Dragon Wars: D-War (2007)

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Two dragons? Don't get used to it

Director Shim Hyung-rae

Stars Jason Behr, Amanda Brooks, Robert Forster, Chris Mulkey & Elizabeth Pena

Country South Korea

Things You Might Like

• High quality CGI
• Learning about a Korean myth
• No spoilers, but the random shape shifting is a laugh

Things You Might Not Like

• Painful, humour free, dialogue
• Misleading poster
• Non-sensical character disappearance and reappearance
• Not even enough fun for a cult following…
• …just rubbish

Conclusion
D-War is a struggle from start to finish.  An inconsequential mess of mythical action made by people who’ve seen far too many B-movies but never made one before.

1 out of 5 Promised Dragons

Luke McGrath

***

There’s no easy place to begin with Dragon Wars: D-War (as this was awkwardly titled on release in America), the only believable battle going on was the one in my head between the joy of turning the film off and the grim face of our editor-in-chief as I fail to turn in a review.  As we’re all still here it was yet another war that didn’t amount to much.

D-War follows the inexplicable journey of Ethan as he receives a cheap medallion as a child along with a tale of Korean mythology from an antiques dealer who’s clearly uncomfortable at being filmed.  The tale itself is by far the best thing that came from the writing process, being lifted from legend and not the same minds that give us:  I keep trying to understand, but none of this is making any sense.  The rest is a mess of similar dialogue, jarring plotlines and characters going missing (don’t worry, he turns up later with a bandage and cracks on with helping as if being forgotten about happens all the time).

One of the first things that comes to mind with D-War is the lack of Korean elements in this Korean film.  Sure, there’s the dragon story and some well costumed flashbacks, but the vast majority is American led.  There’s nothing wrong with producing a film set in another culture but there is a problem when the brief Korean elements far outshine the vast majority of the film.

Another, perhaps more glaring, problem is making a film called Dragon Wars without even one dragon war, let alone the promise of mulitple.  Don’t be fooled by that poster art, at no point will you find any kind of epic scale fighting between two giant lizards on the streets of Los Angeles.  Much of the third act (a patience testing half hour) concerns one of the dragons (the bad one) wreaking havoc in the city while SWAT teams and the (presumably locally stationed) army wades in.  In some respects the best of the film is on show with the worst, the invasion of the city centre by a cavalcade of odd looking creatures is a shining example of what good CGI can do.  It is, of course, never a substitute for good film making.

Continuing to criticise D-War almost seems like an exercise in futility.  This is a z-movie with a huge budget, not even lovable or ironic enough to be treated as a cult classic.  We’re not in Snakes on a Plane territory here, there isn’t the commitment to the premise nor the simplicity of the conceit.  Summing up the general mood towards D-War is the fantastic Wikipedia entry that states:

In Korea, the budget of this movie was controversial because of the high costs and the poor reception abroad, which led to embarrassment over the true budget numbers, which were concealed to further shame.

The minds behind the film have cause enough to feel ashamed, D-War is the antipathy of movie making.  It’s a humourless, CGI led, mess of awful dialogue and weird developments.  If you’re not asking yourself ‘where are they now’ in the last scene, you really haven’t been watching.  Good for you.

Buy Dragon Wars: D-War from Amazon