Viy 2: Journey to China, also known by the Chinese title The Mystery of the Dragon Seal and the Russian title The Mystery of the Dragon Seal, was released in English-speaking countries under several titles, including Iron Mask, The Iron Mask, Iron Dragon, The Iron Dragon, and The Dragon Seal. It is a 2019 fantasy adventure film directed by Oleg Stepchenko.
The movie serves as a sequel to the 2014 film Viy, which was loosely inspired by Nikolai Gogol’s famous story of the same name. The film was produced by Gleb Fetisov, Alexey A. Petrukhin, and Sergey Sozanovskiy, with the screenplay written by Stepchenko, Petrukhin, and Dmitri Palees.
The cast includes Jason Flemyng and Charles Dance, who return to their roles from the first movie, alongside Rutger Hauer, Jackie Chan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Helen Yao.
Viy 2: Journey to China was released in China on 16 August 2019 by Universal Pictures. A third installment, titled Viy 3: Travel to India, was originally planned for release in 2023 and was expected to feature Jason Flemyng and Anna Churina. However, the film has been postponed for reasons that have not been publicly revealed.
PLOT:
In Ancient China, a magical dragon, whose eyelashes produce a tea that cures any disease, has established a cult of White Wizards guarding it. However, some of them turned into greedy Black Wizards and ignited a civil war. To harvest more tea, they stopped trimming the dragon's eyelashes, sending it into a deep slumber. They exiled the leader of the White Wizards Et Al into the Tower of London, while his daughter Cheng-Lan was sent to a Russian prison.
There, she meets British cartographer Jonathan Green, who was imprisoned because his client for the map from the first film, the Russian Tzar Peter the Great, has been replaced by an imposter, while the real Tzar is held with Et Al in the Tower of London. Because of his step-father's influence, he is released but sent to map the East of Russia to keep him from informing Europe of the fraud. Mistaking her for a boy, he takes Cheng-Lan with him as his assistant, who agrees to take him to China. At the Tower, Peter and Et Al manage to alert Jonathan's wife Emma to their presence after finding one of his letters. Realizing Jonathan's assistant is Et Al's daughter, they stage an escape, where he stays back to fight the warden, Hook. He gives Peter his magical medaillon to lead him to his daughter. Peter and Emma sneak aboard a Russian ship set to China.
Arriving at the dragon's tower, Jonathan and Chan-Lee see that the Black Wizards and their leader, the Two-Faced Queen, are exploiting and overtaxing the townsfolk. Jonathan is taken before the Queen, who has assumed Chan-Lee's appearance. Using smokes and mirrors, she pretends that she is wielding magic and controlling the dragon to keep the people in line. Jonathan tricks her into making a map of her territory to spy on her, but is caught.
Peter and Emma arrive at the town and meet with Chan-Lee. Together, they devise a plan to attack the tower to defeat the Queen, free Jonathan and reunite Chan-Lee with the dragon. Although Emma is captured and set to be executed alongside Jonathan, they are freed by the Kosacks when they destroy the robotic dragon the Queen uses to deceive the people. After Chan-Lee has freed the dragon, she fights the Queen in a duel. Chan-Lee is defeated, but after the Queen's disguise is figured out by Jonathan, she falls to her death, as she is unworthy of using the medallion. Chan-Lee assumes the throne, while Et Al is pardoned and travels to China with Hook.
