Movie Recap: Bridge of Dragons, Act 3

Welcome back to the last leg of our journey, princes and princesses. Hitch up your wedding smocks, because this recap is going out with a bang – this is Bridge of Dragons, Act 3!

ACT 3: THESE DUMBASS DELIGHTS HAVE DUMBER ENDS

When we finished the second arc of the lush historical drama Bridge of Dragons, Princess Halo and her suddenly-loyal companion Prince Gun were en route to a resistance camp. As the rebels don't quite trust their enemy's number one enforcer, they tied up Prince Gun, but not before taking his shirt off – presumably for fanservice purposes. I'm bringing the shirtlessness up for no reason whatsoever.

Once in the camp, Halo orders the rebels not to harm her man because he saved her from Ruechang, and while that's true, the rebels point out that he's also been killing them off for quite a while. Halo pulls the "he was just following orders" argument in response, and given the uh... fashion sense of the villains of this movie, I'm just going to cough very loudly and move past that one real fast. The Princess is disappointed to find a bunch of tired, starved people instead of an army ready to strike (adorable, isn't she), but at least she gets them to let Prince Gun go, because she Just Knows he's on their side now.

Prince Gun himself Just Knows that Ruechang will find the camp within two days despite never coming close before (I swear, these people could beat Charles Xavier in the plot-sensing department), so instead of preparing the rebels for a tactical ambush using his military know-how, he's just going to go alone tomorrow and attempt to assassinate the General without any backup. No way whatsoever that's going to backfire! Halo tries to convince him to stay because she ends up recognizing that my idea would work a lot better, but he plants a clumsy kiss on her, and that somehow gets her to shut up even though lives are on the line. There's a debate tactic I haven't tried before.

If I had to look at how awkward this is, so do y'all, dammit.

The next morning, Prince Gun shares an adorable goodbye with Halo (that's not snark, it really is sweet), then heads off on a... horse. He needs to travel at the speed of plot, logic be damned. But oh, no! The Ruechangists find the camp a day early and let loose with an Evilcopter machine gun! Then Ruechang himself appears with his best paint-stripping death glare to lead the ground charge (and the fight is made uniquely awkward by the uniforms the bad guys are wearing – God, you gotta love the good taste and restraint of Nu Image). Because it's strategy 101 for the second most important person in the country to be at the helm of some random battle like he's Henry V.

Meanwhile, Prince Gun hauls ass back to the camp the second he spots the 666 in the sky, but arrives too late to stop the bloodbath – probably because he's been riding in slo-mo for most of the way there. A valiantly fighting Halo is taken prisoner because she's literally brought a stick to a gunfight; by the time her One True Hunk makes it to the camp, she's already being loaded into the back of an Evilmobile (yes, the trucks, motorbikes and other enemy vehicles are all marked 666, just in case their owners get confused, I guess). Prince Gun gets spotted by a soldier, but whoever is in charge of standard bad guy marksmanship training did a good job with this army too, so he escapes his umpteenth firefight unscathed. At least until Ruechang fires a freaking grenade at him, or so I think judging by the size of the resulting Kaboom Salto – which Prince Gun somehow survives, surprising absolutely no one because we still have 20 or so minutes left to watch. Ruechang almost kills him anyway... but Halo interrupts and promises to marry him in exchange for her boyfriend's life, stealing the spotlight of Steve from Road House, who's been making covert "I'm about to join the good guys" gestures for the past five minutes without anyone noticing. Don't worry, Steve, your time will come.

Ruechang tells Prince Gun to GTFO, and out of love for the Princess (think that came out of nowhere? You're wrong, they kissed once! Awkwardly!), he obeys. Ruechang then demonstrates he's a better strategist than the damn main character of the movie, and sends Steve from Road House with a few mooks to hunt him down in secret. Luckily for all parties except Ruechang, Steve and Prince Gun's bromance is too strong for evil to pit them against each other: they team up to take down Ruechang in a scene with three times the chemistry that Prince Gun has shared with Halo at almost any given point. I'm a little bit sorry that this isn't the kind of movie where they would decide to take the first letter out of 'bromance' – feel free to throw some fanfiction my way where that is remedied.

Steve from Road House then manages to trick Ruechang into believing he's offed his best bro, and Ruechang hurries to let Halo know the good news. Once she's good and pissed off at Ruechang for killing her match made in hell, we cut to Prince Gun and Steve riding a Jeep into the capital in their dress uniforms with no one stopping them. Either the "I'll put on a different outfit and that will hide my face by not hiding my face at all" tactic's success isn't exclusive to the Princess, or Ruechang forgot to inform his soldiers that Prince Gun has fallen out of his graces. Either way, seems like kind of an oversight – shocking, I know.

Princess Halo, wearing a much less baggy dress than the first time, pours poison into the wedding wine but is caught by Lily. Then as the Hammer Horror version of the Wedding March plays (seriously, no idea what the hell kind of piece they're playing but it's very catchy in a goth way), Halo walks down the chapel aisle with the wine in her hand, which the couple is supposed to drink during the no-idea-what-religion-this-is ceremony. Prince Gun finds a tied-up Lily in Halo's room, who reveals that Halo is planning to pull a Juliet and take Ruechang with her. And... leave the country without a ruler, opening the way for a full-on civil war, just because she thinks her dumber half is dead. Wow. So that's what we're working with. God help the poor bastards of Anachronia if Halo and Prince Gun ever divorce.

The minister, who looks very tired of having to do the same wedding twice in almost as many days, starts his spiel and asks the couple in hate to share the wine... but Prince Gun finally makes it into the chapel just in time, despite taking the stairs in slo-mo again. This is getting ridiculous – shocking, I know.

After Prince Gun literally throws a knife through the chalice in Halo's hands to stop her from drinking – I'm impressed that he didn't take a finger or two off with it, Jesus Christ, movie – she's finally inspired to tell everyone the truth about the King's murder. Her accusation is backed up by Lily, because uh... something changed her mind about being scared of the General, don't ask me. Steve from Road House joins his buddy in a tense good-vs-bad standoff and I'm starting to feel bad about not using his real name in this recap, because I like the dude a lot... but Steve suits him better than Emmerich, let's be honest. After some dumbass uniform with a gun escalates the situation into an all-out fight, Ruechang runs off with Halo as his hostage, while Prince Gun and his one true bro shoot, roundhouse and haymaker their way through most of the soldiers. Fetch me the fainting couch.

Alas, Halo's randomly coming and going sick fighting skills have deserted her again, so she just meekly lets Ruechang drag her into an Evilmobile. Prince Gun is in hot pursuit, though, and he jumps off a balcony into the car and breaks both his legs because that was a huge drop... pfff who am I kidding. He takes over the wheel from Ruechang, who then falls out of the Evilmobile with Prince Gun and begins to duke it out with him, while the car crashes into some random crates and knocks Halo out. Great job, guys. She comes to while they're still trying to pulp each other, and the first thing she spots over the now on-fire Evilmobile is a truck parked nearby with DANGER FLAMMABLE written on the side. What the fuck is a truck full of DANGER FLAMMABLE doing next to the palace on the Princess's wedding day– wait, I forgot what studio this movie is from, nevermind. I'm surprised that truck wasn't parked in the darn chapel.

While the – genuinely spectacular – asskickery is going on, the Princess tries to free herself from the car on top of her, but she's clearly been skipping arms day in the gym lately, because it doesn't budge at all. Finally, just as the DANGER FLAMMABLE is about to catch fire, Prince Gun kills Ruechang with his own sword, and what my subtitles have captioned as [growling yell]. Couldn't have put it better myself. He then lifts the car just in time for Halo to escape being roasted, and what can I say but does he have a brother?

Once the wrapup explosion is done with, Steve sits in the chapel while the Ruechangist soldiers are being rounded up, and drinks from his hip flask with a sad smile, which I say is because he realized he's never gonna get together with Prince Gun. Outside, the people are celebrating, Halo drops a last – kinda flat – voiceover line about how this is a beginning, and the movie ends with a freeze frame of... not even the main characters, just a few smiling extras. Damn.

So that was Bridge of Dragons! Loud, dumb, awkward, tasteless, epic as hell. Thank y'all kindly for coming on this magical journey of machine guns, terrible romance and masterful Kaboom Saltos with me; now watch me ride a horse into the sunset in a wedding smock of my own, searching for my personal Prince Gun. Happy holidays, take care, I'll see y'all next time!