Dragon Wars is apparently Koreas most expensive film ever with a budget of 75 million dollars. It was the brainchild of writer/director Shim Hyung-rae and was marketed to appeal to European audiences, with western actors and English language. Other than Roswell High’s Jason Behr it’s very unlikely that you’ll have heard of any of the cast which sends this film into B-movie territory. Having seen a lot of badly done sci-fi in my time I watched this film with very low expectations. I was therefore happily surprised to be thoroughly entertained and impressed with some large set-piece action scenes.
I’d better get started on the plot, which is possibly a bit over-complicated. It seems that there exist giant reptiles called Imoogi. Once every 500 years one of the good Imoogi is rewarded with a celestial energy source, the Yeo-Yi-Joo, that transforms the reptile into a mighty Dragon that may then go and live in the heavens. As is always the case, one of the reptiles, Buraki, turned out to be evil and wanted the Yeo-Yi-Joo all for himself. For some reason the gods decided to send the energy ball to earth to be incarnated within a baby girl, marked with a red dragon, to grow and mature on her 20th birthday, when she must be consumed by the good Imoogi. Buraki heads to earth and amasses an army of followers, whilst all the forces of good get is an old warrior and his young trainee to protect the Yeo-Yi-Joo and make sure she goes to the good Imoogi. The first time round it all goes a bit to pot as the trainee falls in love with the girl and tries to escape her destiny as Imoogi chow by running away when Buraki attacks. Unfortunately the couple sacrifice themselves rather than give the Yeo-Yi-Joo to Buraki and so the evil serpent must wait 500 years for them to be reincarnated so he can have another go.
All of this back-story is explained in a pretty impressive flashback as the main story is told from the point of view of a reporter, Ethan (played by Behr). As a child he discovered that he was the reincarnated trainee warrior here to protect the Yeo-Yi-Joo in modern day America. Unfortunately he doesn’t know who she is or where she is, just that her name is Sarah and she’s marked with a red dragon. Events are brought to a head because the hibernating Buraki has awoken, destroying part of town and has started to assemble his army and seek out the new Yeo-Yi-Joo. Does the plot have problems? Yes, is it a bit over-complicated? Yes, are there gaping holes in the plot here and there? Yes, do these detract from the film overall? Not really in my opinion. If you’re a fantasy film fan and can put your brain in neutral and enjoy the ride then you’ll enjoy this film. If you’re the type of picky sci-fi fan that screams at the screen at plot inconsistencies then stay well clear of this, it will only lead to frustration.
The cast isn’t particularly stellar, Jason Behr doesn’t really portray emotion very well, in fact if you look up dead-pan then I’m sure there’ll be a picture of him staring right back at you. Sarah is played Amanda Brooks and does a fair job, but nothing stellar. The thing that makes the film is the thing that I was most worried by, the production value. There are a couple of set-piece action scenes that are pretty impressive. One in the flashback when the reptiles went for the Yeo-Yi-Joo the first time, another in modern day America where Buraki’s forces are hunting Sarah in a major city and come into conflict with the army and then in the final showdown. Unfortunately the production value isn’t consistent throughout the film, there are some quite dodgy effects scenes elsewhere. It’s obvious that these three sequences took up the majority of the effects budget and the scenes in-between had to fend for themselves. Is it up to Hollywood blockbuster standards? No, I actually prefer some of the action scenes to those in Transformers. A lot of Hollywood directors perform too many fast cuts around the action, giving you the impression of frantic action, but not enabling you to see what’s really going on. Dragon Wars doesn’t make this mistake and so you get a nice view of apache gunships duelling with flying, fire breathing reptiles whilst tanks take on huge missile firing lumbering creatures (best not to ask, just go with it!).
The Blu Ray version that I viewed had a pretty strong picture on my 720p 37” LCD, particularly the big stand-out sequences that I mentioned earlier. The disc does feature a Dolby Digital TrueHD sound-track, but without an HDMI enabled amp I had to listen to the down-sampled Dolby Digital 5.1 track which was certainly loud during the fight scenes where you want some oomph, but clear enough during the quieter moments when you want to hear dialogue. When the two combine, action with dialogue, the dialogue unfortunately looses out and can be difficult to follow. Extras on this Blu Ray are the same as the DVD so no cast or crew commentary. There’s a documentary called ‘5000 years in the making’ that looks at the behind the scenes production, but mainly focuses on the special effects creation. There’s also a series of animatics that show the progression from story board to early effects shots to the final scenes.
Overall I found an entertaining nights viewing in Dragon Wars. If you don’t try and follow the plot in minute detail and enjoy the action sequences as they occur then you can’t go far wrong. Don’t expect Hollywood production values or acting, but for some great tank on reptile action give it a try.
