WHAT’S IT ABOUT
Batman, Bronze Tiger, Lady Shiva, and Richard Dragon join forces when they come to realize that they share a familiar acquaintance. The Martial Arts Master that trained them has been missing for several years and under mysterious circumstances. When a cursed relic resurfaces, the mystery of their dead master re-opens, and Batman and his former classmates must face-off in the ultimate test of their Martial Arts skills to gain control of this dangerous relic.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
It’s Batman with the spirit of a Bond film mixed with the look and sound of the seventies. It sounds like a good idea, but Batman: Soul of the Dragon will need help trying to find its audience. This film is filled with references from the seventies, so if you were born in the sixties, you could definitely appreciate the callbacks. Additionally, BSOTD is filled with violent kills. I mean people getting shot, heads turned entirely around, decapitated, blown up, burned alive, eyes gouged out, it’s a long list. So yes, this is a rated “R” movie. The main problem is that it never goes anywhere. It continually builds up, and then right before it becomes epic, they stop. They stop to talk, they stop to do a flashback, they stop just because. The only scene that had the opportunity to play out in full was the opening. After that, the quality of the dialog, action, and character development was sorely lacking. I understand this film was not canon, and therefore it has no rules to follow other than its own, but it breaks laws of physics within every action scene. Naturally, that can be fun and overlooked in an animated feature, but they are a gross distraction in this movie. My final and most obvious issue with this film is Batman. He was completely unnecessary. His name and presence were used merely as a selling tactic, and it shows. Batman: Soul of the Dragon could have been a much better film without using Batman for familiarity.
OUR RATING – A NOT ENOUGH SOUL 6
MEDIA
- Genre – Comic Book
- Street date
- Digital – January 12th, 2021
- DVD/4K – January 26th, 2021
- Video – 1080p
- Screen size – 1.78:1
- Sound – English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
- Subtitles – English SDH, Spanish
Extras
- Batman – Raw Groove (New Featurette)
- Producer Jim Krieg’s Far Out Highlights (New Featurette)
- A Sneak Peek at the next DC Universe Movie
- Look Back: Superman: Red Son (Featurette)
- Look Back: Batman: Gotham By Gaslight (Featurette)
- From the DC Vault: Batman: The Animated Series, “Day of the Samurai”
- From the DC Vault: Batman: The Animated Series, “Night of the Ninja”