Today’s quick review: Dragon Wars: D-War. According to Korean legend, every 500 years a woman is born who is capable of turning a great Imoogi serpent into a dragon, either the Good Imoogi the blessing is meant for or the evil Buraki that tries to steal it by force. When the Buraki awakens in modern Los Angeles, Ethan Kendrick (Jason Behr), the reincarnation of an ancient warrior, tries to protect a woman named Sarah Daniels (Amanda Brooks) from its clutches.
Dragon Wars: D-War is a fantasy action movie based on a Korean myth. Despite a promising schlock action premise and the tantalizing visual of a serpent wrapped around a skyscraper, beset by attack helicopters, Dragon Wars fails to deliver. Bad writing, weak acting, and a couple of major failures of logic hamstring what virtues the film has. The result is a bland and confusing watch with a few glowing embers of potential.
The story of the film is one of its major failings. The plot has all the usual trappings: ancient monsters, evil armies, and heroes of legend. But its reliance on Korean terminology makes it difficult to follow, while the unclear rules of its fantasy elements lead to an ending that feels entirely arbitrary. The plot pinballs with little sense of purpose, just an arbitrary series of close calls until the finale.
The writing has issues that go beyond just the story. The dialogue feels unnatural in subtle ways, with the kinds of lines that seem fine on paper but sound stilted out loud. Exacerbating this issue is the sound mixing, which somehow makes English lines by American actors sound dubbed. Characters routinely know more than they should, and each plot development feels forced by the writer rather than being a natural extension of the characters and the situation.
Dragon Wars’ CGI is also fairly weak. The models for the Buraki and its servants are suitably detailed, but they blend poorly with the environments around them. The Buraki itself is an exception: a massive serpent that speeds around the streets of Los Angeles leaving destruction in its wake. But the Buraki’s sense of scale is outweighed by weak action overall and a few good fights between the Buraki’s army and the military that are all back-loaded.
Watch Dragon Wars: D-War only if you are lured by the promise of large snakes and bad writing. The movie’s failures are largely ones of execution, so it lacks the entertainingly cringe-worthy moments that other movies of similar caliber tend to provide. A couple of decent action scenes towards the end and the skeleton of a passable premise are enough to keep it from being unwatchable, but most viewers would be better off skipping Dragon Wars.
3.6 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 4.0 for moments of decent action buried by poor writing and execution.