Batman is DC Comics' most prolific hero when it comes to film adaptations, so it would be hard to expect that his most recent installment, Batman: Soul of the Dragon, would have much that's original to present about the hero on screen. The animated feature does exactly that, however, and in fact, there is quite a lot that future incarnations of Batman could learn from it.
As his live-action incarnations lean toward the dark and gritty to escape their campy predecessors, Soul of the Dragon proves why Batman is at his best when he keeps his cool while still being fun.
Batman: Soul of the Dragon's Mark Dacascos Talks Playing Richard Dragon
Soul of the Dragon splits its time between a flashback to Batman's time training in elite martial arts with Richard Dragon, Lady Shiva and Bronze Tiger and the present where the four of them unite once more to fight a common enemy. It pulls more from the martial arts movie genre of the 1970s than from any previous Batman film in terms of its inspiration, and the result is a movie that has its own unique voice that shows a side of classic characters that audiences seldom get to see. Batman's been cool before and Batman's had fun before, but Batman's never had this much fun while being this cool.
Even a brief overview of Batman's film history in the past 50 years shows a trend from silly to serious, with the campy Batman of 1966 up through Joel Schumacher's second venture, Batman & Robin, showing the colorful and ridiculous antics that the Caped Crusader could get up to. Tim Burton's 1989 Batman stands as a stark gothic exception to that aesthetic, and ever since Schumacher, the movies have taken the character as seriously and violently as possible as he stalks shadowy sets and growls menacing lines.
Both extremes of Batman have their merits, but Soul of the Dragon proves just how seamlessly the two can be fused into a single great character. The film takes the mystical and decidedly unrealistic setup of an Eastern-inspired martial arts aesthetic and plays it straight. Bruce Wayne beats his knuckles relentlessly against a rock in his training, and he looks a little ridiculous in his costume next to the plainclothes of his compatriots. However, these moments aren't taken to an extreme, and it makes Batman better for it.
Batman feels far less like a legendary figure impossible to contain the full story of and more like a real character in Soul of the Dragon. Far from the best martial artist in the film, Bruce frequently struggles to keep up with his more talented colleagues both in the action sequences and in the narrative itself. Everybody gets room to breathe, and the result is a movie that doesn't bog itself down with getting Batman "right."
With such an expansive history under countless writers, Batman has been a lot of things to a lot of people, and anyone who is convinced that there is one true Batman is sorely mistaken. Instead of showing any shame toward one end of Batman's history or the other, it would be a joy to see the live-action films fully embrace the multiplicity of his incarnations and the sheer diversity in the forms that the character can take. Kung fu films as a genre represent an extremely narrow slice of the influences integrated into Batman's history, and yet, Soul of the Dragon shows just how comfortably Batman can slide into that niche when he's allowed to get comfortable.
Directed by Sam Liu and executive produced by Bruce Timm, Batman: Soul of the Dragon stars David Giuntoli as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Mark Dacascos as Richard Dragon, Kelly Hu as Lady Shiva, Michael Jai White as Ben Turner/Bronze Tiger, James Hong as O-Sensei and Josh Keaton as Jeffrey Burr. The film arrives Jan. 12, 2021 on digital HD and on Jan. 26 on Blu-ray and 4K UHD.
KEEP READING: Batman: Soul of the Dragon's Sam Liu Takes Bruce Wayne to the '70s, With a Kung Fu Twist