'Dragon Pearl' - Movie Review

I'm going to claim I watched this because Sam Neill was in it. Trust me - that's not a good enough reason.

The movie is a Chinese-Australian joint venture, with the language being mostly Australian-accented English with some subtitled Chinese. Our main characters are Josh (Louis Corbett) and Ling (Li Lin Jin), each the child of an archaeologist on a dig in China. Sam Neill plays Josh's Dad. Ling turns out to be "The Chosen One," destined to help a Chinese Dragon imprisoned beneath a nearby temple. She and Josh tangle with Wu Dong, the rather quirky keeper of the temple. And then, with his help, try to do right by the dragon, except that there's this evil man hiding behind an unassuming facade ... (I had him pegged 30 seconds after he appeared on screen - that's how bad/blatant the writing is.)

The movie never reaches beyond the level of a "what I did on my summer holidays" kids TV movie, with bad acting, bad writing, and bad effects. Avoid.