The Iron Mask is currently available to rent in the UK, and was first released in Russia and China in 2019.
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Before the opening prologue of The Iron Mask begins, you have to sit through no less than nine company logos. Hailing from China, Russia, and beyond, this multitude of investors, studios, and other controlling parties is the first indication of how the movie plays out. This is a film that’s pulling in so many different directions, and attempting to fulfill the expectations of at least three different cultures, that the fact it is merely a disaster is quite a fortunate end result.
The Iron Mask – known as Viy 2: Journey to China in its home territories – is a Russian/Chinese collaboration, and the follow-up to Forbidden Empire. Its sequel nature has little impact on the plot, which deals with an 18th Century army of dark wizards who have forced a magical dragon into a deep slumber by refusing to cut its eyelashes. Those same eyelashes are also used to grow tea, the sales of which are funding said army of dark wizards. I’m sorry to say that yes, you did read all that right.
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Somehow linked to all this is a Russian conspiracy that has seen the true Tsar, Peter the First, locked up in the Tower of London, his face encased in the titular iron mask. His cellmate is Jackie Chan, the original master of the magical tea dragon, who now spends his days fighting thin air in sequences barely distinguishable from the Star Wars kid video meme from 2003. The Iron Mask’s tonal inconsistency means it’s never clear if Chan’s ‘skills’ are meant to be awe-inspiring or laughable, although the speed at which he’s pushed to the sidelines means this matters little. The Iron Mask’s best A-lister is merely an odd bit-part among an even stranger collage of mismatched ideas from Russian, British, and Chinese cultures.
Chan’s presence in the film seems purely to allow him to have a bust-up with The Iron Mask’s wildest casting choice: Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Tower of London’s chief jailor, complete with (sadly inauthentic) tricorn hat and naval uniform. Looking permanently bemused in every scene, Schwarzenegger finally gets to 1v1 Chan in the climax of the story’s first act, and the results are every bit as underwhelming as you’d expect from two men in their senior years, despite their action pedigree.
Dreadful fight choreography isn’t a given for every scene – segments set in China have a notably better approach to battle, although lack the energetic spark of great Eastern fantasy – but even when the plot calls on fun ideas they’re poorly executed. The film’s final showdown involves four characters played by the same actor, all dressed identically, and fighting with indistinguishable combat styles, which works as a concluding indication that this is a film uninterested in story and legibility. Instead, spectacle is what’s left to lead the way.
With Chan and Schwarzenegger brushed aside before the first hour is done, however, it’s left to the film’s core cast to carry that spectacle, which they stumble with at practically every turn. The previous film’s protagonist, Jason Flemyng’s British cartographer Jonathan Green, takes centre stage alongside Yao Xingtong’s mysterious Cheng Lan. They embark on a journey to China, in parallel with the masked Tsar, in order to save big old eyelashes from the grips of its dark masters.
Flemyng’s journey is as dull as you’d expect from a mapmaker trundling along the Silk Road. But the voyage of Peter the First over the oceans from England turns the whole thing into a Pirates of the Carribean rip-off, right down to the daughter-of-a-Lord character whose arc sees her dressing as a man in order to gain passage with the crew.
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The pirate adventures also bring into focus how many of The Iron Masks’ directional sensibilities are Western, which makes it feel far more pedestrian than its cultural parentage would suggest. That’s exacerbated by dollar-store costuming and cheap visual effects, which maintain the film’s downward spiral. As the nonsensical final act plays out, a spreadsheet’s worth of characters are introduced, all of whom feel as if they were added to the script with the use of a nail gun. Late game reversals of fate are so rushed that they feel like emergency retcons rather than twists, none of which are even explained away with the easy get-out card of magic.
Worse than any of the film’s production or plotting woes, though, is its script and dialogue performances. The translation of the exposition-heavy and frequently blunt script into English is reminiscent of the poor localisation that Eastern video games suffered in the 1990s. Its most serious issue, though, is the fact that each of its multinational cast performs in their native language, with dubbing used to correct for the appropriate territory. Even those who speak English are over-dubbed for the English release, meaning talent like Rutger Hauer – in his rather unfortunate final role – speak out of sync with their voices. It makes for deeply irritating viewing.
