The Dragon Pearl (2011)

Sadly Over-hyped

Redundant and unnecessary.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

As mystical stories go this one was right on the money. A tale about kings, wars, and dragons. Josh (Louis Corbett) comes to china to be with his father who is an archaeologist of old Chinese artifacts. With him is a woman assistant Dr. Li (Wang Ji) who's daughter Jin (Lin Lin Jin) is part of a family that dates back six thousand years into the past.Jin realizes that she can hear a flute, which cannot play by ordinary means. Rather a monk Wu Dong (Jordan Chan) uses it to call the chosen one (Jin) to go, and find what is known as the Dragon Pearl. Which in turn belongs to an actual dragon that has been buried underground for nearly six millenniums. Now both Josh, and Jin embark on an incredible adventure to retrieve the lost pearl, and give it back to the dragon so he can go back to the celestial plane.Yet in the foreground is josh's father's second assistant Philip (Robert Mammone) who wants the pearl for himself, and its power. After convincing Josh to steal a book key Josh opens a tomb for which the pearl itself is hidden from curious eyes. Now with the pearl he is betrayed by Philip, and is on the run with Jin to get the pearl back to its rightful owner.All in all, this was a great family film. It had good action, not over the top. The music was pleasing to the ear with the mystical sounds of old songs. Seeing the dragon itself was done really well with its grandiose slithering movements. Tales of old spoke of the dragons as good luck icons where the common folk look to them for guidance, and well being.A mystical aspect if there ever was one in this film. It had sadness, happiness, humour, and adventure. Highly recommended to all ages.

I think some of the other reviews of this movie missed the point. This is a movie for kids. Specifically, kids at an age where they are watching TV shows like "Mako Mermaids','iCarly', 'Dog with a Blog', 'Big Time Rush', etc. My ten year old loved it, and can't wait to watch it again.We chose this for our weekly 'family movie night', and it was a nice alternative to the animated shows we often have to resort too, since we try to limit our family movies to G or PG rated fare as much as possible. Sure, the plot was 100% predictable to my wife and I. But it was still fun and entertaining none the less, and our kid really enjoyed it. In that context, it was one of the better movies we have seen in the past few months and I would highly recommend this movie to parents looking for something to watch with their young children. In fact, my wife wants to show the movie to the kids in her after school Chinese program because it's a perfect way for them to start using the Chinese they have learned in a fun context that also exposes them to some Chinese culture.

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

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)......!