"Dragon Wars"
(September 2007)
Online Copy

Dragon Wars (D-War) is an expensive, fiery, CGI-drunken inferiority complex. Created by Korean director Shim Hyung-rae, this was touted as the most expensive Korean film ever, as a lust of Shim to have success in the U.S.

While many recent East Asian films have been remade with a white, Hollywood face, Shim skips this step and does it all within his own work.

A television reporter, Ethan (Jason Behr), is investigating serpentine-like paths of destruction through L.A. He recalls a Korean legend that an old antique dealer, Jack, once told him. As Jack narrates us to the Ancient East, Shim indulges us in authentic Koreanness – with bearded sages, martial arts masters, temples, Buddhas, village-sacking and an expanse of a copypaste soldiers: armored, faceless, reinforced by rocket-bearing reptiles.

The upshot is that a Korean hero failed to save his damsel from an Imugi – a slithering, enormous dragon. The fated female, upon turning 20, would have summoned a different monster, which could then cause more collateral damage battling the other. There is also an evil henchman, grunting, upset, sword-wielding. They will all be reincarnated 500 years later, in Los Angeles, as attractive, white Americans.

Ethan has become the hero of the legend, and dirty blond Sarah (Amanda Brooks) his vulnerable mate. The henchman returns, clad in black leather and sternness. Dragons appear in downtown L.A. – and the marching droogs, too – and soon the American military gets mixed into the CGI mélange.

Maybe Shim thought Americans would really crave a philistine casserole of the past twenty years of action and fantasy cinema, with an exotic Korean spice and sparklers on top. Apocalypse, militarization, black sidekicks, foreign myths, giant monsters, tall buildings, blinding explosions. With those ingredients, Dragon Wars is Shim’s half-baked entrée to whet our Yankee appetites.


©2009 Tim Peters/All rights reserved