Jason David Frank’s 2022 death is a tragedy. For members of Gen Y and beyond, he’ll forever be remembered as the White Ranger of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers TV series and movies. His posthumously released passion project, Legend of the White Dragon, is doomed to evaporate.
Frank plays Erik Reed, aka superhero White Dragon. (Overlook that his costume is more silver and gold.) Reed’s been in hiding for three years since the day his battle with the squatty demon-faced villain Ashtagor resulted in 1,263 lives lost. So haunted by the toll, Frank has the digits (but not the comma) tattooed on the side of his head. Imagine having to explain that one on the regular: “No, they’re anything but my lucky numbers.”
Ashtagor (David Ramsey, TV’s Arrow) recruits pharma bro Jai to help locate and liquidate Frank. Jai (co-director Aaron Schoenke, resembling an on-markdown Milo Ventimiglia) will stop at nothing to do so, in order to avenge the death of his wife (Power Rangers alum Ciara Hanna) on that fateful day. Jai possesses half of the crystal that fuels White Dragon’s superpowers; Frank, naturally, holds the other. Realistic hand-to-hand combat ensues, as does a Chris Daughtry rock ballad.
Meanwhile, Frank’s wife (Cerina Vincent, also a Rangers vet) sits at home, nervously fiddling with her necklace while watching cable news and wondering if he’ll ever come home.
Legend of the White Dragon plays like Power Rangers Mid-Life Crisis. In other words, a labor-of-love fan film, the kind that litters Schoenke’s CV, here expanded to a cosplay feature while respecting copyright law so it can be seen outside a convention hall. Highly Marvel-inspired (right down to Easter-egged, sequel-teasing credits), it sports pretty decent effects for a Kickstarter-backed, green-screened endeavor. It’s also flat, dull and sunk from the outset by some dreadful performances.
That doesn’t apply to Michael Madsen (Arena Wars), who cameos as Frank’s imprisoned father, or Mark Dacascos (China Strike Force), who appears as a monk. One of the latter’s lines sums up my feelings for the enterprise as a whole: “Well, that was not necessary.” —Rod Lott