Into the Blu

Dragon Wars: D-War

Posted on 12. Mar, 2008 by Ryan Keefer in 1080p, 2.40:1, AVC MPEG-4, DTS-HD Lossless Master Audio 5.1 (English), DTS-HD Lossless Master Audio 5.1 (French), Reviews, Sci-Fi / Fantasy, Sony Pictures

What do we know about Dragon War that the layman might not be familiar with? Well, Hyung-rae Shim, who wrote and directed the film, was a popular Korean comedian who really, really wanted to make a film about this longtime native tale of dragons, so much so that he spent several years getting it made. And yet when it comes to filmmaking, it appears that Dragon War borrows heavily from a lot of other films in the process and winds up underwhelming a lot of people.

As far as I can tell, the story uses the dragons in historical times, who looked for a girl who could be the key to their survival, fate, I don’t know. And this story has been passed down from generation to generation, to the point where it’s here and now in modern day Los Angeles. Ethan Kendrick (Jason Behr, Roswell) is an investigative reporter who is looking into a strange event in the town, and eventually tries to find a woman named Sarah (Amanda Brooks, Flightplan), who might be the key to all this. But as things transpire a little bit further, the dragons come to Los Angeles, and Ethan, Sarah and Ethan’s co-worker Bruce (Craig Robinson, The Office) have to navigate through a series of near-miss fatalities in order to save the planet.

You know when I was saying this film seems to lift from others? Well, the Sarah storyline is straight from Men In Black II, or even The Golden Child if you wanted to get into it. Supernatural phenomena in the City of Angels? Yeah, saw that in Constantine. And the US Army’s involvement in shooting these big flying lizards down? Kind of on the Transformers tip if you ask me. And with the Korean influences, you could even make the case that this is all reminiscent of The Host.

So with unoriginal storytelling, the acting and visual effects have to be good, right? Well, Behr seems to have a knack for looking stoic and hurt at the same time, so that it becomes pointless after awhile, and any dialogue he utters is pointless as a result. I was flattered that Darrell from The Office was here, though he’s a bit player not even given a chance to ad lib or color outside the lines. The material is very formulaic and hardly original, and the visual effects make the dragons out to be slugs or snakes of some sort, who have a knack for punching large holes in buildings, and…very little else apparently. Why bother with it, to be honest? The truth is, you shouldn’t.

Video

It was nice to see Dragon Wars sporting a 2.40:1 transfer with an MPEG-4 codec; there are frequent instances of image multidimensionality and some detail in the foreground image from time to time. Sadly though, there’s a number of instances where blacks seem to falter and don’t provide a solid contrast, and the fleshtones appear unbalanced and on the white side occasionally, and the result is a pretty underwhelming video presentation.

Audio

Dolby TrueHD love and attention for the world to enjoy. It’s not that bad of a track; there’s a load of low end from the subwoofer, and the film has quite a few action sequences to back it up. And yes, dialogue is in the center channel with the occasional pan and directional effect. Although for whatever reason, it just doesn’t sound as immersive and involved as I was expecting, or as it was.

Special Features

There’s a stills gallery (eh), followed by ten minutes of storyboard, animatic and final cut footage, all pulled together on one screen to compare on various scenes in the film. From there, the only other extra to speak of is a making of look at the film with Shim discussing his motivations for making it, along with cast and crew interviews, all of which have been done presumably at a preview screening of some sort for some rather dedicated online fans. It’s certainly different than other EPKs, so points for the attempt.

Final Thoughts

As I mentioned before, Dragon War seems to have pulled its inspiration and story from parts of the films I’ve listed earlier, and those are just off the top of my head. And most of those films are a helluva lot better than this, and The Host is even out on Blu-ray with a better technical presentation, so go rent that one and skip the hell by this.