Peter the Great (Yuri Kolokolnikov) commissioned Jonathan Green (Jason Flemyng) to leave his home in England and draw a map of his kingdom spanning Europe and Asia. Apparently “Forbidden Empire” or “Viy” (2014), which was a straight to DVD film, chronicled Green’s European adventures, and the sequel, “Iron Mask” or “Viy 2: Journey to China” (2019), details his Asian adventures. The latter film also focuses on Peter the Great in a storyline heavily borrowed from The Man in the Iron Mask as he joins forces with the Master (Jackie Chan) to escape the Tower of London so he can return home with a detour to China to repay the Master’s kindness by helping his daughter, the Princess, Cheng Lan (Xingtong Yao), rescue people from an exploitive Witch (Li Ma).
I am so mad at myself for putting “Iron Mask” in my queue. I am a completist and thought that I was committing to a one-off bad movie, not a Russian-Chinese fantasy franchise. Apparently the next film is going to be set in India, but maybe the single benefit of World War 3 is that no one will be interested in financing this film. I am going to work against my nature and pretend it is a one and done, but there is this sliver of a doubt that suggests that if I had seen the first film, I would have enjoyed this film more because there would be more context. Sounds reasonable until I dug and discovered that the first film was loosely adapted from Nikolai Gogol’s “The Viy,” a horror novella. I kept digging and loosely seems generous. Completely unrelated seems like a better description.
I wanted to see “Iron Mask” because Chan, Rutger Hauer and Arnold Schwarzenegger are in the cast. The dearly departed Hauer is in a single scene and barely gets a line. I am uncertain of his character’s function. Schwarzenegger plays a red coat warden of the tower as if he was a motivational speaker, gym teacher who turns the prison into a reformatory and hopes that they will become fit enough to escape while collecting antiques. He is supposed to be a villain, but by the end, he is a loveable character as without explaining why he was not culpable for incarcerating people who do not belong there. Chan plays his role dead serious as if he was in a good movie, but he is not so it just feels like a waste, and I hope that he got paid well. He still has the moves, but when he gets screentime, he shares it with less skilled people as if they matter when no one is here for them. He only lightens up with Schwarzenegger, who has always had a talent for humor, and they are fun together even if their interaction does not move the story forward.
If you do not watch a lot of Asian films, the quality is proportional to the cast being Asian versus non-Asian. More non-Asian actors means the acting is going to be bad and the fighting will make you yawn. Asian films are usually better than their American and European counterparts so I went into this film hoping for fantasy offered in such films as the Detective Yee franchise, but got the reverse, a garish “Pirates of the Caribbean” vibe, and it was dreadful.
Because I did not realize that “Iron Mask” was a sequel, I had no way of knowing that the cartographer Green was the bridge character, which would normally make him the protagonist, but this film features an ensemble cast. The story has no character development, makes little effort to make sense and lacks any rhythm when toggling between storylines and characters. While it shows more soul than a film like “Morbius” (2022) because everyone is working really hard, it feels like a patchwork quilt with pieces that never fit. There is a steampunk aesthetic in the Asian sequences and a couple of CGI creatures: a majestic, mythical dragon and an odd, cute Kho Tchai. The best steampunk sorcerer brings to mind Magneto.
“Iron Mask” lacks cohesiveness. My earlier summary makes more sense than watching the movie. The beginning is convoluted. We get an overview fantasy opening sequence to explain the backstory then just as the film starts, the story segues into reading a letter and providing more backstory. The goal resolution is not obvious until the end of the film. From the beginning, it feels as if it would include restoring Peter to the throne, but nope. It is just freeing the dragon, which is the stronger storyline.
The final twenty minutes of “Iron Mask” are probably the best part of this unwatchable movie when the Princess and the Witch battle each other. Yao and Ma are the best actors in this film, and their fight scenes sans steampunk, are decent. If the direction and editing were better, the fight scenes would have imitated Fred Astaire’s approach to capturing motion, but it is choppy so despite Yao and Ma’s best efforts, it falls short of leaving us speechless. The two-faced Witch and her ladies in waiting had the best costumes. While I could have done without the seduction sequences, their gold gowns were flames. The Witch was so deliciously hateful how she did not even want her loyal servants around. She wanted to stab everyone, and I appreciated her consistency. Her end was the most fitting and satisfying part of the movie. Yao was the most magnetic, but at some point, her voice gets dubbed to an excruciating, high-pitched girlish tone. Why? Other characters’ voices seem to get dubbed too, but I cannot verify it. Mengmeng Li as Li Hong, the Princess’ friend, showed great potential as an interesting character, but she gets short changed for sillier characters shucking and jiving.
It would be easy to dismiss Anna Churina in her thankless role as Green’s love interest who is only concerned about his faithfulness and introduced drowning in a Rococo style, but she gets to display her humor and talent when she disguises herself as a guy to travel safely. “Iron Mask” makes her the target of everyone’s unwanted sexual interest, but thankfully stops short on delivering. It is as if the film is torn between being suitable for all ages without showing any blood or flesh and stays on goofy without realizing that light does not have to mean dumb.
“Game of Thrones” Charles Dance should come with a warning label that he will deliver the same standard of excellent delivery of lines regardless of how dumb his surroundings are. Dance plays the usual disapproving powerful patriarch. Fortunately I cannot blame Dance for my interest in “Iron Mask.” The Luu brothers act as if they are in a good movie and deserve better.
At least I did not pay to see this film. When Hulu pulled it from streaming, I decided to borrow it from the library, but even that effort was more than this dreadful film deserved. Avoid the “Viy” franchise even if you love anyone in the cast. It is not worth it, and this movie proves that everyone has to work and has bills to pay.
