by Bar de Ness

Created on: December 28, 2010

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, was shown on British Television over Christmas 2010. Casting a critical eye, I was aware that I was surely suffering from over indulgence, and discovered my brain required little stimulation to see me through Boxing Day.

Thankfully, Mummy III (to give it a simpler title) fulfilled the task. It's true many of us don't require any heavy and demanding dramas or challenging plots the day after Christmas, but this offering succeeded where Prozac fails.

The first in the franchise (The Mummy) was an enjoyable romp. "The Mummy Returns" was a similar entertaining distraction, but the third venture "The Mummy Returns as a Chinaman" had me wishing I was abandoned as a child. There are only so many mummies a man can handle. "Mummy III" was a mummy too far.

Not an Egyptian mummy this time around, but a dastardly megalomaniac Chinese emperor, who ruled with a theatrical expression. Indeed, the actor who played him, Jet Li, who hammed it up throughout with limited opportunity to shine, appeared to walk straight off a previous set - Hero, smarting from his absence from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which he was supposed to be in but thankfully was replaced by Chow yun-fat), accompanied by Michelle Yeoh (who was fortunately a key character and love interest of  Mr Chow in Crouching Tiger, but surely should not have been an enemy of Mr Li's emperor in Mummy III) .Confused?

Ms Yeoh, a beautiful witch in The Mummy: Return of the Dragon Emperor, had little to say, but when she spoke her words in Mandarin, she clearly believed she was in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon Emperor - the sequel.

Please focus dear reader, this is complicated.

Whether the producers decided that they had exhausted the rich vein of history that was Egypt, or whether they had seen the potential of Chinese martial arts as a money spinner, who knows? Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sowed a seed, which spawned many imitators. As with most of its successors, they were visually stunning, and with the exception of clever discreet wires to enhance the combat scenes, aided by some slight camera trickery, they were fundamentally movies for actors, with credible dialogue and an audience which cared about them.

Perhaps that is where The Mummy: Return of the Dragon Emperor failed. Let's discuss briefly the surmise. At some point circa 200BC a ruthless emperor called Han unified the seven empires of China and created the Qin Dynasty. One of his first acts was to create the Great

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