“Legend of the White Dragon” Poster
Losing your lead actor before filming has wrapped on a production is never easy, and not taking into consideration the emotional toll, the approaches taken to finishing a production that’s lost its lead over the years have ranged from questionable to admirable. When Bruce Lee died during the filming of Game of Death, Golden Harvest dusted off the footage 5 years later and attempted to complete it with lookalikes (and most famously, a cardboard cutout of his face). When Alexander Fu Sheng passed away during the filming of Eight Diagram Pole Fighter director Lau Kar-Leung rejigged the plot to have it focused on a different character. When Brandon Lee suffered a fatal onset accident while filming The Crow, technology had reached a point where his face could be digitally imposed on stand-ins.
In 2022 the father and son director team of Sean Schoenke and Aaron Schoenke would face the same issue during the filming of Legend of the White Dragon, when the lead actor David Jason Frank (The Dragon Warrior), for which the production was a passion project, tragically took his own life. While principal photography had completed during the Covid era, the restrictions that were in place had consumed a chunk of the budget, which meant there were still several scenes involving Frank that had yet to be filmed. In this case the decision was made to maintain Frank’s position as the lead, befitting of how meaningful the production was to him, and pad out the runtime to feature length status by expanding the scenes of the supporting cast, of which most notably director Aaron Schoenke also plays the lead villain.
However even before Frank’s passing Legend of the White Dragon had a rocky journey to the screen. An initial crowdfunding campaign in 2019 pitched the production as a dark and gritty take on the Power Rangers, of which Frank had been a consistent presence throughout its various iterations. Several former Power Rangers alumni were confirmed as being onboard (including Johnny Yong Bosch) and a teaser shot, however when the campaign failed to reach its $500,000 goal, production was placed on hold. A second crowdfunding campaign was set up a year later, this time with a reduced $100,000 goal, and the overall vision parred down from a movie to a YouTube miniseries. Somewhat ironically, the second attempt exceeded the $500,000 goal, so the movie came back to the table, only by this time most of the other Power Rangers cast had moved on to other projects.
This was both a blessing and a curse. A curse first because it meant production was pushed into the middle of the Covid pandemic, when the Screen Actors Guild placed strict limitations and rules around filming (if you want to see the true impact of these restrictions on the DTV action genre, check out the abysmal Take Back). A blessing though because Frank and Johnny Yong Bosch had different ideas of just how dark and gritty the take should be, with Frank keen on pushing it further into the darker side of things, and now he could push towards his vision unhindered.
I confess while reading up on Legend of the White Dragon it seemed impossible to avoid comments that basically read along the lines of – the only bad reviews are coming from people who were never into or understood the appeal of Power Rangers. Ultimately I read so many that I figured I should probably place a disclaimer at this point to say, well, I was never really into Power Rangers. I was 12 when it launched in 1993, so a few years beyond the age demographic it was aimed at, but at the same time, close enough to puberty to notice Amy Jo Johnson, resulting in the show somehow always being on the periphery of my viewing habits. Would I have known who David Jason Frank was if you’d asked me before watching Legend of the White Dragon though? Honestly, no, so I definitely don’t have the same investment in seeing his last onscreen appearance as the shows dedicated fanbase may have.
In the opening scene we witness the final moments of a battle between the White Dragon and masked villain Ashtagor in what remains of Virtuo City, with the latter attempting to force the White Dragon to give up the location of the last remaining recharging pit – the source of his cosmic powers. Skipping forward 3 years, Frank has gone into hiding since he took the fall for the innocent death toll the battle resulted in, however there’s a new threat on the horizon. The head of a pharmaceutical company whose wife was one of those who died has been living to seek revenge on the White Dragon. After the crystal that gives the White Dragon his power broke in half during the battle, Ashtagor came into the possession of one half, and gave it the pharmaceutical head so he could use his company’s technology to extract its essence – in the process becoming Dragon Prime, a villain with similar powers to Frank.
As mentioned previously, the villain is played by director Aaron Schoenke (creator of the Super Power Beat Down YouTube series, which pits fictional characters against each other), and if I were to make an educated guess, most of the additional filming that took place involves his character. That’s not intended to be critical, I mean if you’re going to expand any character’s role, then the main villain makes sense. There’s an abundance of flashback scenes of him and his wife together, played by Ciara Hanna (the Yellow Megaforce Ranger), who I suspect was brought in later and tend to knock off the pacing. Similarly the scenes Schoenke spends in his lab are a greenscreen eyesore that were likely also added later.
However to its credit Legend of the White Dragon has some genuine martial arts talent in front of the camera, not least Frank himself. Amy Johnston (Accident Man, Lady Bloodfight) appears as a corrupt cop (whose role seems to have been originally played by another Lady Bloodfight-alumni in the form of Mayling Ng, but for reasons unknown was replaced), and gets to flex her action talents in a worthwhile fight scene against Frank. The same scene also contains a hilariously self-aware display of how useless nunchucks can be in a fight. Mark Dacascos turns up sporting a bizarre quasi-Asian accent, but at least gets to bust out a few moves. Turning up for 10 minutes in DTV actioners appears to be the only work Dacascos can get these days (see also 2025’s Jade), so it’s kind of depressing to think his swansong starring role could turn out to be 2020’s embarrassingly bad One Night in Bangkok.
Frank eventually gets to team up with his characters former acquaintances Jason Faunt (the Red Time Force Ranger) and Rachele Brooke Smith (Center Stage: Turn It Up) who feel like remnants from the earlier, less serious iteration of Legend of the White Dragon, complete with jokes of how long Faunt lasts in bed. It’s when the trio are together that the production is at its most entertaining and finds its flow, moving away from watching Frank mope around by himself or filler scenes to pad out the narrative, and allowing the audience to see what could have been. Similarly when the action choreography by brothers Alfred Tsing (Ip Man 3) and Alvin Tsing (Prisoner of War) is allowed to take centre stage it’s enough to leave you wanting more of it, Power Rangers fan or not, offering up a frustrating glimpse of a passion project that was cut short before it could be fully realised.
In its current form though, Legend of the White Dragon offers up a bewildering cameo by the late Michael Madsen playing Frank’s father, the line “The White Dragon is the disease, and I’m the cure”, and a lot of talking as the most economical way to pass the time. Originally intended as a trilogy, with a sequel and prequel already planned, whether the further instalments would have come to pass even if Frank was still around is debatable. As it is, while Legend of the White Dragon is a valiant attempt to finish a movie that no longer had its key ingredient, that doesn’t necessarily mean its worth checking out. If you’re a David Jason Frank fan I’m sure you’ll feel different, in which case ensure to stick around for 5 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage once the closing credits wrap. For everyone else, approach with caution.
Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 4/10
Original Teaser with Johnny Yong Bosch:
