Dragon Blade Reviews

Initial Thought: I honestly don't know anything about this movie other than the very simplistic sounding plot. Also it has Jackie Chan so I'm in. This has to be better than The Man with the Iron Fists 2.

Characters/Acting: Well we have a pretty decent group of well known actors and familiar faces. Even foreign singers are trying to get more notice by appearing in films. Here there is French singer Lorie who plays the Persian queen. I love seeing Sharni Vinson in new things. Everything I have watched of hers I have liked a lot. It's good to see Jackie Chan still making movies. It seemed as if John Cusack didn't even bother with a Roman accent here which I found highly disappointing. I was however delighted to see Adrien Brody pulling one off. The kid is not really the best at acting and to me there were times I wish he would just shut up. It's weird seeing Brody as a villain, but he does quite rather well here.

Story: Romans in China sounds interesting. So it starts off in modern time and does the whole flashback style storytelling. It kind of reminded me of Titanic in that regard. The action is pretty fun to watch with a mixture of martial arts, sword fighting, and Jackie Chan's antics. I like how the synopsis is so simplistic, but there is a lot more to the story than lost Roman soldiers navigating their way through China. We have the perspective of what seems like an archeological group searching through some Chinese ruins. You get a group of people who just want peace led by Jackie Chan. Then you have Romans led by John Cusack who are lost and in search of a way to survive with a sick boy. There are little things here and there that are pretty funny like a scene were a woman (I'm assuming a leader) drops her clothes and Jackie Chan's reaction is just gold. Some of the death scenes in this are actually quite brutal and well done. On guy who has several arrows in his back is on the ground but elevated by them which was in my opinion a pretty well thought out shot. The swords that the protection squad use were awesome, but they weren't utilized quite as often as I would have hoped. The big battle near the end reminded me a lot of Battle of the Five Armies. So the ending was a bit cheesy.

Directing/Writing: I have not seen any of Daniel Lee's movies, but I have heard of some. So this will be the first encounter I have with his work. Some of the writing here could have been a bit better, but this was still pretty entertaining.

Final Thought: It was definitely better than the previous movie I watched. The fighting was pretty great. It had it's faults, but otherwise this wasn't a waste of time. If you like Jackie Chan you might enjoy this quite nicely.