Matty trades blows with action auteur Isaac Florentine’s epically scaled — yet dramatically underwhelming — Nu Image assignment.

A decent entertainment and an interesting Isaac Florentine caper. 

Despite being rewritten without the chop-socky auteur or star Dolph Lundgren’s knowledge in the Cold Harvest (1999) sized gap between Nu Image contracting them for the film and them finally being able to shoot it [1], BRIDGE OF DRAGONS’ script feels like a greatest hits package; an enjoyable blend of moments, scenes and plot points that Florentine depicted in Desert Kickboxer (1992), Savate (1995), and High Voltage (1997). Here, however, the helmer swaps his spaghetti western obsession for fantasy. Gone are the gunslingers and banditos; instead, Bridge of Dragons — an epically scaled tale of war, love and loyalty — features a knight (Lundgren), a princess (Valerie Chow), and an evil tyrant (Lundgren’s old Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991) foe, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), albeit within Florentine’s oft-used odyssey framework and set amidst a Star Wars (1977) esque alternative universe (per a world building opening crawl, Bridge of Dragons unfolds “Someplace, where the future meets the past…”). 

A shame, then, that the actual story — in which Lundgren’s tough soldier pairs with Chow’s plucky maiden to bring down Tagawa’s oppressive regime — fails to grip as it should. It’s light and fluffy rather than stirring and dramatic, and its shortcomings are compounded by uncharacteristically indifferent performances (presumably the cast, which also includes the usually dependable Gary Hudson, were miffed at the aforementioned tinkering). And though bursting with Florentine’s patented splash panel staging and ‘whoosh!’-heavy Foley, Bridge of Dragons is stricken with a technical clumsiness that betrays its difficult production.

The first Nu Image romp to be lensed in Bulgaria after company boss Avi Lerner had spent the better part of two decades shooting in South Africa, Florentine has spoken several times about the tough conditions that he and his core crew endured on Bridge of Dragons, stating that the project was essentially a test run to see if filmmaking was indeed possible in The Land of the Roses. Thus, for all the thrilling, heart-in-mouth action and stunning Wuxia-tinged physicality (the fighting is choreographed by Florentine’s most trusted lieutenant, Akihiro ‘Yuji’ Noguchi), Bridge of Dragons plays like what it is: the result of an ambitious director trying to realise his vision with a bunch of technicians not yet accustomed to his style and not yet able to pull it off. Thankfully, this was quickly remedied come U.S. Seals 2 (2001).    

Bridge of Dragons debuted on HBO on 13th August 1999, just over a month before Cold Harvest’s bow on Cinemax.

USA ● 1999 ● Action ● 91mins

Dolph Lundgren, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Valerie Chow (as ‘Rachel Shane’) ● Dir. Isaac Florentine ● Wri. Carlton Holder, Clint Lien (uncredited), Greg Latter (uncredited)

[1] Lundgren’s third Nu Image flick following The Peacekeeper (1997) and Sweepers (1998), the big blonde bruiser agreed to headline Bridge of Dragons as long as he could finish training for his latest black belt and get in camera shape first, leading to Florentine and Nu Image assembling Cold Harvest with in-house talent Gary Daniels and Bryan Genesse.