Dolph Lundgren treads some familiar action ground with this claptrap about the quest for a Buddhist artifact. There are also some familiar trappings of a bad film.
Xander Ronson (Dolph Lundgren) is an American living in Mongolia, China. He makes his living with a security service but has fallen on hard times enough that he and a pal are participating in underground fighting competitions.
However, in the last match the place is raided by the police and Ronson is taken into custody. He’s got a lot of debts and the constabulary says that the needs to pay those debts in one months time or he’s going to the pokey.
Ronson sees a sexy woman beckoning to him and he follows her down an alley. He’s greeted with an alley full of thugs and he fights with them. The girl turns out to be Anika (Yu Nan), the stepdaughter of a man called Chambers (William Shriver). The ruse was an elaborate “audition” to see if Ronson has the stuff for the job that Chambers needs him for.
He needs security as he hunts in the Mongolian mountains for a Buddhist artifact called the Tangka that is supposedly bejeweled, very valuable, but also cursed. Ronson needs the fast cash and signs on for the expedition. But a pack of Russian baddies is also after the artifact and will stop at nothing to get it.
Dolph Lundgren is no stranger to these sorts of films and he also serves as executive producer on the project. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen him in a film and he seemed a bit thin in the fact to me and several times I wondered if he raided the mini-bar in the hotel room before stepping in front of the camera.
William Shriver makes a terrible villain and sounds like Truman Capote. His look is dated with Shriver sporting a ponytail that would look more appropriate in a 1980s flick.
The film definitely seems to be made on the cheap and what they hope is a sort of high action adventure for an ancient artifact only comes off as boring. The McGuffin, I mean Tangka, is only glanced and what we do see looks like some cheapjack plastic beads glued to some construction paper. It’s cursed all right.
The acting is atrocious and situations ludicrous. For all the novelty of filming in China, they seem to have chosen locations that have about as much character as some of those canyon locations in California that pop up in cheap action pictures.
The cityscapes are interesting, but most of the action takes place in the bland countryside. Dolph does come out more or less on top since we’ve seen his tough man act before, but the film is pretty awful.
They might’ve been hoping for a series of Ronson adventures and if they do materialize I hope that they’re made with more care than this potential opener. It’s a dog all right and there are no diamonds to speak of.
Diamond Dogs is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include a 3-minute “making of” narrated by one of the film’s producers. There’s also a digital copy of the film that you can copy to your PC, PSP, or Playstation 3. I can’t imagine that you’d want to take the film with you though.
Diamond Dogs is pretty cheap and steers towards the canine than the glittery valuable. Dolph has definitely done better than this cheapo.
Diamond Dogs is now available at Amazon . As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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