The fact is that cultural influences of this movie - mainly being Russian - simply does not translate.
The cinematography is COMPLETELY horrible. The storyline is slapdash and the set design is crap! They've spent tons of money on Western stars and what they've got is something reminiscent of Russian fantasies of the 1950's. They've thrown in some Chinese martial arts and Wushu for good measure and mixed it with a batch of European pseudo-historical slop and called a movie. Don't waste your time. Russians simply haven't figured out how to make movies that relate anything worth seeing to an international movie audience yet. Certainly not where strong narrative of any kind is concerned and not since Eisenstein (and even then...yawn)!
Plot summary
English traveller Jonathan Green (Jason Flemyng) receives from Peter the Great an order to map the Russian Far East. Once again he sets out for a long journey full of incredible adventures that will eventually lead him to China. The cartographer will unexpectedly face a lot of breathtaking discoveries, encounter bizarre creatures, meet with Chinese Princesses, and confront deadly martial arts masters, and even the King of all dragons, the Dragon King. What could be more dangerous than meeting eye-to-eye with Viy, except doing it again? What would be stronger this time, a staunch skepticism of the scientist or the old black magic that has seized power of Eastern lands?
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Arnold Schwarzenegger as James Hook
Charles Dance as Lord Dudley
Jackie Chan as Master
Rutger Hauer as Ambassador
Tech specs
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU 720p.WEB 1080p.WEB 1.08 GB
1280*682
Russian 2.0
PG-13
Movie Reviews
Reviewed by
Utter nonsense, even for a fantasy!
Reviewed by
About An Hour & A Half Too Long
Far too long. Terrible dialog. It's a sequel to 2014's Forbidden Kingdom that completely recycled the plot, except this time it's in China. The visuals are great but the story is all over the place. It feels like they tried to cram three different scripts for three different films into one movie. But then, this is what happens when a Russian filmmaker tries to make a Chinese film with gratuitous international film stars.
Reviewed by
Oh Arnold
I just watched The Iron Mask
Oh Arnold Schwarzenegger. This drivel is on par with Killing Gunther. I noticed the credits said 'With the special participation of Jackie Chan' I didn't notice Arnold's name outside of listing him as an Executive Producer.
Arnold and Jackie Chan arrive early on, then disappear around the 40 minute mark, and turn back up at the end. His screen time is about 15 minutes if I'm being generous. It could be as low as 10 as he is in a few scenes, but he is not actually on camera. So I'm not sure why Randy was so thrilled with his " substantially bigger roll" he shares most of his scenes on screen with Chan. As for his love of Arnold's hand to hand fighting, I'm amazed if he does not realise that was done with a stuntman/stand in.
I knew what to expect going in, but I was still surprised at 1 minute 22 of 8 studio logos, then we get the opening credits which doesn't feature cast names, but a list of producers, executive producers, co executive producers and co distributors!!
Awful ADR, poor acting, woeful attempts at humour and some poorly executed fight choreography really drag this drown. It does look pretty though.