Iron Mask | Blu-ray (Lionsgate)
Today’s Deal on Fire is the Blu-ray for Iron Mask (read our review), which also goes by the titles The Mystery of the Dragon Seal: Journey to China and Journey to China: The Mystery of the Iron Mask, a Chinese-Russian produced adventure film featuring Jackie Chan (The Foreigner, Dragon Blade) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (Maggie, Aftermath).
The Iron Mask is a sequel to 2014’s Viy 2 (dubbed “the highest grossing Russian movie of all-time”) is directed by Russian filmmaker Oleg Stepchenko.
The Iron Mask is set in the 18th century and focuses on the adventures of English traveler Jonathan Green (Jason Flemyng), who is assigned to draw a map of Russia’s Far East. However, his travels eventually bring Green to China.
Charles Dance (Alien 3), Chinese triplet actors, the Luu brothers (Pacific Rim), Anna Yao (Armour of God III), and the late Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner), co-star in the film.
Order from Amazon.com today!
I’d take a big grain of salt with that… This reminds me of when Arnie and Sly were announced as stars of a Bollywood blockbuster, Kambakht Ishq. In the end Sly was there for mere seconds and Arnie had been replaced by a Brandon Routh cameo.
VIY 2 is the sequel to VIY (obviously ^^), which was record-breaking in Russia when it came out, so it makes sense that they would go for international stars this time (the first one had Jason Flemyng & Charles Dance), but I can’t imagine the two of them having more than an extended cameo.
lol you’re on the hunt for Brandon Routh, aren’t you? Recently read your review for that flight movie on your site.
Ha no pure coincidence ^^. I’ve always found Routh quite bland to be honest.
Haven’t really seen him in anything else but Superman Returns, which I thought was good. 🙂
I’m just going to pretend I never saw this comment.
So it’s *not* a sequel, right?
It is a sequel.
Ah. I see.
Thanks for the juicy tidbits. I hope you don’t mind, but the article was updated to reflect your succulent comments.
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Was that a flying monkey!?
Baron Mythchausen. But if the fans work together, it’ll beat Avatar *and* Avengers, amirite? ^_-
I’ve heard that both Jackie and Arnie are barely in this and it’s more like a glorified cameo for both. Can anyone confirm?
From what I’ve read, they’re in it for the first 30 minutes, which, to me, is long, considering that’s a third of the movie.
Thank you for the clarification. 🙂
To clarify to those interested:
The film is a sequel to the Russian film of the same name but you do not have had to watched the first to understand the film, sure the film doesn’t bother establishing the lead character but he’s rather uninteresting in the grand scheme of things. The film tries to be a swashbuckling film but its evident they don’t have the budget with some CGI moments questionable.
Jackie Chan and Arnold are extended cameos only and are confined to a prison, JC a prisoner and Arnold a British prison warden (?!), as JJ Bona has stated they are about 30 minutes in the film. They do have a fight scene and its fun but not entirely original, JC does what he usually does evading most of the time and Arnold use brute force. They both show admiration for one another and its a light hearted encounter with some effecting comic beats, its hints of JC of old.
In fact there are other fights in the film that does not involve JC and they are actually very good. Its very wushu employing some very fanciful choreography aided by some wire work (not quite as balletic as Croching Tiger Hidden Dragon). The finale is very inventive with its choreography with its 4 vs 1 scenario, successfully mixing doubling, CGI and live action.
Overall a light hearted film that’s amazing but it has some very well choreographed action scenes which is worth a shot.
This was a very bad movie, especially second part of it, where it looks like the producers cut like half of the budget… For sure Jackie and Arnold having fun, and their fight scene is funny and not bad (though wire shit shit is there) But this fight sequence is the only one thing to watch there, The final part of this film is bad cgi fest with bad acting almost from everyone, not to mention that the whole story is pretty crappy even for this family friendly fantasy movie. Very disappointed, but even from trailer you can see it looks like a cash grab with extended cameos of Arnold and Jackie.
I’m amazed the two are even in the movie. More so Jackie. Maybe he was forced “Fantasy Mission Force/Island on Fire”-style?
Honestly i tried to like this movie, and somehow first third of the film is at least ok, but the rest is from hmm to omg rly. That whole sequence and fight between Arnold and Jackie is fine but except that i dont know, all looks generic and bad. I must say though that stunt people did good job with what they were given during action sequences, and in some scenes cgi looks beautiful and ok, but omg bad acting from cast during second part of the film is unforgivable. It really looks like the second part of the film was filmed with not enough budget, and script went from ok family fantasy adventure to some stupid crazy shit. Cameo from Rudger Hauer is painful to see
, he is one of my favorite actors, and see him end up like this is just sad…