Review DRAGON WARS

History has proven, time and time again, that if you spend loads of money on a movie, they will come, even if it has "bad" written all over it. As a movie-goer, I am proof positive of this. To my defense, I have been hearing about Dragon Wars (aka D-War) since it went into production over two years ago. The reports were not about the quality of the production, but the quantity. Slated as the biggest Korean production ever and topping out at $75 million, rumor has it that D-War will be a make it or break it investment for its distribution company Showbox. When it opened in Korea at the beginning of August, the film drew record crowds. Although business has slowed, it currently holds the fifth place in highest grossing South Korean film at around $52 million. Dragon Wars is destined to do poorly in the US. No press screenings, no publicity, no reviews. But curiosity got the best of me and I plunked down my six bucks.

Unfortunately the news is not good. The story is so paper thin it almost doesn't exist. Built around a legend about a good dragon against a bad dragon and a girl who is born every 500 years that the dragons vie for. Saying that the acting is bad would mean giving it consideration it doesn't deserve. Of course, that is also assuming there is a decent script for the actors to work from. Although it is a Korean production, it is, for all intents and purposes, an English language film that relies on B-list American actors...and Robert Forester. So forget about the characters and forget about the story; this is nothing new in a monster movie, because the main attraction is, well, the monsters. But even the monsters are disappointing in Dragon Wars. There is a cool scene where the bad dragon snakes up a skyscraper, but that is really grasping for straws if someone is looking for a reason to watch this movie. The CGI is pretty unimpressive given the amount of money that went into it. In my opinion, the stars of Dragon Wars are the "dawdlers" in their cute little helmet hats. They are part of the bad dragons army, or something, and they carry a double barreled cannon thingy on their backs. They stomp around causing a fair amount of destruction. I would like to ride a dawdler to work.

It is hard not to make fun of this movie and the fact that I watched it. There is really nothing good to say about this movie. As the credits began to roll, I slunked out of the theater, embarrassed that I had sat through the entire thing. I'm giving up on senseless action movies...at least until the new Resident Evil comes out next week.