Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. I always enjoy a bit of accidental synchronicity in the inbox, and today, I got two e-mails in about D-WARS. The first was this one:
Hi Harry, I`m one of regular visitors of your site. I did not see any news about this movie yet on the site. Can you please try to find some things out? Here is the trailer. I don’t know what to think of this... effects look really good. Nermin
Well, Nermin, you’ll be glad to see this second e-mail, which showed up less than an hour after yours was sent:
A while ago, you kids posted a link to the trailer sounding all excited and stuff about d-war. I saw it this afternoon in a Korean theater and barring about ten minutes of the movie which was in Korean, I understood a substantial amount of it. The movie was... different. D-War starts out with a voice over explaining the whole logistics of of the prophesy works. Every 500 years a person is born with the mark of the dragon. She (it's always a she in these things) is destined to either contribute to the destruction of the world or be its savior depending on who finds her first -- good or evil. This was 500 years ago in Korea. The story takes place in L.A. -- for some reason, Koreans are reincarnated as L.A. residents. The main protagonist is a reporter for a CNN ripoff and has the inability to dress himself. I get the feeling that Koreans were in charge of wardrobe. I should mention that the film is Korean with an English speaking cast. I've no idea who the actress was that played the not-quite-20 year old but she looked like she was in her mid-20's. To Koreans, she probably looked the right age. To be fair, I've been in this country since January and I still can't tell the age of Koreans so it's a fair trade in that regard. The movie is bad. It's down right awful and I loved every minute of it. It's entertaining as hell and for a movie like this, it's all that really matters. The so bad that it's good doctrine is in play here. There's a scene in particular where the giant snake thing eats an elephant after throwing him around. Anywho, to get back to the synopsis, the boy has to find girl and they run from a giant fucking demon-cum-dragon thing. This evil dragon has an army of its own -- I would classify them as demons. These guys are awesome. They coulda walked right out of an episode of the Power Rangers. There's actually a scene in the film where a guy swings a sword toward a group of SWAT/para-military group of armed Americans and the ground explodes beneath them with pyrotechnics that was directly a rip-off of the Power Rangers. The main action block of the film occurs toward the latter third of the movie when the might of American military takes on the forces of evil dragon-demon-snake-god dude. Tanks, APCs, .50 cal., helicopters with hellfire missiles, SWAT, mp5s, et al, take on dragons that spit fire, foot soldiers reminiscent of TMNT's shredder and foot clan, and giant lizard things that shoot off guided missile like projectiles. L.A. gets destroyed and it is glorious. Think American Godzilla but fun. Shit blows up, gets crushed, and blowed up some more. The climax is pretty sweet as the Tower of Mordor appears out of left field and a giant Asian dragon appears and kicks the tard out of the evil dragon/demon snake thing. Toward the end of the film, OB-1 Kenobi makes a brief appearance -- that is if Kenboi decided to change sexes. Afterward, our hero dragon goes emo briefly before disappearing into the heavens. I didn't mention acting because... well quite frankly, it's better to ignore most of the acting. Just think dragons and demons vs. the might of the United States military and you're going to have a good time. My buddy and I had a blast as we laughed during the whole thing. If you get a chance to see this film in theaters, drink first. Have a few and let yourself throw all logic and reason out the window. The film is awesome for all the wrong reasons. This is a guy's night out at the theaters type of movie. You drink, see the movie, laugh, and drink some more. Should this review be used, um, let's go with... Lee Scoresby.
