Dragon Wars: D-War (2007/Blu-ray/Korea)
Picture:
B Sound: B Extras: C- Film: D
Hoping
that we may be in the beginning of a cycle of cheesy monster films, Sony has
picked up Hyung Rae Shim’s Dragon Wars:
D-War (2007) for DVD and Blu-ray, the latter of which we have here to look
at. It is bad, the way The Host was and a hit for
Magnolia. Both films admit the
preposterousness of doing a giant monster horror film in an era with digital
effects (bypassing Peter Jackson’s King
Kong) that ruin the fun the pre-digital monster versions that are really
genre classics.
So what
if it is a guy in an outfit, stop motion, go motion or even hand-drawn
animation? Unfortunately, the new films
play too much on the comedy and the results, along with the mix of bad effects
of all kinds and sloppy filmmaking in general, complete with low-budget
sloppiness no matter the high budgets.
Jason Behr, Elizabeth Pena and Robert Forster co-star in the 1970s
tradition of getting American actors in their questionable genre productions.
Unless
you think all genre films are just schlock, one of the biggest myths of all
time, it is a bad film. However, people
still will want to watch for its cheesiness, but the problem with that it that
it is cheesy on purpose, not by accident like the classics decades before. The other problem is that it becomes an
excuse to be bad and the overproduction betrays its intents as much as
anything. It is also a film that does
not understand the true heart and soul fun of those original films. It is why the new 1997 Godzilla was a disaster, why digital effects are overrated and why
too many big budget films are not even as good as low-budget and/or B-movie
equivalents of the past that mattered.
That
leaves the ridiculous moments of this film the only reason to watch, if you
want to waste 90 minutes of your time.
Unfortunately, as creatively bankrupt posers who want to cash in on
franchising and recycling ideas continue to make this very same film, the novelty
will wear thinner than the nonexistent script here.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 has some good moments of depth, definition and fidelity, but between
the various effects, sloppiness of the effects and some bad digital work, this
is not a great looking film and certainly not a consistent performer. The Dolby TrueHD reveals all kinds of
soundfield problems from the original Dolby Digital theatrical release,
reminding this critic about how good the mono sound was on her classics. The makers do not know what to do with 5.1,
so it bleeds, it is all over the place in incoherent ways, a soundfield is
never established and the higher definition of TrueHD makes this all the more
apparent.
Extras
include a conceptual art gallery, animatics and a short making of featurette
dubbed “5,000 Years In The Making”
that are all more interesting than the film itself. Dragon
Wars: D-War is a mess, there is a slim chance it will become a cult item,
but when you can get the original Godzilla
films and the likes of Ultraman or Super Inframan at home, why go with
this?
- Nicholas Sheffo
