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 immediately stands out is that this movie feels like a rip-off of Disney’s Aladdin, but set in China. However, don’t expect the wonderful relationship that Genie and Aladdin had. Their dynamic, along with Aladdin’s selfishness, was what gave that movie its length and depth. Wish Dragon feels like Aladdin transplanted into the 21st century.

The movie makes the same mistake that all these "wish magic lamp" stories tend to make—wasting too much time. I never quite understand that. Once you know you have three wishes, what’s stopping you from making them all at once and moving on with your life? In Aladdin, we saw that his selfishness caused the delay—he wanted to hold onto the last wish just in case. But in Din’s case, there doesn’t seem to be any real reason for the delay.

The movie borrows heavily from Aladdin, right down to the man trying to win over the girl and the chaos caused by the wish-granting entity. In this Chinese setting, there isn’t a magic lamp but rather a magic teapot. This Jackie Chan-produced animation makes some changes, particularly in its animation style, to distance itself from Aladdin. But it doesn’t fully succeed, as the plot sticks closely to the Aladdin formula. The story still revolves around a not-so-wealthy young man who finds a magical wish-granting object to help him get closer to the woman he loves.

Our protagonist is Din, who met Li Na when they were in preschool. They built a beautiful friendship, but Li Na’s family moved away, and the two grew up apart. Despite this, Din never forgot her and often dreams of reuniting with her. He even takes it a step further, imagining dream dates with her on rooftops.

One day, during a delivery trip, an old man who couldn’t pay for his food gave Din a teapot as payment. Din took it reluctantly, mainly because the man was acting strange. Later, while on one of his dream dates, he accidentally made a wish, and a magic dragon appeared, informing him that he had three wishes. Before Din could fully process what was happening, his life was thrown into chaos. A sinister man had sent goons to retrieve the teapot, and they tracked it to Din.

The movie stumbles over its own “ten master rule,” which it tries to brush aside with vague explanations. Essentially, as long as Din hasn’t made his third wish, the rule holds—but this aspect feels poorly handled.

As mentioned earlier, the animation isn’t as grand as Disney’s, but the voice acting is solid. Overall, the movie is watchable. Just don’t go into it expecting something groundbreaking—it’s fine, but that’s about it.