Oh I was so prepared to love this movie. Chinese landscapes? Joint Australian-Chinese production? Sam Neill? Win win win. Er, not so fast.
The Last Dragon follows a singular adventure of Josh (Louis Corbett) and Ling (Li Lin Jing), in China during school vacation and spending time with their respective parents, Dr Chris Chase (Sam Neill) and Dr Li (Wang Ji). It is in China that Ling discovers she can hear flute music that nobody else can hear. She is, of course, The Chosen One, and must recover the mystical pearl, the essence of a dragon’s power, lost for three thousand years, and restore it to the dragon now residing beneath the site of the archaeological dig.
When I saw Australian involvement in this film, I was expecting great things. Mad Max; Children of the Revolution; Death in Brunswick; The Dish. While I yawn and forget the latest Hollywood blockbuster, these Aussie films remain with me as quirky, surreal glances into other lives and I love each and every one of them. The Last Dragon, however, starts with cliche and goes downhill from there.
Of course one of the kids is The Chosen One. Of course the other one is a hidden genius in another way. They meet the caretaker of the temple (Wu Dong, played competently by Jordan Chan) who is both guide, comedy relief and, of course, martial arts kick-ass guy. After all, he’s Chinese. They also meet the dragon, who seems to like posturing in mid-air more than actually saving the kids during the climax of the film. However, the dragon is good and that is evident the first time you see it. How? Well, all the good dragons have stubby snouts. Haven’t you noticed? The ones with the long, more interesting, less puppy-like profiles, are heinous fire-breathers and although it is stressed to us in this movie that Chinese dragons are not like Western dragons At All…they are when it comes to cliche-ville.
Other discordant notes include the fact that Sam Neill’s character is divorced. A lot is made of this at the beginning of the movie—it’s the reason for father and son evidently not seeing each other for a while—but it’s not carried through. Why are the parents divorced? We never know. Is it even necessary for the parents to be divorced? Not at all, especially when there’s not a hint of romance between Dr Chase (Josh’s dad) and Dr Li (Ling’s mum). It’s like someone sat down with a blank piece of paper and thought of as many stereotypes they could write down before starting on the script. Divorced parents? Check. Smart-arse son? Check. “Aaaawww” moment connected to ex-wife’s birthday? Check. Mysterious book? Check. Intricate locking mechanism to a stone door involving a carving? Check. Machinery that requires split-second timing and some biological oddities in order to be activated? Check.
We find out that the pearl’s disappearance is somehow associated with a dying emperor, but the grieving daughter’s actions are also completely implausible. I swear the dragon is sporting four claws in some drawings and five in others. (It’s important.) And the editor had a strange sense of timing, chopping up important scenes yet keeping irrelevant footage running for way too long. (The first time the kids are in the cave, for example.) I think I’ll stop there before I run through the entire movie.
It wasn’t a complete bust though. The leader of the archaeological dig? A woman, and a capable yet empathetic character she is too. I liked Dr Li a lot. The kids could be swapped for any other Asian/white pair of characters. Sam Neill…well, he didn’t stretch himself but I considered him my eye-candy for this movie, so I’ll give him a pass. Jordan Chan had his moments but got a bit repetitive from time to time.
The other thing I noted was that the villain, a lying geophysicist who was in conflict with both of the other academics, was American. I wonder, with the USA’s declining power, whether we’ll start to see more foreign movies with American villains? It made a nice change.
I have read that the movie was shot entirely at the Hengdian World Studios, south of Shanghai. The studio is reputedly the largest studio complex in the world with over 3 million square metres of built sets. Guys, it doesn’t matter. You can have a studio on the Moon but, unless you have a good script to go with your CGI and (questionable) wire work, you’re not going to have a memorable film. I thought the Australian influence would work its magic in this regard, but I was obviously wrong.
When all’s said and done, however, this was a kids’ film with kid film sensibilities. With that in mind, I should tell you that Little Dinosaur rated this 9/10. More world-weary eleven year old that he is, The Wast grimaced and rated it at 7½/10.
MY VERDICT: Standard B-grade kid flick. Unfortunately. 6/10.
