Signature Entertainment
Jackie Chan and Arnold Schwarzenegger share the screen for the first time in the utterly bonkers The Iron Mask.
A Russian-Chinese co-production, The Iron Mask (or, to use one of its many alternative titles The Mystery of the Dragon Seal), is itself a sequel to a Russian hit Viy. This sequel represents a coming together of two cinematic sensibilities, with a film that takes flavours from all kinds of blockbusters and applies the good old kitchen sink approach in the hope that something sticks. What it results in is a melting pot of styles that is nigh on impossible to follow. But hell, it’s not NOT entertaining.
The film follows explorer and cartographer Johnathan Green (Jason Flemyng), whose adventures charting the map of the world take a bizarre turn when he becomes part of an epic quest that involves the Russian Tsar, the Tower of London, a tea guarding dragon and a Chinese princess who must return to her home to free her people from an evil imposter.
The first twenty minutes of The Iron Mask is taken up with exposition-heavy flashbacks, prologues, and catch-ups for every cog in the plot of this outlandish epic. We journey from Ancient China to Russia back to the Tower of London, where the real Tsar of Russia has been placed behind an iron mask, imprisoned with Jackie Chan’s Master and under the watchful eye of the Tower’s head guard (Schwarzenegger). The main thrust of the plot is about getting the real Tsar together with Fleming’s Johnathan Green in China in order for a big ol’ battle against evil, but storytelling wise, there’s no rhythm at all.
Related: Its Arnold Schwarzenegger vs Jackie Chan in trailer for The Iron Mask trailer
The bad dubbing is a distraction that’s fairly easy to reconcile with, but the jumps across time, location and characters, often leaves you a little lost in the woods. What there is to concentrate on instead is a large menagerie of sets, locations and special effects that manage to find that sweet spot between looking both very expensive and very cheap at the same time. That said though, the sheer mad creature designs, highly choreographed action and (admittedly a little ugly) 3D cinematography make this feel a bit like a mad professor’s concoction, sometimes in a really entertaining way.
Those hoping for a Jackie/Arnie team-up movie will be disappointed, as this is much more about Flemyng’s Johnathan Green. The scenes that Chan and Schwarzenegger share together are fun, with an enjoyable fight scene taking place in the Tower of London, but their time together is limited, as is their participation throughout the whole film. Elsewhere, performances are all over the place, often lost in the busy visual design as the plot hurtles from one action set piece to another.
The Iron Mask (Mystery of the Dragon Seal, Journey to China, Viiy 2, whatever you want to call it) is a cluttered globe-trotting adventure that borrows from a number of blockbusters. There’s a lot of Pirates of the Caribbean, a touch of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, as well as evoking the likes of 47 Ronin and The Great Wall. I won’t pretend that this film is any good, it’s an exercise in excess that is far too busy for its own good, filled with lots of distracting elements that leave you a little lost on this journey from London to Russia to China. But hell, you kinda have to appreciate the sense of abandon that drives it all, with anything and everything being thrown at the screen. A hot, lavish, mess but not without its ‘so bad it’s good’ charms.
The Iron Mask is released on Digital HD from 10th April.
