Review of Legend Of The Dragon: Series 1: Part 1

Introduction

The folly of trusting blindly in the IMDB can never be understated. The problem with online communities is that there is always some wag with too much time on his hands eager to skew the demographics. Try it for yourself. Go on a forum and start a political poll with the BNP as one of the options. Watch the votes pile up. With Legend Of The Dragon, there is scarce online information for this animated series, aside from the glowing corporate recommendations from the production studio, and I have managed to miss the early Saturday morning broadcasts on the BBC. Interested as I am in animation, I resorted to the IMDB for whatever information I could find. "An anime style western animation", it said, "If you like Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex, you`ll like this", it said. "Poppycock!" I said, after watching one of the episodes (Actually, I was a whole lot more profane, but this is a children`s show).

Legend Of The Dragon is another typical Saturday Morning `toon, with plenty of good guys versus bad guys kung fu action, designed to sell as much merchandise as possible. In a somewhat scary sign of the times, they`ve forgone the usual plastic tat associated with cartoons and gone straight for the wallet with PC and console games. Still this is no bad thing, and I have learned to keep an open mind with modern animation, especially with shows of the calibre of the recent Batman animation available.

It`s all epic and mythic, as the `Legend` of the title implies, with the balance of the world in peril. The Zodiac Master wishes power over all, and by destroying the 12 lost temples of the Chinese Zodiac, and taking the powers of their guardians, he will gain dominion. The defender of the Zodiac is the Golden Dragon, guardian of the temple of the Dragon. But when the last Golden Dragon passes on, the choice of who the next one is comes down to fraternal twins Ang and Ling. Ling is the stronger, the more ambitious, but when their master Chin chooses Ang instead, Ling turns to darkness and the Zodiac Master to achieve her desires. Now brother must face sister in a battle for supremacy. Fortunately Ang has help in the form of Master Chin, best friend Beingal, the Tiger Guardian, and Xuan Chi, the Monkey Guardian. But Ang is inexperienced, and the Zodiac Master with the new Shadow Dragon Ling will stop at nothing to defeat him.

The story begins with 13 episodes presented on 2 discs from BKN.

1. Trial By Fire: Part 1
2. Trial By Fire: Part 2
3. Eye On The Tiger
4. Hero Worship
5. Terra Unfirma
6. Master Of Sarcasm
7. Temple Of Changes
8. Mind Bender
9. Chow Chow
10. Monkey Mission
11. The Emperor Of The Darkest Yin
12. The Last Dragon
13. Spy Hard

Video

Not good at all. The transfer is dismal, with aliasing a common problem. It`s not rare to see a character outline with the telltale zigzag indicating as such. There is also that hideous shimmer indicative of interlacing, and a distinct blur as if the image is vibrating up and down in many of the scenes.

Still, I had to wait for a broadcast episode to check whether it wasn`t a problem with the original source material, as the animation isn`t much better either. The character designs are fairly generic, but the execution lacks in detail in every respect. There`s very little continuity in design, or in the story. One minute a character may be wearing one thing, the next frame it`s gone. Having said that, in comparison to similar animations from my childhood, Legend Of The Dragon is much more dynamic and fluid. For a martial arts story, you actually get to see the martial arts being practised. When you look at the character of Xuan Chi, he embodies his temple animal and is constantly in motion. That would have been prohibitively expensive with cel animation. It`s just that Legend Of The Dragon looks like it has been animated on a PC in someone`s bedroom. It`s particularly annoying when they switch to slow motion for atmosphere, and it winds up looking like alcohol-filtered jerk-o-vision.

Looking at the end credits, they reveal that the final animation was accomplished in India of all places. Outsourced! tsk Typical!

Audio

Simple stereo, the music is stereotypical of the subject and none too memorable, while the dialogue is clear throughout. There are no subtitles with this release.

Features

No extras either.

Conclusion

It`s a children`s action cartoon, which should tell you all you need to know. It`s your typical good guys versus bad guys plot, with both sides battling for Ultimate Power™, which has been the staple of the genre since time immemorial. When our hero hold aloft his magic sword and says "By the power of Greyskull…", I mean "Thundercats, Ho!" Perhaps it`s invoking a magic pendant with "Moon Crystal Power…" or is it donning a ring and saying "Transmute?"

Actually, this time it is a magic armband, and the magic words are "Empower the Dragon!" The one who has the most armbands wins. They transform our hero from good-natured kung-fu cadet to superhero extraordinaire. He then goes forth to do battle against the forces of darkness, with a moral message to be dispensed after 20 minutes.

What makes Legend Of The Dragon attractive is the script. The story is more than your usual black and white, with siblings winding up on opposite sides, and all the angst, tension and soul-searching that implies. There is a continuity that is established, and there is definitely a story unfolding as the series progresses. The characters, while stereotypical, are written with some degree of wit. Master Chin, the sensei character is readily armed with Zen wisdom, but also drops in some tongue in cheek comments as well. Xuan Chi is the typical comic relief, but is much more than just a goofball. There is wit to the episodes as well, with interesting characters appearing during the thirteen episodes here. A trio of Australian grave robbers who are all named Bruce spring to mind, while a James Bond spoof finishes off the episodes on these discs. It`s very much a British sense of humour to the proceedings, and I wasn`t surprised to see that the BBC had invested in the series.

What makes Legend Of The Dragon unappealing is the look of the thing. The animation is just not good enough in this day and age, and while it is fluid, the action at times dynamic, the level of detail and the lack of care and attention is ultimately detrimental. A television animation should not look like a Shockwave production. When the action switches to slow motion, I shouldn`t doubt my Internet connection before remembering I`m watching a DVD. Speaking of which, the presentation on this DVD lets the animation down even further, rendering the digital broadcasts superior in quality to the episodes on the disc.

Legend Of The Dragon is a good story, let down by cheap animation. If your children like the show however, they may be disappointed by the quality of this release, it actually makes a bad animation look worse.