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"A meta-cinematic detective story set in 1960s Iran, shot through with counter-culture references and magical realism … never less than fascinating." – Screen Daily
A political prisoner's apparent suicide leads a Chevrolet-driving detective to a desert island in the Persian Gulf. There, events quickly take a turn for the bizarre as the burial appears to trigger an earthquake. A geologist and a hippie sound recordist are called in to assist the investigation. But who is the detective working for, really?
One of Iran's most exciting and idiosyncratic directors, Mani Haghighi (Modest Reception, MIFF 2012) has forged a work that is at once western genre homage and something far more surreal and experimental, breaking into the narrative himself in order to explain his reasons for making the film. Bold, flashy and set to a pulsating soundtrack, A Dragon Arrives! is a new kind of Iranian cinema.
"Somewhere between a mockumentary, a ghost story and a hard-boiled detective yarn, with a pinch of Indiana Jones tossed in." – Hollywood Reporter
