Amazing that something like this would do over $100 million in China, especially considering that I believe movie tickets there are roughly $5. First the good. This is probably the most expensive set and costume design I have ever seen in a martial arts flick, that is why it got 2 stars. If you like sword fighting, then you might enjoy this. Now for the bad, quite the long list. LOTS of subtitles, including signs and songs, probably 70% of the movie is in Chinese. Yes SONGS, I guess they are supposed to be inspiring or something. The movie opens with two guys sticking their swords in the ground as a truce, then shortly after that those two guys stand off for a "fight to the death, no way to avoid it" situation. Boy, I wonder who is gonna win? Why would you put a flash forward to ruin that scene? That is typical to the way this thing is put together. To top it off, the plot makes zero sense. Chan and his men are sentenced to hard labor rebuilding a city on the Great Wall, within 10 minutes of getting there Chan is now in charge? WTF? All of a sudden they have 15 days to rebuild giant stone walls and buildings or they will be executed. This is supposed to be 50 BC and the work they have to do would take a modern crew of 100 masons probably 3 months or more. But with the help of the Romans, we can do it! What a crock. And in the middle of this building frenzy, Chan decides to have his guys put on a demo of their martial arts, so the Romans also do a demonstration, followed by two individual stick battles, followed by a Roman giving a Chinese guy a sword because it was a great fight. WTF AGAIN! Yes they are supposed to be bonding, but it is just stupid. And over and over, like it was written by a 5th grader with ADHD. Not buying John Cusack or Adrian Brody as top class soldiers either, sorry guys, even though the use of stunt doubles is not obvious. Half the time during fights everyone is just slapping the other guy with their swords. Even the fake blood looks like raspberry jam for some reason, making that look real is not tough to do. Chan accidentally removes some important lady's scarf while she is trying to kill him, so he MUST apologize, when he does so in private, she drops everything to be naked in front of him, what? He of course does his awkward embarrassed act and backs away, that seems like an even bigger insult to me, but I guess NOT! The Roman kid could not be more annoying, what an incredibly lame plot device, egads. I think you get the idea, don't bother unless you really like lavish sets with sword fighting. I think the sign at the end: "make friends from enemies" is supposed to be the moral of the story or some crap, but the entire thing is pointless. Maybe it should read "How I turned a Million Dollars in Real Estate into $100 in Cash", to steal a joke from Steve Martin.
Review of Dragon Blade
