Mark Reviews Movies: WISH DRAGON

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 10, 2021

Stop me if you've heard this one. An impoverished young man wants to make a connection with a wealthy young woman. This would seem impossible, except the guy comes into possession of a magical object. The item contains a supernatural entity, capable of granting its master three wishes. The good-hearted guy, with the help of the jokey wish-granter, devises a magical scheme to get close to the wealthy woman, hoping to win her heart.

That's the basic plot of Wish Dragon, which features just enough differences from its obvious inspiration that it's unlikely a particular, notoriously litigious movie studio/media conglomerate would have grounds for a lawsuit. After all, the setting is modern-day Shanghai, not some period of the past in a fictional kingdom of the Middle East. Our hero is only called a "peasant," and the woman of his dreams is only a "princess" by way of her fame and her father's business success. Finally, the wish-granting being is a sarcastic and miserable dragon, instead of a motor-mouthed genie, who's also master impressionist and floating anachronism.

The likely belabored point here is that, yes, writer/director Chris Appelhans' computer-animated tale (See, there's another distinction) is an obvious homage—or rip-off, if one is feeling less generous. We notice it, for sure. The similarities are so blatant that it seems unlikely Appelhans didn't know what he was doing.

Let's take all of this as accepted fact and put it all aside for now. This movie is still its own thing, regardless, and we have to look at it for what it is, what it does and doesn't do well, and how it succeeds on its own terms—not how it stands up to or compares to a different film that clearly served as its inspiration.

This, unfortunately, becomes a bit difficult, because the movie, while handsomely designed and occasionally clever in its story and characters, is lacking in a very vital department: personality. Everyone here—from the "peasant," to the "princess," to the villains, to the assorted side character—is kind of a bore, even the talking and joking dragon. Everything that happens in this story comes from a formula, which was established well before even the release of the film that this one emulates.

There are flashes of inspiration—a couple of gags, the physicality of a certain character, the sincerity of the vocal performances—and not much else to give this movie a clear, worthwhile identity. Appelhans sets out to get the job—of telling a familiar story in a more modern and unique way—done. While the filmmaker technically does, the end result definitely feels like tasked checklist but doesn't feel too unique.

In Shanghai, Din (voice of Jimmy Wong) is a high school student with his life planned out for him: college, a good job, a steady paycheck, and a family. His mind is elsewhere, at the moment. Ten years prior, he became fast and best friends with a girl as sad and lonely as he was, but she moved out of the poor neighborhood for a life of luxury across the river, where skyscrapers rise in a time-passing montage.

The girl has grown up to become a model, whose face adorns a digital billboard above the roofs of Din's neighborhood. Din will visit, pretending to talk to his old friend, but Li Na (voice of Natasha Liu Bordizzo) is now rich and famous. Surely, she would have nothing to do with him anymore, but Din is working in food delivery to earn enough money to buy suit, hoping to surprise Li Na at her forthcoming birthday party.

An eccentric man, claiming to be a god, offers Din a teapot, and while he dreams of re-connecting with his old friend, a pink dragon named Long (voice of John Cho) emerges from the pot. The dragon can grant Din three wishes, which will put an end to his centuries of magical servitude, and Din decides to use one of them to be rich for 24 hours, with the hope of making an impression on Li Na. Meanwhile, a trio of goons (one of them, in an amusing bit of design/animation, only uses his legs to do anything), in service of a shadowy boss, are trying to steal the teapot.

All of this is pretty predictable. It doesn't help that Appelhans' screenplay treats the quieter, more genuine moments between these characters—Din and Li Na commiserating over their shared feeling of their lives as a plan, the relationships between the young characters and their parents, Long discovering important lessons about life from the potential friends/romantic partners (The movie really doesn't figure out the relationship)—like a distraction.

The story moves from gag (Long getting a taste of the torture of traffic), to action sequence (Din also becomes a martial arts expert with one, accidental wish), to another gag sequence (Din pretending to be a stuck-up rich guy, for example), and back to more action (fight after fight and chase after chase). The plot's routine only emphasizes that the whole of Wish Dragon is pretty rote, regardless of any comparisons we may be tempted to make.

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