it isn't even New York. It's Chinatown... and it's about to explode.”

Directed by
Michael Cimino, Michael Cimino Nm0001047
Written by
Robert Daley, Oliver Stone
Runtime
134 min
ActionCrimeDrama
Streaming on
  • Paramount+

Synopsis

In New York, racist Captain Stanley White becomes obsessed with dismantling a Chinese-American drug ring led by Joey Tai, a rising young gangster known for his ambition and ruthlessness. As he conducts an unauthorized investigation, White increasingly disregards police protocol, employing more violent tactics despite warnings from his worried wife, Connie, and his superiors about the potential consequences of his behavior.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Writers
Directors

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 22

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Francoise BonnotShot by Alex ThomsonScored by David MansfieldDesigned by Wolf Kroeger

Box Office

1985 · Box office

📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.8× its budget

Why 2.5×?

Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).

Worldwide gross

$18.7M

Budget$24.0M
Worldwide gross$18.7M
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Im Jahr des Drachende
  • Manhattan Sures
  • L'Année du dragonfr
  • L'anno del dragoneit

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