REVIEW: Legend of the White Dragon Is Not the Movie Jason David Frank Fans Wanted to See

On August 28, after years of waiting, fans finally got the chance to see the late, great Jason David Frank on the silver screen one last time in Legend of the White Dragon. And, while the anticipation surrounding the film's release couldn't have been hotter, Legend of the White Dragon arrived in theaters to what might be the most lukewarm response of the decade.

What Is Legend of the White Dragon?

Before diving into exactly what went wrong with Legend of the White Dragon, it is important to provide some context as to how the film came to be in the first place. At its core, Legend of the White Dragon is a love letter to the Power Rangers franchise, one penned by two of the franchise's biggest proponents.

Back in 2013, franchise legend Jason David Frank teamed up with Aaron Schoenke for Super Power Beat Down, a series of short films produced by Schoenke's Bat in the Sun Productions. In the years that followed, the two would come up with the concept for Legend of the White Dragon, which quickly became a hot topic among Power Rangers fans.

Despite an initially unsuccessful crowdfunding campaign in 2019, Legend of the White Dragon would find the influx of cash it needed just one year later by successfully raising more than $508,000 in just 60 days. In May 2021, production on Legend of the White Dragon finally began, with Frank starring alongside fellow Power Rangers veterans Jason Faunt, Cerina Vincent, and Ciara Hanna, as well as Hollywood legends Mark Dacascos and the late Michael Madsen.

Why Is Legend of the White Dragon?

While there is no denying the fact that Legend of the White Dragon was a passion project for both Frank and Schoenke, that alone was not enough to keep things going smoothly when it came to production on the film. Leading up to principal photography, numerous stars joined and left Legend of the White Dragon, including Power Rangers icons Johnny Yong Bosch, Yoshi Sudarso, Catherine Sutherland, and Chrysti Ane.

Still, there was an innate desire to see a grounded, mature, pseudo-Power Rangers take to the silver screen, and Legend of the White Dragon seemed like exactly that by every measure leading up to its release. Apart from its Tokusatsu stylings, Legend of the White Dragon was being made by some of the most beloved Power Rangers stars of all time, giving fans another reason to expect big things from the feature.

Okay, But How Is Legend of the White Dragon?

Now that Legend of the White Dragon has arrived, audiences can finally take in the culmination of years worth of development and production, not to mention another four years of post-production and editing. Unfortunately, the end result is nothing like what fans were looking forward to, even if it does resemble it on a surface level.

Legend of the White Dragon stars Frank as Erik Reed, better known as the White Dragon. As noted by the official logline for Legend of the White Dragon, "Three years after hiding his White Dragon alias, Erik Reed (Frank) emerges from the shadows to reclaim his stolen identity and clear his name. But as he seeks to reunite with his secret family, a mysterious villain known as Dragon Prime rises with a relentless vendetta to see the White Dragon fall for good."

While Erik is busy eking out what semblance of a life he can in secret, his closest allies, Connor Frost (Connor Frost) and Iris Maine (Rachele Brooke Smith), are busy seeking out their old friend in the hopes of helping him clear his name and get back to fighting the good fight. All the while, tech billionaire Jai Katua (Aaron Schoenke) is doing everything he can to remind the people of Virtuo City that it was the White Dragon who nearly destroyed everything they know and love.

Of course, this couldn't be further from the truth, no matter how many people believe it. There are obviously shadowy forces at work who have been manipulating things to paint the White Dragon as a villain, all for their own nefarious purposes.

Not only was Erik's secret identity made public, cutting him off from his family and friends by forcing him into the shadows, but everyone from Katua to Mayor Trevon Sterns (David Ramsey) is more than happy to publicly lay the blame for hundreds of deaths at his feet. And, as much as this would normally set up a deeply emotional story of superpowered redemption, the way all of these pieces fall into place just doesn't hold up to any amount of scrutiny.

Legend of the White Dragon Is Not the Movie Fans Were Promised

Legend of the White Dragon is less of a superhero movie than it is a series of flashbacks interspersed with incredibly minor pieces of character development and incredibly massive revelations that ultimately go nowhere. Even worse, the film that audiences watched on the silver screen only lines up with what they were sold in the broadest of strokes.

Is Erik Reed the White Dragon? Yes. Was Virtuo City the home he was sworn to protect? Not really. According to Legend of the White Dragon, Erik only had his powers for a few months before the fateful day he faced off against the villainous Ashtagor, the true big bad who somehow tore the city apart and framed the White Dragon for his crimes. How Ashtagor accomplished this is never made clear, nor is how such a powerful villain has completely escaped seemingly every prying eye. What is clear, however, is that none of Erik's backstory as the White Dragon ever gets explored beyond that single encounter.

There is also the matter of where Erik's powers themselves come from, which is only expounded upon enough to leave viewers with more questions than answers. As it turns out, Erik's powers are derived from a mystic crystal, which is tied to a series of wells, which are tied to the power of a Cosmic Dragon, which may or may not be an actual cosmic dragon. Mark Dacascos certainly does his best to explain it all during his brief appearance as the warrior monk Xang, yet there is no room for the lore to come together during Legend of the White Dragon's scant 98-minute runtime.

There are simply too many plot threads being woven together in Legend of the White Dragon for the most integral of them to stand out. Instead of digging into Erik's most important relationships or even hinting at Ashtigor's motivations as a villain, Legend of the White Dragon offers audiences multiple walks through Katua's personal lab and some wildly out of place sex scenes.

That Legend of the White Dragon was intended to be the first entry in a trilogy makes this sting all the more, as further films could have offered insight into how exactly the world of the White Dragon works. This isn't to say that Legend of the White Dragon needed to spell things out for viewers, but rather to point out that it never really provided a foundation for the rest of the story to stand upon.

Even the action sequences, which should have been stellar considering Bat in the Sun Productions' track record with titles like Super Power Beat Down, end up largely falling flat. At their best, they read like the best fight scenes from The CW shows like Legends of Tomorrow, whereas at their worst they are literally just flashing lights colliding with one another against a greenscreen backdrop.

The Legend of the White Dragon Doesn't Need a Director's Cut, It Needs a New Editor

As it arrived in theaters, Legend of the White Dragon is a barely coherent homage to nothing in particular. The Power Rangers-esque suits and color-coded gear alone is not enough to evoke the very specific tone that Legend of the White Dragon was purportedly made to exude.

If that weren't bad enough, the worst part of Legend of the White Dragon is that there is absolutely a good version of the movie somewhere between what audiences saw in theaters and what ended up on the cutting room floor. Reportedly, Legend of the White Dragon wasn't finished until July 2025, nearly four years after production ended the first time around, and a full two years after additional photography wrapped in 2023.

As such, there could easily be hours of footage that didn't make its way into the final version of Legend of the White Dragon. And, while most of that footage is unlikely to make the movie that much better, there is all but assuredly enough of it that someone could provide viewers with the proper Power Rangers-inspired superhero epic they were hoping to see.