Dragon Blade [天降雄獅] (2015)
Starring Jackie Chan, John Cusack, Adrien Brody, Choi Si-Won, Lin Peng, Mika Wang, Xiao Yang, Wang Tai-Li, Jozef Waite, Sammy Hung, William Feng, Sharni Vinson, Lorie Pester, Karena Lam, Steve Yoo Seung-Jun
Directed by Daniel Lee
Expectations: I don’t know, honestly. Not much. I am excited, if that counts for anything!
Dragon Blade is very entertaining, but there’s no denying that it just isn’t that good. Given the amount of “jank” in the movie, those two-and-a-half stars up top are fairly generous of me, but I’m such a huge Jackie Chan fan that I was easily able to overlook a lot of the film’s issues. I don’t think others will be nearly as kind, although fans of both Jackie Chan and B-Movies might be able to transcend and enjoy the film as I did. That’s not something I expected to say about the highest-budget Chinese film of all time, but even the most expensive rose-colored glasses on Earth couldn’t obscure just how laughable and ludicrous some of this movie is.
Don’t believe me? I’ll give you three guesses of what the first on-screen image is in this historical epic supposedly based on true events. OK? Go! … … … Nope, nope, and nope. The correct answer is a satellite orbiting the Earth! WHA? So instead of finding out that the movie is weird a few minutes in, they smack you in the face with it immediately. This is arguably the best way to go into Dragon Blade, as this is merely the first moment you’ll watch with a quizzical look on your face.