Bridge of Dragons

Bridge Of Dragons' biggest appeal is the setting; a post-apocalyptic world which bears little resemblance to your Mad Maxes and instead, resembles a medieval/feudal society, only one where everyone is armed with machine guns.

Dolph Lundgren stars as Warchild, the loyal soldier to the villainous General Ruechang (Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa). Keen to become King, Ruechang has arranged a marriage with Princess Halo (Valerie Chow), but she's not exactly infatuated with him. When she skips town on their wedding day, Warchild is dispatched to find and bring her back, but he winds up falling in love with her. Soon, he's questioning his loyalties and wondering if perhaps Ruechang is more villainous than he believed. And to be quite honest, it's a miracle he didn't notice how evil his boss was earlier, given that all his soldiers are dressed like the Wehrmacht and fly around in helicopters with '666' printed on the side.

This medieval-with-AK47s setting and the well-executed fight scenes are enough to make Bridge Of Dragons worthwhile. It's definitely a low-budget movie; most of this new world resembles the countryside in Eastern Europe, the camera cuts away from the all important helicopter-explosion and I'm fairly certain the same stuntmen were killed about three times over. It also gets a bit contrived; Warchild recovers from a bullet wound in a single day, Jeeps are able to sneak up silently on rebel encampments and I don't think anyone ever needs to reload a weapon.

However the fight scenes are well executed, the setting is unique and action junkies will be pleased to know the body count is massive. Bridge Of Dragons reeks of cheese, but seeing Lundgren rampage through an army of goons is always worth a watch. He's been in some stinkers in his time but this is one of the more interesting films from his direct-to-video offerings. No idea why it's called Bridge Of Dragons though, there isn't a bridge or dragon to be seen.