Featured DVD Review: L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties
September 26, 2017
L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties - Buy from Amazon: DVD
I try to average one review a week and this week I had two potential screeners I could request. L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties, a computer animated Chinese film that most of our readers have probably never heard of, and Transformers: The Last Knight, the latest installment in one of the biggest franchises around. I choose L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties, because even after reading a plot summary, and being utterly confused, I still felt it was the better choice for review. Confusing can still be entertaining, while The Last Knight would just make me angry. Did I make the right choice?
We learn about the world of L.O.R.D. in the prologue with a narrator explaining about the spirit powers and that’s about it. We don’t learn much in the prologue. We don’t learn much throughout the entire movie. The man speaking in the prologue is called Asbel in the subtitles, but Chi-Ling in the end credits or Qui Ling in most other sources, like Wikipedia. He talks about looking back to when he was much more carefree. He works for an inn and on this day, he meets two travelers, including Shen Yin (Or her name is Aeron, depending on if you believe the movie or Wikipedia), who are Spirit Warriors. Spirit Warriors work under the Dukes, the most powerful of the warriors, who in turn get their orders from the Lords. They fight spirits in order to protect the kingdom. However, the spirit they are here to fight, Ice Fang, turns out to be a lot more powerful than the two Spirit Warriors thought. Soon everyone is dead, except for Chi-Ling and Shen Yin, who run away, in different directions, but neither escape.
Meanwhile, we see the Lords giving out orders to the various Dukes. Yin Chen, a.k.a. Silver, a.k.a. Loyal Duke Seven, is told his disciple has manifested himself and he needs to find him immediately. Thalia, a.k.a., Lady Nox, Loyal Duke Four is told to assist You Ming, a.k.a. Dark, Loyal Duke Two. He is tracking down Duke Five, because Duke Five has committed treason. Wow. One of the Dukes is named Dark. I wonder if they are evil. A fight between Two and Five ensues, but we don’t see the resolution at this time.
Back to Chi-Ling, Yin Chen found him and the former waiter at the inn is his new disciple. Yin Chen explains to Chi-Ling that he has Spirit Power and is going to be his disciple. We also learn that Ice Fang had ... invaded Chi-Ling’s body, but that Yin Chen was able to seal it within. Apparently it’s up Chi-Ling’s butt, because when he tries to summon Ice Fang, it looks like he’s constipated. He also has another spirit beast, a large scorpion. There are a few more training montages, plus we learn about Spirit Caves and Blood Weapons. ... I’m starting to feel like I’m playing a poorly translated JRPG.
We catch up with Shen Yin. (Or Aeron or whatever.) Turns out she’s Duke’s Disciple and it is her task to kill the traitor’s Disciple, Guishan Lian Quan. There’s a cool fight scene that’s a little short, as Guishan escapes to the Spirit Cave and Shen Yin is called by her Duke. Turns out his fight with Duke Five went poorly and he needs Shen Yin’s help to recover.
Back to Chi-Ling, he and Yin Chen arrive in the capital and there’s a parade. Chi-Ling asks Yin Chen if he can go, and Yin Chen agrees. While walking around, Chi-Ling sees a few people with spirit animals, so he decides to summon Ice Fang to show off. It works, but backfires when he is approached by a man who wants Chi-Ling to marry the daughter of an important family. When Chi-Ling declines, the woman in question, Princess Kira, a.k.a. Tianshu You Hua, becomes enraged and attacks Chi-Ling. This wouldn’t be a major problem, but Tianshu is also a disciple and despite her being only 16, thus two years younger than Chi-Ling, she’s a lot more powerful.
There’s a short chase, which ends with Chi-Ling in the Spirit Cave. There he meets Guishan Lian Quan. When Tianshu shows up as well, the three of them go looking for the plot. They don’t find it for a while, but this is where I’m going to stop the plot summary.
Oh boy. Where to begin. The story here is a mess and I’m not sure if this is a holdover from the source material. The film is based on a series of novels written by the director, Guo Jingming, so we can’t say the filmmakers didn’t understand the source material. It is possible that the book was written in a way that made adapting it into a movie very difficult. Or maybe it is just a bad book. The pacing of the movie is horrendous with way too many characters introduced far too quickly and we are not given enough of a reason to care about most of them or the plot in general. Perhaps the plot of the book is better suited to be a TV series than a movie. The first act of the movie is spent bouncing around from location to location introducing new characters and it never develops a rhythm and a longer format would have allowed the show to introduce characters and build the world organically instead of needing so many exposition dumps.
On the positive side, L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties is the first computer animated film to be made in China and it cost roughly $30 million to make, so it is like a third-tier animated movie as far as the budget is concerned. However, it does look better than a lot of other motion capture animated films of the past have looked and it doesn’t fall into the Uncanny Valley quite as badly as its predecessors in this subgenre. It does have the same problem a lot of CG animation has, where the characters don’t move with the weight they should. While I’m not won over by the plot, I do think the technical aspects of the film and the acting are strong selling points. Perhaps a sequel would be able to clean up the mistakes and reach its full potential.
There are no extras on the DVD.
L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties has enough flaws that I can’t recommend it. However, there’s enough that works that I can see the potential that was there. The DVD has no extras, which further reduces its value.
-1-News.jpg)
The Movie
The Extras
The Verdict
Filed under: Video Review, Transformers: The Last Knight, L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties, Transformers, Fan Bingbing, Amber Kuo, Guo Jingming, Kris Wu, Yang Mi, Lin Yun, Cheney Chen