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| Courtesy of Sony Pictures |
Disney’s Aladdin is back in the
form of frequent conceptual artist turned writer-director Chris Appelhans’
filmmaking debut Wish Dragon, Sony Pictures China and Netflix’s answer
to Disney’s recently released Raya and the Last Dragon. Like Raya, the film prominently
features a wisecracking magical noodle shaped Chinese dragon with unique powers
including but not limited to shape-shifting into human forms and performing
astonishing physical feats.
Both films
are prominently voiced by an all Asian-American cast though Wish Dragon is
the more overtly Chinese of the two in terms of representation and setting. The question then becomes whether or not this
quasi-transposition of Aladdin from the Middle East to China finds its
own footing and manages to stand outside of the shadow still being cast by Raya
which recently set the record for one of the top streaming titles of all
time.
In short, the answer is yes. A story of friendship, family and learning
the real values of life, Wish Dragon zeroes in on Din (Jimmy Wong), a
college student in Shanghai hoping to reunite with his childhood friend Li Na
(Natasha Liu Bordizzo) who has since moved on to a wealthier lifestyle than
himself. Working as a delivery boy he
happens upon a strange elder who gives him a teapot with a dragon insignia
imprinted on the pot. From the pot
emerges Long (John Cho), a cynical pink and purple-haired noodle shaped wish
dragon who can grant any three wishes. Unbeknownst
to Din and Long, they are being pursued by goons who are trying to steal the
teapot to use the wish dragon for their own evil purposes (Jafar,
anyone?).
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| Courtesy of Sony Pictures |
While derivative in terms of plot structure
and characterization with animation that doesn’t quite reach the technical heights
reached by Raya and the Last Dragon, Wish Dragon nevertheless
succeeds at being a distinctly Mainland Chinese story and picture. While Raya did touch on a wealth of
East Asian iconography aided by the help of it’s American-Chinese cast, somehow
Wish Dragon feels more authentic to the cultural norms, the obstacles of
living in Shanghai and the dichotomy between life at home imbalanced by the
salaryman existence. Moreover, while Raya
was produced from home in America during the COVID-19 pandemic, Wish
Dragon has the additional virtue of being produced from within the Mainland
of China, giving it another leg up over Raya.
There’s also the origin stories behind
each film’s respective titular dragons which differ greatly in terms of how
their personalities are formed. While
Sisu from Raya is something of a hopeful believer in man’s capacity for
good despite an overwhelming abundance of evil overtaking the world, Wish
Dragon’s Long has seen the worst of man for centuries and has all but lost
his faith in humanity, a task the film’s human hero Din has to try and restore
in Long as well as in himself. Unlike Aladdin
which presented the genie as a fun loving happy go lucky wish granter, Wish
Dragon is annoyed at having to bother with your petty human wishes.
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| Courtesy of Sony Pictures |
Both movies more or less present
varying degrees of human avarice through the eyes of an all-knowing dragon who
has as much to learn about what really matters in life as the human characters
do. Moreover it becomes something of a
life lesson for our own restoration of faith in humanity. Yes the similarities between itself and two
semi-related Disney films are undeniable but what Wish Dragon manages to
accomplish on its own terms nevertheless gives it solidarity and sets itself
apart from the pack. Some may argue over
which one got to the finish line first and/or who did it better but in the end Wish
Dragon proves there’s plenty of room for both dragon-centric movies which
complement one another more than they compete.
--Andrew Kotwicki
