DRAGON BLADE (Daniel Lee). 103 minutes. Subtitled. Rating: NNN
Where to watch: iTunes
This handsomely mounted historical epic tells the story of Chinese Silk Road peacekeepers who clashed and cooperated with a fugitive Roman legion in 50 BCE.
A trade and cultural route, the Silk Road ran 6,000 kilometres from the Pacific to the Mediterranean, passing through numerous not always peaceful tribal areas. It lasted from about 200 BCE to 1450.
Silk Road police captain Huo An is a committed pacifist. Jackie Chan gives him a natural dignity and warm heart, but he’s pretty much a one-note character. So are John Cusack’s Roman legion commander and Adrien Brody as a psychopathic Roman nobleman on his trail. But all three give enough depth and nuance to their characters to hold our interest.
In particular, Chan has learned to dial down his clowning until the humour looks natural. Note to serious Chan fans: this is emphatically not your typical Jackie outing, namely loads of comedy, kung fu and at least one amazing stunt.
The battle and individual combat scenes, of which there are plenty, are only moderately spectacular, weakened by lots of shooting from the waist up. But they do provide a first-rate look at the differences between Roman and Chinese approaches to the bloody and brutal work of warfare.
