Review: D-WAR: DRAGON WARS (2007)

Another day, another film crossed off THE BIG LIST.

Today's is D-War (aka Dragon Wars, D-War: Dragon Wars; 2007)



My eleven-year-old son goes first:

Well, this is awesome. This is about 2 serpents fighting each other and the bad one is trying to kill a 20 year-old girl. My Favorite part is when the evil serpent attacks the army.  The end was boring though. 

So, rating wise, i'll say 2.8 out of 5 Atomic Breaths of Awesomeness!!! 

My turn:

From the maker of the execrable Yonggary remake, Reptilian, comes this movie, which is, admittedly, a lot more fun.  (Not good; just more fun.) 

Dark-haired and short Ashton Kutcher is apparently a reincarnated Korean warrior looking for his reincarnated love interest, mostly because it's been five hundred years and an evil dragon is trying to ascend to heaven. 

Yeah.  We get a lengthy flashback within a flashback to 1507 Korea and a war between the forces of good and the mythical forces of evil.  Like all of the action and effects in the film, this is some pretty good stuff.   

Unfortunately, the story is rock-stupid and the characters (and actors) aren't much better.  There are some exceptions, naturally, like Craig Robertson's buddy character.  But our leads are just tedious to watch and listen to. 

As for the aforementioned story and script, there are numerous attempts at humor and most of them fall flat.  Even more damning, the numerous attempts at seriousness are either funny or come off as apathetic.  That's not good. 

The special effects are, more often than not, top notch.  The ancient battle scene is well done as is the modern version when the antagonist serpent fights the US military.  Unfortunately (there's that word again), they are relied upon far too much in the last act of the movie.  We watch the evil dragon snake and a good dragon snake fight for what feels like forever before the good one eats a ball of light and gets a dragon upgrade.  I'm not kidding. 

 

And then the movie just kind of ends.  With our hero stranded in the middle of nowhere.  And without the girl. 

D-War: Dragon Wars ... big, dumb fun (mostly dumb).  2 out of five atomic breath blasts.

Here's the trailer:



A few years ago, Rifftrax (latter crew from MST3K) riffed the film.  Here are some highlights:



Next up, The Monster X Strikes Back.

(GIFs from neondragonfly and AstoundingBeyondBelief)