Review of Dragon Blade (2015) by Nastaran M — 07 May 2016

"Dragon Blade has beautiful sets and fabulous cinematography but this Jackie Chan vehicle is a gigantic mess".

Movie Review: Dragon Blade.

Date Viewed: September 17 2015.

Written and Directed By Daniel Lee.

Starring: Jackie Chan, John Cusack, Adrien Brody, Choi Siwon, Mika Wang, Xiao Yang, Wang Taili, Sammy Hung, Lin Peng, Yoo Seung-jun and Lorie Pester.

It may have been a $120 million smash hit in China but "Dragon Blade" is a gigantic mess.

It has a story that's incomprehensible and a horrible villain. At 61 years old, Jackie Chan can still do incredible fight choreography and do amazing stunts but his acting still hasn't improved. Budgeted at $65 million, "Dragon Blade" is a Chan vehicle that somehow attracted the talents of John Cusack and Oscar winner Adrien Brody who is on the brink of making low-rent projects with Nicolas Cage.

What prevents "Dragon Blade" from a becoming a total bomb is that it has amazing cinematography and beautiful sets. An expensive historical action movie can have amazing fight scenes and great photography but you need a great story to support it. In this movie, the filmmakers put out nothing, they have no new ideas or characters we like to care about.

Set in western China, 48 B.C., the Silk Road Protection Squad led by Huo An (Chan) has just negotiated a peace treaty between the Indians and the Huns and they are on their way home. Soon, the government finds out that someone in the squad is corrupt and the news causes the entire group to be sentenced to construction work. Huo An and his group are assigned to rebuild a ruined fortress named Goose Gate. Okay "Dragon Blade", you're an expensive Chinese production and you can't even think of a good name for a fortress? It's probable evidence that the filmmakers never attended screenwriting classes.

Our heroes soon encounter a legion of Roman soldiers led by General Lucius (Cusack). After a well-fought duel, Huo An and Lucius manage to maintain a good friendship. Lucius and his soldiers are defecting from the ruthless Roman leader Tiberius (Brody) who has murdered his own father in cold blood and now wants his little brother dead too. Stopping Tiberius will be an impossible task for our heroes because he has a giant army. The climax of the movie is usually an epic battle between the two armies but is battle is different and bigger because the battle involves the armies of 36 ethnic nations.

Fans of R-Rated historical epics like "Gladiator" and "300" will not be disappointed because this movie has a lot of bloody violence. Soldiers get slaughtered or skewered as bloody rain falls upon the audience. "Dragon Blade" is not one of Chan's best films, the production design and the cinematography are great but the acting is mediocre and the plot is almost impossible to follow. It was wise for Cusack to drop out of "Hot Tub Time Machine 2" but why he didn't drop out of "Dragon Blade" remains a mystery to me.

Chan in his usual hero role is obviously phoning it in and Brody's campy performance as the villianious Roman leader is nothing short of Razzie-worthy. If Adrien Brody makes ten more movies like this he's going to be in the same company Nicolas Cage is. Like Brody, Cage was once a talented and respected actor but now everybody is laughing at him because he now stars in about 49 low-rent projects every year. Nic Cage, you are way down in the F-list even Donald Trump is calling you a loser.

Writer and director Daniel Lee could've turned "Dragon Blade" into a decent B-movie but it fails because of the incoherent story and boring characters. The big question about this movie is this: What were John Cusack and Adrien Brody thinking of?