The most surprising thing about Dragon Blade (written and directed by Daniel Lee) is that it’s not an absolute disaster. I realize that’s not high praise, but it could have easily been so much worse. Time and again we’ve seen similar movies like 47 Ronin, The Legend of Hercules, Last Knights and Seventh Son crash and burn. But Jackie Chan’s latest action pic, co-starring John Cusack and Adrien Brody (yes, really), is a muddled but sporadically enjoyable movie that’s kinda, sorta saved by its own willingness to be campy.
Based on true events in China, 48 BC, the story follows the commander of the Protection Squad of the Western Regions, Huo An (Chan), who teams up with a Roman general, Lucius (John Cusack), to reconstruct Goose Gate and protect the Silk Road from a mad tyrant called Tiberius (Brody). At the same time, Tiberius hopes to slay his younger brother Publius (Jozef Waite), who is under Lucius’s care.
It’s worth noting that Dragon Blade is one of the most expensive Chinese-language movies ever (with an estimated $65 million budget), and that certainly comes across in its ambition. The film doesn’t shy away from big set pieces or large-scale battle sequences — CG-augmented though they may be — and most of them are actually really strong. Chan himself is credited as the action director, and his fight scenes, along with everybody else’s for that matter, make up the best parts of the movie. In general, there’s no shortage of sword clashing and martial arts — which is good, because the story is an absolute mess.
On the bright side, Chan and Cusack’s characters form a great bond early on in the film, and their burgeoning bromance is one of the highlights here. Dragon Blade’s underlying message is to promote harmony and peace between different races, cultures and creeds, and that message is best exemplified through Lucius and Huo An’s friendship. Meanwhile, Brody’s Tiberius is a cartoon character, and that’s where the movie starts to fall apart.
Basically the whole plot is incoherent, and it’s depicted almost entirely through montages and crossfades. This includes excessive flashbacks, which often recap scenes that just happened moments earlier. It’s as if Lee thinks the audience wasn’t able to pick up on his visual cues the first time and insists on showing them again, either to make an obvious callback or simply beat a dead horse. Either way, it’s pointless, since the narrative is barely strung together as it is. Apparently, the U.S. cut is roughly 25 minutes shorter than the international one, which may have something to do with it. But if those 25 minutes are anything like the other 103, then maybe Dragon Blade is better off without them.
