Wish Dragon (2021)

Wish Dragon (2021)

5/10

Starring the voices of

Jimmy Wong

John Cho

Constance Wu

Natasha Liu Bordizzo

Directed by Chris Appelhans

What jumps at you is that this movie is a Disney’s Aladdin rip-off set in China. Now do not expect to find the wonderful relationship which Genie and Aladdin had, their relationship and Aladdin’s selfishness created the reason for that movie’s length. Wish Dragon is like if Aladdin found Genie in the 21^st Century. The movie does the simple mistake all these wish magic lamp movies do, waste too much time. I never seem to get that. The moment you have figured out that you get three wishes, what is stopping you from making it all at once and move on with your life. In the case of Aladdin we saw that his selfishness was the reason for the delay wanting to hold on to the last wish in case. In Din’s case there seem to be no reason why he was delaying.

They movie did everything from Aladdin, from the way the man is trying to catch the girl and the whole distraction left right from the Wish Dragon.

In this Chinese setting we do not have a magic lamp, but instead a magic tea pot. This Jackie Chan produced animation made enough changes especially in the animation itself to try and distant itself from Aladdin, but not at all it stuck close to the Aladdin script. The story centers around the same theme a not so wealthy young man, finds a magic wish granting thing which he uses to get him closer to the woman he loves.

Our young man is Din. Din met Li Na when they were in pre-school and they built a beautiful relationship. Li Na and her family moved away and they both grew up apart. But Din never forgot Li Na and always dreams of meeting her again one day. In fact he takes this dream one step further having dream dates with her on the rooftops.

On one of his delivery trips one old man who was unable to pay for his food gave him a teapot as payment. Din took it, mostly because the man was weird-ing him out. While on his dream date he made a wish and a magic dragon appeared telling him he has three wishes. Before Din could figure out things, his life became in danger as we discover that a sinister man sent some goons to go get the magic teapot, and they were able to track its presence to Din.

One thing the movie does is trip on its own ten master rule, which I believe the movie thinks they can swipe away saying. As long as Din has not made a third wish then.. yada yada for me it goofed there.

As said the animation is not as grand as that of Disney, but the voice casting is cool enough and the movie as a whole is watchable. Do not go diving it expecting something great, it is just there.