SOURCE: "Sweet and Sour," in Newsweek, Vol. LXXXIII, No. 23, 10 June 1974, p. 84.

In the following evaluation, Kroll admires the "strong emotional writing, sweet and sour comedy and … real anguish" in The Year of the Dragon.

A couple of seasons ago Frank Chin singlehandedly established the Chinese branch of the new American ethnic theater with his play, The Chickencoop Chinaman. He now provides that school its second work, The Year of the Dragon. Chin's new play again pivots about a character largely himself, here called Fred Eng, an angry not-quite-young man caught in the limbo between yellow and white, Chinese and American. Fred's dilemma reflects the dilemma of Chin as an artist. A gifted writer and electric sensibility, he is part Chinese Lenny Bruce, "spritzing" a comedy of bitter alienation, and part Number One Son, drawn to the traditional Chinese values—family, duty—which have been diluted by American culture...