Customer Reviews

Bridge of Dragons

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is a very good movie and I agree with th person who said the princess was hot because she was. Anyway this movie has everything it needs a plot, good acting, good fight scenes, and a reasonable length. This is a great film so go check it out.

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is a well known martial artist who plays bad guy Warlord Ruechang. Dolph Lungren is one of Ruechang's loyal soldiers who is trained to never question orders. However, Reuchang continues to abuse the princess, played by Rachel Shane, whose father he killed. Lungren finally challenges Ruechang to a final scene that is very 'extreme' with broken bones and even sword action!
This movie is a fantasy action film that has a fictional military that is governed by warlord Ruechang. Good martial arts action. I rate this movie with 5 stars. This movie gets one entire star just because Lungren is in the movie. I must say, even though Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Ruechang) is a bad guy in this movie, I enjoyed his performance in Bridge of Dragons.
Very entertaining!!

The story: in a time not our own, the evil General Ruechang (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Mortal Kombat) has killed the king of the land and plans to solidify his claim to power by marrying the king's only daughter, Princess Halo (Valerie Chow, Chungking Express). When the defiant young maiden escapes into the wilderness occupied by anti-state revolutionaries, the General sends his greatest warrior, Warchild (Dolph Lundgren, Universal Soldier), to bring her back - not knowing that he may be swayed by the plight of the princess in favor of the rebel cause.

"Bridge of Dragons" is a strange movie for everybody involved, from the cast to director Isaac Florentine (Undisputed II - Last Man Standing). For starters, I have no idea what the title refers to, since there is no actual bridge, no actual dragons, and no direct metaphorical reference to either. Secondly, the film opens with a text scrawl informing viewers of the usurping of the throne, which gives the momentary impression that you're about to watch a medieval film. Of course, this isn't exactly a misconception: the movie is one big anachronism, featuring influences from the dark ages (e.g. an apparent feudal system and monarchy), modern and post-modern times (conflicting weaponry and ceremonial garb), the Victorian era (horse-drawn carriages), and World War II (soldiers wearing Axis-esque uniforms). Oh, and Tagawa's character sports a gold-fringed suit that looks exactly like something Michael Jackson would wear. It doesn't exactly come together seamlessly and definitely catches you off-guard, but I found this to be the most interesting part of the movie.

The acting is a mixed bag: all performers must contend with some very stupid dialogue, but it hits some harder than others. Lundgren, Chow, and Tagawa more or less carry the movie by themselves since few others are given any real screentime - with the limited exceptions of Gary Hudson ("Paradise Falls") as Warchild's comrade and Jo Kendall (Howards End) as Halo's nurse - but while Lundgren and Chow manage to save at least some face, the usually-adamant Tagawa overdoes his trademark scowling and comes across as reasonably stupid. Lundgren's eventual turn from bad to good also seems a bit forced, but the Swedish Superman pulls it off with integrity.

There's no denying the movie's abundant action content, but this too is hit-and-miss. There are five shootouts of varying quality, although each of them consistently feature slanted camera angles, lots of guys falling over without visibly being hit by bullets, and some high flips-to-death that have become Florentine's trademark. There are some roundhouse and spinning back kicks thrown by Lundgren here and there, but the only decisive martial arts encounter is the climatic battle between him and Tagawa, which is surprisingly good even in the presence of some stunt doubles. The best action scene, however, is an "American Gladiator"-style stick fight between Warchild and Halo on raised poles to which I kept hoping for a rematch that never came.

There's some obvious dubbing of the voices of minor characters, but this is made up for by neat cinematography and the overall directorial know-how by Florentine, who really maximized his resources to craft a small fantasy flick that's certainly worth the watch. I only wish he had maximized the amount of action as well: a few more of those stick fights and this may have been a classic.

This a very fine action movie from his wonderful actor. All his movies are great. i have almost all of his movies. he is a great director, too.
Who wants to buy this one, please buuy it...

Warchyled feels like he owes General Ruechang something just because he brought him into the army every since he was 10. What he don't know is Ruechang killed the King which is Princess Halo's father so he can gain more power but that's not enough so he wants to marry the Princess so badly defentaly not for love cause he keeps on beating the princess, she knows aabout her father's murder so she pretended to be sick and hold off the wedding and then escaped. Warchyled has his duty to go and bring her back.

This movie is supposed to be set in the future but I think that due to a low budget, they couldn't really capture a futuristic look. However, the action and the martial arts are great and all the acting is pretty good. The problem is the movie just looks cheap. If you can get past how cheap it looks, its actually a pretty entertaining story. I would watch it again.

This movie is actually only worthy of 1 star. However, the Dolph-factor automatically adds another star to the tally. Without Dolph this movie would not be worth seeing @ all.

The film is about as low budget as low budget gets. The bad guys dress like [...], two white helicopters that look like they should be used for island tours are supposed to be helicopter gunships, and the film seems to minimize the use of just about everything.

The story is set in some small country where Caucasions and Asians live together. A despot has taken hold of the country and only a gorgeous princess can lead a succcessful revolution against his tyranny. Guess who gets to help the princess? That's right - our man Dolph!

Much like Arnie (COMMANDO) and Sly (RAMBO) Dolph is the only guy in the entire movie who can shoot straight. He escapes certain death with nary a scratch, even tho an entire army is firing at him at point-blank (ummmmm.......kind of challenges believability, but he IS Dolph!).

The redeeming factor of the film is that it does offer a couple of decent action scenes, the acting is decent and the soundtrack approaches semi-decent in a couple of places. If you collect action movies for a living, you may as well add this one to it. However, if you want to see a far better Dolph movie (and yet relatively unknown) I would recommend SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO.

How come the arch-villain and the damsel-in-distress are the only Asian speaking roles in this otherwise virtually all-white film? With so few prominent Asian characters in U.S. media, the message seems to be that white men need to kill Asian men and rescue Asian women. This would be good on a double bill with Griffith's "Birth of a Nation."

If you want to see the "hot princess" (Rachel Shane, a.k.a. Valerie Chow) in a better film -- dancing around in her underwear no less -- check out Wong Kar-Wai's "Chungking Express."

this is a good movie. I'm a Dolph Lundgren fan, and it's nice to see Dolph back in action against his old enemy (remember Showdown in Little Tokyo with Brandon Lee? Same villan.). It made the movie special just to see the old Japanese villan again. There's a good story and some violent action in this one, also. The part of the movie that I enjoyed the most was the love interest between Dolph and the princess. Because Dolph is such a masculine guy, it's believable that any woman would fall for him, and the princess is definitely the hottest lady he has shot a picture with since Tia Carrera in 'Showdown in Little Tokyo'. I'm a little disappointed that the relationship with them was treated in a [rated PG way]. This is a Dolph Lundgren film! In his old films the babes always stripped down! [...]
This is why I'm disappointed there was less sexuality in this movie, especially with Rachel Shane as the princess. Her body is covered up the whole time.
The princess likes to stick fight at local bars in this movie and that isn't believable. She's not even breathing hard after the fights, and she pushed Dolph to the limit in a stick fight. That was going a bit too far. Women doing men things.

Dolph Lundgren is a physically gifted male human with two of the most magnificent arms on earth.

The movie, however, would be funny if it wasn't so inept and insulting.

Here's a clue for the apparently clueless director, etc.: Having a bunch of poverty stricken Whites in thrall to Chinese rulers is not a good idea because of the balance of trade thing and the destruction of industry in the U.S.A.--perhaps you've heard of these events.

Having gorgeous Nordic Dolph fall in love with the Asian princess is also not a good idea. Gorgeous Nordic Dolph with a Gorgeous Nordic Princess would have been a very good idea.

Apparently any thinking abilities for the characters are made unnecessary by the amount of explosions.

Did I see extras being killed and recycled with long-haired wigs to be killed again?

I.Q. 80 movie. Good thing I could fast forward through most of it.