The Dragon Pearl

I had the opportunity to catch this film as a prerelease promo. Knowing nothing about it except that the story took place in China I thought it would be a good waste of an evening. It was. A waste, that is.

There is a long standing tradition among American film viewers that, with rare exception, any movie with the word "dragon" in its title is going to be disappointing. The Dragon Pearl is not one of those exceptions.

The entire thing feels like it was written, cast, and directed by a high school drama team. The story is bland and predictable, following the typical adventure theme. The characters were cookie cutter clones of every adventure movie character we've seen. The actors might as well be made of cardboard for all the emotion they showed. The poorly choreographed fight scenes rely on bad camera angles and 1 second shots to drive them along. And the film itself... maybe it was just the version I watched, but it had a grainy late-80's style to it. (Think: The Goonies.)

I missed about 1/4 of the dialogue due to lack of subtitles (Chinese and English are both spoken throughout the movie) but that should be fixed in the actual release.

The dragon itself amazed me. It wasn't very good (it looked like a plastic toy) but the amount of fluidity to its movement was excellent. It swam through the air, curling around itself, almost like a slow moving eel. They really should have textured it better.

All in all it's one of those budget flicks you won't mind watching on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Assuming there's nothing else to do.

The storyboard of this family-friendly (no graphic violence, gore, sexual scenes etc) Australia-China produced movie is pretty original, with touches of Steven Spielberg's ET and Jurassic Park. In fact, Sam Neill is one of the stars, together with Jordan Chan (if you watch Hong Kong action and comedy flicks, you will know him).

Filmed in Hengdian World Studios (Forbidden Kingdom featuring Jet Li and Jackie Chan, Zhang Yimou's Hero etc), the sets involving the underground emperor's tomb and the golden dragon's cave are very convincing.

Above all, the scenes featuring the golden dragon are simply fantastic! In fact, this film has actually set the minimum benchmark for a CGI celestial dragon (with matching awesome audio effects), in true oriental fashion (watch out for the tongue-in-cheek cross references to conventional dinosaur-like/monster-type dragons during the movie).

In future, any self-respecting film featuring heavenly dragon(s) will need to measure up to the life-like CGI rendition in The Dragon Pearl. For this alone, this movie gets 9 out of 10 from me (the presence of Sam Neill and Jordan Chan helped, of course)......!

Nothing. Happens. Even while things are happening, nothing is happening. The kids were pretty good actors, especially for a kids' film, and the sets and effects were likewise not at all grating.

That said, expect about 50 minutes' worth of movie to be crammed into about 94 minutes of your day. Prepare for exposition by narration. A retelling of the exposition...by narration. People standing around. People looking at things. People thinking about things. Repeat shots of leaves...blowing around. Suppose there just wasn't enough script for a whole movie, which was a shame. Thought it could've been great.

I would say if you have a kid who's into dragons or Asian themes, definitely give this one a shot; it's clean as a whistle content-wise. Just that I can't imagine watching this again only for the reason that the whole time I was going...come one, come on, something HAPPEN!

There are some cool shots of kids playing Chinese drums that are AWESOME. They're shown at the beginning and end credits and have nothing to do with the plot; so that's really not a spoiler.

Every once in a while I truly enjoy a good family movie. The kid in me liked this movie. I gave it a 6 because its wholesome, slightly adventurous, and I enjoyed the cinematography. I was also drawn to it because it had to do with ancient China and of course a dragon. Sure there have been better films but there have most definitely been much worse. I wish the puzzles in the movie had been explored a little more but they fit where they needed to fit and you never got lost in what the objective was once it was revealed. A little bit of fighting, a tiny amount of weapons, but overall it should be a good watch for any kid or kid at heart. So the question I always ask after I watch a movie; would I watch it again. My answer is yes but not anytime soon. I already know how it ends and the adventure wasn't captivating enough to watch it again close together. So, family time, popcorn, and cuddle up for a down right cute watch. On to the next movie.

I rated the Dragon Pearl a 6. For me, liking is >7, and disliking is <5, so this one fell into the Almost Good or Kinda Liked region.

It's a movie to take your preteen kids to and feel good about (if they aren't movie buffs).

The positives are: - the movie speeds along quickly to use up it's 95 minutes - has a reasonable script - nice mix of Aussie and Chinese actors, with the kids being best - dragon FX are good/minimal/oriental looking

The bads are: - Sam Neil was in it and didn't want to be - story line is way too predictable with typical parent/kid relationships - action sequences really should be left out, they are awful

My rating is 6 out of 10: I kinda liked this almost good movie