Bridge of Dragons
Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2016 1:25 pm
Synopsis:
In 1999 while snorting a massive, Scarface-sized length of blow, Boaz Davidson, future producer of The Expendables was watching Showdown in Little Tokyo and thought, "Hmm, I wonder if Dolph Lundgren would work for scale in Bulgaria on a shitty C action movie? I'm pretty sure that Shang Tsung motherfucker will."
Review:
First off, to quote the great film critic Nelson Muntz after viewing The Naked Lunch, "I can think of two things wrong with that title." There are no dragons, nor is there even a fucking bridge. The story's settings go from "contemporary civilization with Nazi overtones" to "post-apocalyptic survivalist shit holes" and do it so abruptly that by the fourth or fifth time, you stop caring.
Any-fucking-how, the world has gone to shit because of ... some nondescript event and devolved into local kings, warlords, and generals trying to fuck each other over. Dolph plays Warchild. Imagine that you could buy movie characters from Dollar Tree stores. If you walked into your local outlet and asked for their generic version of Riddick, they'd give you Warchild. Prior to the beginning, Obergruppenführer Shang Tsung (seriously, he and his men look like they stumbled upon a long lost cache of Hitler's military surplus) assassinates the seemingly benevolent king in the hopes he can quickly marry the orphaned daughter left behind to lay ... legitimate claim to the throne. The princess, who moonlights as a pit fighter, gets the fuck out of Dodge before the ceremony can take place. Dolph has been his right-hand man for a few years, so Shang Tsung tells him to play fetch and retrieve her.
Normally, I'd call the following "spoilers" ... so I guess if you really want to experience bad cinema firsthand with no prior knowledge, then stop here. Now I say "normally" because you can guess how this goes. There's a scene midway through the film where things should have:
a) never happened that way and
b) even if A never occurs, the plot's done right there
Dolph catches Princess Zap (bonus points for those who get that reference) as Shang conveniently shows up in his Soviet-era chopper with "666" emblazoned on the side (in case his character wasn't one-dimensional enough). Shang slaps her. This incenses Dolph enough to turn his back on the dude who literally saved his life, gave him a job, and enables him to live an existence of relative comfort and ease while peasants suffer and eat shit daily. All of that for a bitchslap. I haven't specifically mentioned this, but the opening scene is Dolph decimating a rebel encampment and looking on while Shang cleans up by beating the shit out of them individually and then slashing their throats. You've got to be shitting me. You work for a living committing murders en masse for a mass murderer who has murdered masses in the fuck front of you for some time now. But you're drawing the line at backhanding a runaway bride. That's your fucking limit. If you can look past that WTF moment, there's the matter of what happens as a result of Dolph going after Shang. Knocks his ass to the ground, one kick. Dolph carries around what looks like a bad knockoff of a grease gun with a tiny-ass grenade launcher (that might be able to shoot a fireworks artillery shell) as well as something else that looks like a a Luger 9mm hatefucked a Walther PPK. Both also have internal factories that can either manufacture bullets from the atmosphere or teleport them from alternate realities, timelines, universes, or something because those fucking things almost never run out of ammo. So Dolph's standing there, staring down at a dazed Shang Tsung for a few seconds while his stormtroopers react with the speed of a large sauropod's nervous system, gun slung over his back ... and does NOTHING WITH IT. The plot should have ended right there. One burst with a SMG at point blank range. Fucking goodnight, roll credits. Then you realize it's only forty-five minutes into the film and the villain simply must get away against all logic and common sense.
Also, the budget for this monstrosity was betweet $3-4 million. They spent approximately $0.25 on sound effects for bullets, explosions, rockets, and the like. The "attack" choppers don't even have exposed gun barrels, but they got some sweet, sweet smoke cannons. You can find old Transformers and GI Joe toys from the '80s that have more realistic projectile effects.
Verdict:
Might actually be as bad as Dolph's version of The Punisher.
In 1999 while snorting a massive, Scarface-sized length of blow, Boaz Davidson, future producer of The Expendables was watching Showdown in Little Tokyo and thought, "Hmm, I wonder if Dolph Lundgren would work for scale in Bulgaria on a shitty C action movie? I'm pretty sure that Shang Tsung motherfucker will."
Review:
First off, to quote the great film critic Nelson Muntz after viewing The Naked Lunch, "I can think of two things wrong with that title." There are no dragons, nor is there even a fucking bridge. The story's settings go from "contemporary civilization with Nazi overtones" to "post-apocalyptic survivalist shit holes" and do it so abruptly that by the fourth or fifth time, you stop caring.
Any-fucking-how, the world has gone to shit because of ... some nondescript event and devolved into local kings, warlords, and generals trying to fuck each other over. Dolph plays Warchild. Imagine that you could buy movie characters from Dollar Tree stores. If you walked into your local outlet and asked for their generic version of Riddick, they'd give you Warchild. Prior to the beginning, Obergruppenführer Shang Tsung (seriously, he and his men look like they stumbled upon a long lost cache of Hitler's military surplus) assassinates the seemingly benevolent king in the hopes he can quickly marry the orphaned daughter left behind to lay ... legitimate claim to the throne. The princess, who moonlights as a pit fighter, gets the fuck out of Dodge before the ceremony can take place. Dolph has been his right-hand man for a few years, so Shang Tsung tells him to play fetch and retrieve her.
Normally, I'd call the following "spoilers" ... so I guess if you really want to experience bad cinema firsthand with no prior knowledge, then stop here. Now I say "normally" because you can guess how this goes. There's a scene midway through the film where things should have:
a) never happened that way and
b) even if A never occurs, the plot's done right there
Dolph catches Princess Zap (bonus points for those who get that reference) as Shang conveniently shows up in his Soviet-era chopper with "666" emblazoned on the side (in case his character wasn't one-dimensional enough). Shang slaps her. This incenses Dolph enough to turn his back on the dude who literally saved his life, gave him a job, and enables him to live an existence of relative comfort and ease while peasants suffer and eat shit daily. All of that for a bitchslap. I haven't specifically mentioned this, but the opening scene is Dolph decimating a rebel encampment and looking on while Shang cleans up by beating the shit out of them individually and then slashing their throats. You've got to be shitting me. You work for a living committing murders en masse for a mass murderer who has murdered masses in the fuck front of you for some time now. But you're drawing the line at backhanding a runaway bride. That's your fucking limit. If you can look past that WTF moment, there's the matter of what happens as a result of Dolph going after Shang. Knocks his ass to the ground, one kick. Dolph carries around what looks like a bad knockoff of a grease gun with a tiny-ass grenade launcher (that might be able to shoot a fireworks artillery shell) as well as something else that looks like a a Luger 9mm hatefucked a Walther PPK. Both also have internal factories that can either manufacture bullets from the atmosphere or teleport them from alternate realities, timelines, universes, or something because those fucking things almost never run out of ammo. So Dolph's standing there, staring down at a dazed Shang Tsung for a few seconds while his stormtroopers react with the speed of a large sauropod's nervous system, gun slung over his back ... and does NOTHING WITH IT. The plot should have ended right there. One burst with a SMG at point blank range. Fucking goodnight, roll credits. Then you realize it's only forty-five minutes into the film and the villain simply must get away against all logic and common sense.
Also, the budget for this monstrosity was betweet $3-4 million. They spent approximately $0.25 on sound effects for bullets, explosions, rockets, and the like. The "attack" choppers don't even have exposed gun barrels, but they got some sweet, sweet smoke cannons. You can find old Transformers and GI Joe toys from the '80s that have more realistic projectile effects.
Verdict:
Might actually be as bad as Dolph's version of The Punisher.