'The Iron Mask' Trailer: It's Jackie Chan Vs. Arnold Schwarzenegger, But Only For Maybe 5 Minutes
What kind of movie could bring together the likes of action legends like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan? A movie in which they probably won't appear much at all. The Iron Mask, originally released in China in 2019 under the title Journey to China: The Mystery of Iron Mask, is a Russian-Chinese production that managed to score both Schwarzenegger and Chan — except they're not the stars of the film. That honor goes to Jason Flemyng, who plays an English cartographer sent on a journey to map the Russian Far East...and battle a dragon, or something? Watch The Iron Mask trailer to try to figure that out with us.
The Iron Mask Trailer
What is going on in this trailer for The Iron Mask? If we were to go by the above trailer, we would assume that this was an 18th century historical epic in which Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan play sworn enemies — Schwarzenegger as a Tower of London guard who vows to hunt down Chan's wrongfully imprisoned warrior. But it's clear that isn't what The Iron Mask is about, once the fight scene between the two characters wraps up. Instead, we follow a cartographer named Jonathan Green (Flemyng) whose job to map the Russian Far East takes him on a quest to battle dragons and rescue Chinese princesses, or something. It seems to have little to do with the famous man in the iron mask from which this film takes its title, either, though a masked man does have one interaction with Chan's prisoner.
No, I'm not sure what's going on, though apparently this Russian/Chinese production is actually a sequel to a 2014 film called The Forbidden Kingdom, which also followed the adventures of cartographer Jonathan Green, though that film took him to Transylvania. So far, it seems like this series is an excuse for director Oleg Stepchenko to take his character through well-known stories in the public domain, with an occasional high-profile cameo. I hope that Schwarzenegger and Chan at least collected hefty paychecks.
Here is the synopsis for The Iron Mask:
Early 1700: Cartographer J.Green is back to map Russian Far East. He's forced on to China, where he confronts the Dragon Master et al. The iron masked Russian Tsar escapes Tower of London to a Russian ship.
The Iron Mask doesn't yet have a U.S. theatrical release date but it arrives in U.K. theaters and on Digital on April 20, 2020.