Dragon Wars: D-War

Posted by Nathan Deen (nathan@filmschoolrejects.com) on September 15, 2007

Move over Uwe Boll and James Wan, there’s a new sheriff of Flopville and his name is Hyung-rae Shim, director of “Dragon Wars” (a.k.a “D-War”). We all have that movie that makes us say “no movie can be worse than that.” For me, “Dragon Wars” is that movie. I don’t care what movie you hate the most, it’s probably not as bad as this. “D-War” really is quite possibly the worst movie I’ve ever seen.

And yet I feel like I have to thank Mr. Shim. After viewing “D-War,” I realized that perhaps I shouldn’t give up my ambition to try and make films. Before I saw “D-War,” I always thought “Well, I’m happy being a critic and a journalist and most people in the film business don’t make it anyways.” Which lead me to the question of how in the hell did this movie ever make it to the big screen. To think that my theater chose to screen this instead of “Eastern Promises.” Has the world gone insane? If Mr. Shim can make it to the big screen, then so can I. Is that what the film industry has come to?

If there is one downside to being a critic, it’s not being able to walk out of the theater in the middle of an abomination such as this. It’s literally tortuous, as in if I had something to confess, I would have squealed it out in about five minutes. As I left the theater I saw people getting out of their seats with disgust and confusion on their faces.

Why even bother with a plot summary? I didn’t know what the hell was going on throughout the entire movie. Director Shim is on crack and there’s no other explanation for what transpires on screen. The movie is supposed to be centered around a 500 year old legend about dragons. Basically, there’s a good dragon with a group of human followers and if they get this whatchama-call-it they will bring peace to the world. There’s also a bad dragon and a group of followers, and if they get the whatchama-call-it they will bring about the destruction of the world.

Then there’s this girl who at the age of twenty, possess the whatchama-call-it. Then there’s this guy who is supposed to be her protector. These two are supposed to be reborn every 500 years. That’s where we enter present day and they are reborn as two young Americans, Ethan (Jason Behr) and Sarah (Amanda Brooks). Enter the bad dragon and his army to hunt down the girl and for some reason, the good dragon isn’t even seen until the end.

The beginning of the film is just an awful, confusing, boring background story and it takes way too long for the action to settle in. Then the middle of the film is pretty much the same scene recycled over and over again. The dragon finds where Ethan and Sarah are and a chase scene follows. Then they hide somewhere else, then the dragon finds them again and another chase scene follows. The climatic battle scene between the U.S. military and the dragon army is like “Transformers” with lizards. There’s not just a huge dragon, but these other lizards, which are not explained, that fly and shoot fire balls and have rocket launchers attached to their backs. I swear I’m not making this up. The final scene is in this really weird location and I guess Shim thinks it’s okay not to tells us where.

He does this with a lot of stuff, creating a giant, confusing, and convoluted mess. The scenes are of the cheapest kind. I think the scene where Ethan and Sarah kiss on the beach under the sun just moments after they’ve met is where I slapped myself across the face to make sure the world was still turning. Not even the headlining special effects are good. There’s not one aspect of this film that doesn’t fall under the category of awful.

Director Shim has stolen an hour-and-a-half of my life and $7.50 of my money and I want them back. Seriously, I’m not saying that to be funny. I’ve never actually felt robbed of my money before. Shim, in my mind, is no different than a criminal. I urge you in the strongest terms possible not to waste your time and money on this godforsaken movie.

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