Dragon Wars: D-War 2007

Harri reviewed Dragon Wars: D-War (2007)

Limping Creature Havoc with Moments of Good Action

With 2001 Yonggary to continue from, one couldn't expect anything else than improvement from writer/director Hyung-rae Shim. Released in 1999, that dragon/godzilla-themed sci-fi attempt was not even remotely impressive in terms of effects and cinematography, the only areas these films can usually hope to receive acclaim. This is where bigger budget of D-War, or "Dragon Wars", really shows and pays off. However, where visual effects have certainly developed, the story has not. As is often the case with these monster havoc films, characters are neither believable nor sympathetic.

The storyline is dull. Main characters simply run around and away in order to ultimately end up saving the world without really doing anything. The greatest problem is not lack of story, but precisely the presence of a story.
As an unconnected, irrational creature catastrophe film, these solutions might work. The apocalyptic theme and the mythological background story, however, really demand much more than that, not to say there's anything exceptional in them.

The action sequences are quite successful. This is probably what draws most of the viewers: seeing policemen, soldiers, tanks and attack helicopters fight against a host of reptiles that recall newer creature installations to the Star Wars merchandise.
The great menacing dragon (technically "imoogi" - apparently only the most noble of the imoogi are granted to become fully developed dragons) works actually reasonably well. There is really no great problem with any of the reptilians. Action scenes are generally all right, even though the evil warlock character and his summoned minions would have greatly benefited from a number of revisions.