I went in expecting a purely entertaining mess (a friend called this “junk food”) and I couldn’t even enjoy myself. This is awful on a level incomprehensible to most human beings. Writer-director Hyung-rae Shim has no command of his actors and spends 90 minutes stealing from Lord of the Rings, William Shakespeare, and Kung-Fu movies. (If your brain can conceive of such a combination without trying to claw its way out of your skull, you’ll have a good idea of what this film looks like.) The plot is inconsequential—this is a story built solely around special effects, some of which are surprisingly fun—and the dialogue is a mesh of grating one-liners. And Robert Forrester seems to have reached the end of a respectable career as the reincarnation of a 500-year-old master swordsman who manages an antiques shop in downtown Los Angeles. (Because, if you’re a 500-year-old spirit from feudal China trying to keep a low profile, antiques are the way to go.) It’s the kind of film that makes you wish Mystery Science Theatre 3000 was still around.
Sure, I suppose I don’t “get it”—I’m a stuffy adult at a party thrown solely for ten-year-olds. A square. But it says something when a film like Dragon Wars earns $40 million in its home country while native filmmakers like Ki-Duk Kim, one of the best directors working today, languish in obscurity. So you can have your sour, underdeveloped dragon films, as long as I can have my beautiful Kim operas.
by Adam Balz | Source: 35MM Theatrical Print
07 Oct 2007 12:12 AM | Comments (1)
The MST3K guys are still around, with their “RiffTrax” DVD commentaries. Hopefully, they’ll pick “Dragon Wars” as their next target.
Devin
10 October 2007
2:09 PM
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