DRAGON WARS: 10 Year Retrospective

D-WARS 10^th Anniversary Retrospective

After Criterion and Ridley Scott changed the way that we saw the home video market, special editions of multiple monikers flood the shelves. It is only ironic that in America, the seemingly successful notion of D-WARS getting another home video release is an irony. It’s the 10^th anniversary of the film, but there is no hint of awareness regarding this on the packaging. It seems Mill Creek Entertainment licensed the American home video rights for D-WAR from Sony. The DVD case looks cool, though. on closer inspection seems to be a rushed digital job using sub-par looking elements like logos. The image quality of the disc itself resembles more a vcd, and there are none of the special features that the normal American release from nine years ago came with. The usual is a slew of new special features, whether the film deserves them or not. D-WARS is not shown that love anyway.

Does D-WARS deserve some love? From the get go, the film has been met with scorn. (At one time) Famously a young black American with a youtube channel posted a bad review video of D-WARS. The video made news in Korea, citing a nick name of “bad kid”. Korean critics and audiences were split up in their evaluations while the world saw this want-to-be-flavor of the month come and go like many a blockbuster spectable.

Maybe then Shin Hyung Rae accomplished what he had set out to do: make a film that was a product of South Korean creative talent on an art direction/visual effects point that blends in and acts like a film out of Hollywood on the market (even if the point of reference that comes to mind is something like 2013’s SEASON OF THE WITCH). Depending on how you feel about those goals being the reason for a film to exist probably goes hand in hand with whether or not you like the film.

Popping the Sony blu-ray in, it really puts things into a certain perspective. Though general audiences have been jaded with CGI effects, growth in photo realism in CGI is observable only in retrospect. D-WARS’ novelty, its special effects, do look like a product of their time, with more than a handful of shots truly looking good by (As of this writing) contemporary standards. Though it took more than a decade, D-WARS maybe achieved a little bit. Comparable is the remarkable SHIN GODZILLA. D-WAR's CG blows SHIN GODZILLA's out of the water. There's no one years between films.

What of the fates of the creative talent though? Looking over the Younggu-Art production output, a narrative rises. You notice Shin’s intentions of getting South Korea’s film industry to be able to complete internationally, so his methods change. No longer practical effect, he decides to entrepreneur CGI in Korea. To help sell the films hires on American cast and crew as to fulfill a certain standard that Koreans just cannot – and at the time did not. YONGGARY infamously bombed at the box office and did not receive the international distribution that Shin Hyung Rae was hoping for. D-WARS took a couple more years, and hired on more Americans to fulfill more spaces. D-WARS was definitely more successful than YONGGARY. THE LAST GODFATHER showed that Shim should stick to science fiction if he is to appeal to an international audience. D-WARS 2: MYSTERIES OF THE DRAGON has the VFX supervisor from 2014’s GODZILLA onboard in the same capacity. Practically, did Shim atleast do good in giving Korea Koreans who could create effects for movies? Though questionably a comprehensive resource in looking at the repitoirs of ex-Younggu Art employees, a look through IMDb’s pages for the staff of D-WARS says a lot. These people only have one credit to their names on IMDb. Some of these people could have worked on Bong Joo Ho’s SNOWPIERCER. Maybe in an alternate universe.

The American crew’s additions are worthy of praise in areas. The sound design for the monsters is great, and even like an American production, uses sound effects like the Willhem scream as a metacinema flourish. Steve Jablonsky’s soundtrack is depressingly good for D-WARS. Its initially cheesy listening, but it turns out great. The reason its cheesy listening at first is the same reason it is great – the musical bars that make up the soundtracks to films like THE SHINNING and FRIDAY THE THIRTIENTH PART SIX: JASON LIVES now have an entire score solely dedicated to it, and its heavy on action and paramount drama. Should have known something was up though in the end when you have the composer for Platinum Dunes composing your film.

Personally, as a viewer, does D-WARS offer me anything particular? Though the film hits you over the head with it repeatedly, which really speaks to the insecurities of the Korean talent, you have the only accessible (internationally speaking) piece of media which uses Korean folkloric creatures like Imoogi. Dissapointing that a creature like the cockatrice wasn't used here and apparently not in any ideas for D-WAR 2. 

You have particularly well directed battle scenes. Though his sensibilities are questionable as far as story and the kind of angle you want to tell a story through are questionable, Shin Hyung Rae learned a lot from his film previous, YONGGARY. YONGGARY’s camera is fixed, but not studied. YONGGARY’s camera was fixed because it helped the post production process out with the special effects shots. A lot less intergrating of multiple plate shots (real life, models, and cgi are three plates right there, and the cgi can be many different layers onto itself), a more fluid camera. The LA fight scene does go through stages, and the music, visuals, it all does a great job with getting the audience to feel the ups and downs of one dramatic beat coming and going into another in battle scenes.

Though overly short, the final battle between the Good Imoogi and Buraki is a great display of directing something that is hard to direct – two snakes fighting. You have a square, a rectangle to compose your image in as a filmmaker, and you practically have to fill the screen and make look good while serving the dramatic ups and downs on varying scales with two squiggly lines. Shin Hyung Rae’s directing of the dragon sequences are immersive, even if the actors are obviously in completely CG environments and maybe not the best of attention was paid to the angle of the l.a. plate to the C.G. plate, ect. Its an entertaining watch if you need to kill about thrity minutes and you have a bowl packed.

These scenes put to Jablonsky's music does create a couple of truly cinematic moments, something YONGGARY lacked.

The talent was there. If more time was spent on that which Shim Hyung Rae famously responded, "I don't make art, I make movies for kids", and less gambling and threatening of government sources of film finance, Shim's dreams could have come true. 

If only he realized that D-WAR has an existential delima tragically not a fleshed out theme. At SDCC 2007, a producer claimed the title D-WAR is an entendre. D-WAR could mean Dragon War. Maybe its digital war, Korea trying to throw their hat in a seemingly monopolized market. Most important is that D-WAR could mean Destiny War. 

From the opening narration to all expository dialogue by a character actor, destiny is at play. Time is symbolically repeating itself, an ancient army now duking it out with the US military because two people were more concerned about their lives together instead of the well being of all. Even worse, neither Ethan or Sarah are well equipped for their destiny. They even start making the same mistakes as their previous selves made. Ethan never takes Sarah to the grand cave. Instead Buraki takes them to his hide out. But the quick end to the Atrox army which saves Ethan and Sarah is a literal Deus ex machina. One to expect. Buraki and his followers have been fucking up celestial movement for at least 1000 years now. Buraki himself is one to try to manipulate and change destiny, instead of compromising what individualism an imoogi can have with what their niche in nature and the holy are concerned. D-WARS isn't a Steinbeck or Dickens-esque exploration of destiny and pragmatism, but it is a light undercurrent which helps make sense of the proceedings. 

How else has history remembered D-WARS? D-WARS hitting the big screen in America via 3,000 plus screens was a surprise to some people. D-WAR isn’t that good, any distributor would take a look and seriously question the practical entertainment value of the film, despite the surface level details that the film has dragons, a little magic, and other genre tropes. Before Syfy Channel became reknown for their lackluster self-produced titles, there was D-WARS leading the way, being spammed on Syfy wherever they could find a slot. Now, Mill Creek is packaging the film with its Syfy ilk in box sets before getting a standalone release from said distributor. When news came of D-WARS 2 going into production, as a Chinese production no less, ScreenAnarchy’s headline read, “For Our Sins, D-WAR 2 is Going Into Production”. Gizmodo’s sense of humor was, “They’re Finally Making a Sequel to the Greatest Movie of All Time: D-WAR”.

People remember the film though. I proudly hang my Dutch poster for D-WARS in my home. Sometimes a friend will stroll through and pay a little more attention than usual to the poster and ask about it. Their assumptions were right, its my rare Dutch poster for the film. Fond childhood nostalgia memories, the kind that make you cringe more than want to relive with happy remembrance and added significance. RiffTrax has riffed the film. The film will always be there, and some people with a taste for THE ROOM and TROLL 2 will take the film in and give it a home, but to most people, its going to be a familiar cover in the bargain bin at your local neighborhood Walmart. In the meantime, lets get swept away in Shim Hyung Rae’s ambitions, and the immersive marketing campaigns of old, thinking of the dream and not necessarily the movie that was ultimately delivered. For me, its no better or worse than fare like MAN OF STEEL. 

6.5/10 

For the record I would like to think a better cut of D-WAR exists out there. The AFM cut of the film ran 20 minutes longer and that's not factoring scenes cut out before that. Maybe Shout Factory could get the rights.