Released: August 2019(China)
Director: Oleg Stepchenko
Rated PG-13
Run Time: 120 Minutes
Distributor: Lionsgate Studios(USA)
Genre: Action/Fantasy
Cast:
Jason Flemyng: Jonathan Green
Jackie Chan: The Master
Arnold Schwarzenegger: James Hook
Anna Churina: Miss Dudley
Charles Dance: Lord Dudley
Rutger Hauer: Ambassador
Xingtong Yao: Cheng Lan
Li Ma: Witch
Over the past two decades we’ve seen action stars come together in various movies like The Expendables and Machete. The Expendables brought together folks like Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham, Gary Daniels and Eric Roberts. Machete united Robert De Niro, Steven Seagal, Danny Trejo, Jeff Fahey, Cheech Marin, and Don Johnson. In fact, the marketing for some of these movies actually relied on getting these familiar faces together. For the most part, in my opinion, these movies actually delivered on their promise of being old-school action. Every once in a while, though, you would get a film where it would feature a big-name actor and he or she would only be in the film for about 5-10 minutes. Bruce Willis is notorious for showing up in movies that feature him as a minor character only to have him take top billing on the poster/DVD cover art. I’m sure it has more to do with ego and a paycheck than anything else. Well, we’ve got ourselves another film that does the same thing. Ladies and gentleman, I present to you Iron Mask, Viy 2, or The Dragon Seal depending on which region you’re in.
Iron Mask follows scientist and cartographer Jonathan Green as he travels the world mapping as he goes along. When he enters Russia hoping to get the cooperation of Peter The Great, he’s thrown in prison to avoid exposing an imposter. The REAL tsar is imprisoned in the Tower of London. Mr. Green is allowed to leave the Russian prison with a Chinese prisoner to help him travel east towards China. In the Tower of London, Peter is imprisoned with a Chinese kung-fu master who happens to be the father of the Chinese prisoner that’s traveling with Mr. Green. The Chinese prisoner, Cheng Lan is actually a princess and the kung-fu master is her father. Together, they’re supposed to protect a great dragon in China that provides the people with a healing herb called tea. Both the master and the Cheng Lan were imprisoned by greedy wizards who are in league with a witch to steal the herbs and make vast amounts of money while they’re at it. It that seems convoluted, that’s because it is. I don’t mind complex story-telling at times, if it’s easy to follow, then it can be really satisfying to experience it. But there’s a difference between complex and convoluted. Complex story-telling has a lot of different moving parts, but there is a path to follow and a method to that madness. Convoluted story-telling is basically throwing in everything and the kitchen in a jumble hoping that something makes sense. That’s one of the main issues with Iron Mask. It’s too convoluted for it’s own good. There are too many subplots to keep track of, and some of them aren’t even fully addressed by the end of the movie. When the film decides to focus on one particular plot, that’s when it gets interesting….except that it happens far too late in the movie. There just wasn’t enough time to flesh everything out in a 2-hour movie, and it suffered for it. It’s batshit crazy, but there’s just way too much to keep a handle on.
If there’s a description for the movie that I would use, it would be this: Indiana Jones meets Big Trouble in Little China by way of Pirates of the Caribbean. I wish I could say I was wrong about that description, but it really isn’t that far off the mark. There’s a lot of things here from a thematic standpoint that seem to be in competition with each other. But enough about that, let’s get to the casting of Iron Mask. On the poster and DVD/Blu-Ray covers, it features Jackie Chan and Arnold Schwarzenegger in what appears to be big roles. That couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, the lead of the film is Jason Flemyng who plays Jonathan Green. Mr. Flemyng is an underrated actor in my opinion, but he’s definitely not leading man material. He never has been. He’s alright, but there’s nothing in his role that suggests that the character couldn’t be played by somebody else. The Master is played by legendary action star Jackie Chan. He has scenes with a character named James Hook, played by ANOTHER legendary action star, Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s actually really amusing to see Arnold dress up in the red and white uniform of a British soldier, complete with tri-corn hat and absurd mustache. I have to admit, seeing Chan and Schwarzenegger in the same movie together is quite a sight, and their scenes together actually work. There’s enough charisma from both actors to make it plausible. They even have a little scuffle together which is humorous to say the least. Outside of these three actors, the acting is legitimately awful. There are a number of reasons for that, but one stands out among everything else: The dubbing. Do you folks remember those old kung-fu movies with the incredibly cheesy dubbing? That’s what you’re getting here. Arnold, Chan, and Flemyng aren’t dubbed, but everybody else is, and the dubbing is dog-shit. Even the folks that can speak English are dubbed. It’s unintentionally hilarious. This is why I hate dubbing. Unless you happen to be Jackie Chan, or the original actors, there’s no way that you can match the performance of your voice with what’s happening on screen. It just doesn’t work.
The action in Iron Mask is a bit of a mixed bag. While the action was handled by Jackie Chan’s elite stunt team, it doesn’t really feel like their best effort. I know what these guys are capable of, but for some reason, a number of action scenes just aren’t that convincing. There’s a bit of a tussle between Chan and Schwarzenegger that’s rather amusing, but that’s mostly down to the actors having a bit of fun, especially when Chan reaches for different weapons, but Schwarzenegger objects to them being used. It’s silly but I rolled with it. When it comes to kung-fu actually being used, that’s where the movie tends to pick up, especially in the last act when they take on the witch. Now, I brought up Big Trouble in Little China as a comparison, because there are a couple of “wizards” in this movie that feel like The Three Storms from John Carpenter’s movie were ripped off. You’ve got one wizard that used electricity, while another has jade armor, the third uses sound to cripple their enemies, and the fourth utilizes fog. Once you discover how these guys are doing what they’re doing, it’s rather clever. The fight choreography towards the end of the film gets substantially better, especially the final battle between the princess and the witch. It’s actually really good. In most movies I would bitch and moan about wire-work being used, but this is a fantasy film, so I tend to be a bit more forgiving. Let’s talk about the visual effects and the CGI. Oof. Outside of the dragon itself, the CGI in this movie is really bad. I know that Russian and China are capable of better CGI than this, but this is embarrassing. I enjoyed the sequence where Peter pilots his ship through a maze of rocks, which was pretty exciting actually, but the overall CG is late PlayStation 2-era at best. I will say that I did like the design of the dragon here. The detail was pretty good, but that seems to be where the money went.
Jackie Chan set the standard back in the late 70s and 80s with his unique combination of action and comedy. He also elevated stunt-work to a whole new level. I will always be grateful to Jacki Chan for movies like Police Story, Drunk Master, and Rumble in the Bronx. Sadly, it seems that even the greats get to a point where they just aren’t able to keep up with younger generations. Jackie Chan is pushing 67-68, so I can understand him not being able to really do much of his own stunts anymore, at least without wires. The body can only take so much, and Chan has given so much to his craft. He’s broken every bone in his body multiple times and nearly gotten killed almost as much, but he was willing to put himself on the line for our entertainment, and he’s delivered some of the most iconic action sequences in cinematic history. It breaks my heart to see that some of his more recent outings have been extremely disappointing. I just watched Vanguard and honestly, that movie is awful. The last good movie that Jackie Chan made was The Foreigner with Pierce Brosnan. Chan is a really good actor, and I think he needs to really focus more on his acting than his action. Arnold Schwarzenegger was clearly having a hoot and a holler with this one, and it’s actually nice to see him take himself down a few pegs. Because of that, he’s pretty entertaining to watch here. Iron Mask is NOT a good movie. Far from it. It’s got some good elements, but the overall package is pretty weak. Yet, I can’t bring myself to condemn this movie wholeheartedly, because I had a lot of fun with it. Some of it was not what the film-makers had intended, but I wasn’t bored by the overall proceedings. It’s a crazy movie, and I think it’s worth a watch. Just don’t think about the plot too much, you’ll get a head-ache.
My Final Recommendation: 7/10.