Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

Dragon Blade Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 18, 2015

Spartacus may be one of the all time uncontested classics of cinema, but for certain curmudgeons (ahem) Tony Curtis just never seemed to quite fit in to the film’s pre-Christian ambience, what with his late 50s pompadour and (especially) his Brooklyn tinged patois. Some may feel similarly ill disposed toward John Cusack in Dragon Blade, for there’s something undeniably contemporary about the actor, even as he’s weighted down under what looks like pounds of Roman costuming regalia. And in fact there's a decidedly modern ambience to Cusack's co-stars in Dragon Blade, Jackie Chan and Adrien Brody, both of whom are asked to spout 21st century dialogue in what is supposedly a 50 BC time setting. Dragon Blade touts the fact that it's based on actual historical facts, but the film comes off as rather far fetched, with a tendency to devolve into silly one liners that recall jokey Chan efforts of yesteryear rather than any actual yesteryear. The film is impressively mounted, even if its over reliance on CGI casts much of the imagery in a rather soft look, but it feels like huge swaths of material were left on the cutting room floor, leading to a lurching quality in the narrative that the film is never able to completely overcome.

Captain Huo An (Jackie Chan) is a Chinese soldier who works as part of the so-called Silk Road Protection Squad, a kind of mercenary army that is attempting to keep the peace on an important trade route where both internecine and intramural conflicts break out with great regularity. The film starts out with one of these very skirmishes, as huge hordes of competing armies line up for battle, only to be urged not to actually fight by An. An is of course challenged to a duel by a rather unlikely combatant—an obviously gorgeous woman in a veil. During the hand to hand battle, An inadvertently tears the veil from the woman’s face in what is evidently a “game changing” moment, though in the first of several inadequately detailed plot points, it’s never explained why. The next scene, which sees An attempting to return the veil to the woman, who removes all of her clothes and tells An she’s “ready” for him, is similarly removed from any context and helps to start the film out on a somewhat head scratching note.

Another kind of weirdly undeveloped scene involves An and his wife (though the relationship is never really spelled out), a woman who, with her husband, is hoping to bring an end to countless years of conflict between various tribes. While An is out on the Silk Road trying to tamp down any simmering disputes, his wife works as a teacher where a gaggle of incredibly cute children are taught to sing a song in Mandarin, evidently a gambit which will ensure their peacefulness (in yet another unexplained phenomenon). In the first of several scenes where a portentous messenger simply shows up to deliver bad news, one of An’s acolytes arrives to say that the entire Protection Squad has been cast under suspicion by the discovery of some stolen booty which the Squad has been accused of helping to sequester. That in turn sends An and his crew to a kind of Chinese “Siberia”, a work camp known as Goose Gate, a huge fortress like enclosure that is need of some serious “urban development,” a need which supposed prisoners like An and his men are tasked with completing.

It’s at this already confusing point that a Roman legion simply appears out of nowhere (though a text crawl has given lip service to a kind of magically disappearing regiment that supposedly still wanders the Silk Road). This aggregation is headed by Lucius (John Cusack), who is evidently trying to help a little boy named Publius (Jozef Waite). Unsurprisingly, it turns out the little tyke is a royal and is on the run from his scheming (much) older brother Tiberius (Adrien Brody). While Lucius and An have to have an obligatory hand to hand (or sword to sword) battle at their first meeting, also unsurprisingly the end up as allies, both to help complete An’s task to get Goose Gate’s repairs handled in an expeditious manner, but perhaps more importantly to try to defeat Tiberius, whose incursion into the Silk Road territory will spell disaster for any peace efforts.

A lot of these plot mechanics seem to arise willy nilly, with very little if any context and (again) a feeling that something is missing at various points along the way. And in fact, there’s no doubt that there’s some strangely absent material in this Blu-ray release, as evidenced by some online material (including our own Brian Orndorf’s review that appeared during the film’s theatrical exhibition) which references a 21st century bookending conceit which is nowhere to be found here. Also, both Brian’s review and some other online sources state that the film is set in 48 B.C., while the text crawl at the beginning of this version clearly says 50 B.C. This is obviously a very minor difference, but one which indicates someone may have continued tinkering with the film after its theatrical exhibition. What might have helped more than removing a framing device or altering the timeframe by a couple of years would have been more attention paid to detailing the actual coalition between the Romans and the Chinese.

Dragon Blade Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Dragon Blade is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Shot digitally utilizing Red Epic cameras, the film boasts an impressively sharp and well detailed image—at least when not considering some pretty soft looking CGI and/or green screen material. Several wide vistas seem to be entirely computer generated, and very rarely have more than baseline detail evident. Even worse, a number of relative close-ups show telltale signs of having been shot in front of a green screen, with backgrounds assuming almost Impressionistic ambiences at times. That anomaly aside, the rest of this presentation is often quite impressive, with fine detail popping on elements like the fur adorning Brody's neck or some of the filigreed work on the body armor. While sequences have been put through the color grading mill (once again yellow and blue—are no other tones available?), in terms of how many historical epics and/or action adventure films tend to look these days, the palette is actually relatively natural looking most of the time, helping detail to pop even better. Contrast and black levels are both consistent and admirable, and there are no issues with image instability.

Dragon Blade Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While Dragon Blade's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is identified as being in both Mandarin and English on the Blu-ray menu, for all intents and purposes this is an English language film, with only a very few elements (including a sweet song sung by the kids) being offered in Mandarin. The soundtrack is awash in impressive LFE from the get go, and the huge action sequences offer abundant opportunity for immersion, with some very well done sound effects when bones crunch or steel meets steel in sword fights. Dialogue is well rendered, and the film's enjoyable score by Henry Lai also sounds precise and clear. Dynamic range is very wide on this problem free track.

Dragon Blade Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes of Dragon Blade (1080p; 21:28) is pretty standard EPK stuff, though any piece that starts with Jackie Chan proclaiming how masculine he is can't be all bad.


• "Song of Peace" Music Video (1080p; 3:14)


• "Please Tell the Wind to Bring My Father Home" Music Video (1080p; 4:10)


• Extended Interviews with Cast/Crew (1080p; 56:13)


• Dragon Blade Trailer (1080p; 2:02)

Dragon Blade Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Dragon Blade has an admirable thesis in its depiction of two potential warrior classes working together to overcome a common enemy, but the film seems to have been almost clumsily edited at times, leaving gaping holes in the narrative arc, and some confusion in the wake as a result. Chan is refreshingly restrained here, as frankly is Cusack, but Brody simply glowers his way through his role without ever creating a believable character. The film is often a eyeful, and the action sequences are superbly staged. Technical merits are first rate for those considering a purchase.