IIn their combined 108 years at the peak of action cinema, it’s possible neither Jackie Chan or Arnold Schwarzenegger have starred in a weirder film than this Chinese-Russian historical fantasy. Pirates, sprites, wizards and witches: they’re all stuffed into director Oleg Stepchenko’s follow-up to 2014 romp The Forbidden Kingdom, making for an adventure that’s big on scale and silliness, but let down by an impenetrable story. In 1700s China, an ancient dragon lies trapped underground in a tangle of its own eyelashes, the film’s exposition dump intro explains. The Iron Mask’s plot threads end up in an even greater tangle.
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The Forbidden Kingdom, loosely based on a Nikolai Gogol horror story, broke domestic box office records in Russia on release. Its sequel swaps the original’s philosophising about the nature of evil for broad comedy and high-wire action, packing protagonist Jonathan Green (Jason Flemyng) off to the Far East, where he encounters Chen, a no-nonsense princess played by Xingtong Yao. Chen’s village has been stolen by a face-swapping sorceress. Reclaiming it requires the help of a band of misfits, converging from all corners of the globe. There’s a hint of Game Of Thrones to the film’s fantastical continent-hopping (an influence underlined by the fleeting presence of Charles Dance as an ambassador), that sits alongside a sea-salty splash of Pirates of the Caribbean’s humour and swashbuckling spectacle.

Anyone tricked by trailers into expecting a Chan and Schwarzenegger-led epic will be disappointed. The duo, who are also listed as producers, have been front and centre of the 123Movies marketing but feature only briefly in the finished film. The former plays a mystical prisoner, with the latter his Tower of London guard – a burly, mustachioed strongman who may or may not be Peter Pan’s Captain Hook, the film teases. The one scene they share together – an entertaining prison riot punch-up – isn’t without its thrills, but ultimately suffers the same problems that plague the rest of The Iron Mask: shoddy special effects, comically bad dialogue and too many ideas resulting in action that’s too hard to follow.