D-War: Dragon Wars (Movie)

I mentioned movie named D-War: Dragon Wars (2007) in article about Fortress 2 Blue Arcade game. If you are curious about the movie (which most likely not), you are in luck because I review it now!

The title looks like Eragon’s. Makes me want to review Eragon movie someday [May or may not be true]

Knowing how well Eragon in box office, the similar-ish title may be indicator that D-War is not much better than Eragon.

 

The movie starts with smoking long crater. Apparently, this takes place in Los Angeles. I am very sorry about the hellish wildfire in LA recently. My deepest condolence.   

 

A reporter named Ethan wants to make news out of this but these gentlemen with sharp suit, send him away.

 

However, he manages to snap a picture of scale in the crater. Suddenly he has urgency to look at the pendant he wears which triggers his childhood memory…         

15 years ago…

 

Ethan’s father tries to sell antique knife at antique shop. When he and the shopkeeper are in hot price negotiation, Ethan accidentally discover glowing box and it opens on its own.  Medic_sf12_badmagic05.wav

 

The shopkeeper pretends to have a heart attack so Ethan’s father goes away calling for hospital. Then he tells Ethan about the glowing box and the history behind it. There’s Korean legend about the good giant snake called Imoogi and the evil giant snake called Buraki. It’s said that there’s star falls from heaven that can transform the giant snakes into a dragon, which is more powerful being.

Korea 1507…   

 

Once upon a time, the star falls from heaven into some house. There’s this Lord waiting for his lady giving birth. However, the midwife tells him that his lady passed away while giving birth to his daughter.

 

His daughter turns out to be the chosen one, chosen by the heaven itself. She bears the fallen heaven star. A sage comes to this lord and tells her that she’s the chosen one that must be sacrificed to make Imoogi the good snake into dragon, when she’s at 20 years old. Otherwise, Buraki prevails and the earth is doomed. The lord is reasonably upset about it because his daughter is his only family at this point.

By the way, during this Korean story everyone speaks in Korean and I barely can understand everything they said except for word ‘’Buraki” and “Imoogi”. There’s also no subtitle in the movie. Usually, Hollywood movie has some subtitle if someone speak outside of English but not this one. Fortunately, the shopkeeper’s narration can be heard sometime throughout the story so you can partially understand what’s going on there.   

 

Now the princess is 20 years old. She’s currently walking with the sage’s pupil. And a horse is there too although I’m not sure whose horse is that. You think the princess is deserved to ride the horse but no. She likes to walk along with the lad because walking is more romantic, I guess?

 

After sparring with his master, the young man walks to a beach with his master. Suddenly a giant snake emerges from the ocean but don’t worry he doesn’t attack the humans. So, it must be the good ones, Imoogi. The sage and his pupil pay respect to this monster with the hand gesture. After that the sage gives the pupil the green pendant, like the one that Ethan has.

 

Meanwhile Buraki’s followers are about to attack the city. At a glance, they look like rejected casts of Lord of the Ring. However, they look formidable enemies. The infantries are fully armed from head to toe. The cavalries ride very big raptor. Lastly, there are these giant beasts with double cannon on its back. They look like Kodo beast from Warcraft 3 although they don’t have back legs, so I call them Kodo beast from now.

 

The Kodo beasts launch massive barrage. It bombards houses really good. One of the civilians catch on fire from the bombardment. Luckily, there’s pond nearby so he falls into it to douse the fire. 

 

The guardsmen retaliate with the olde cannons while other guardsmen with pitchfork constantly poke the air presumably to intimidate enemies from hundred miles/kilometers away! The line of cannon is doing work reasonably but other guardsmen are just pathetic. They practically do nothing to repel the attacker. They should deploy trebuchets inside the wall or group of archers in battlement. This is just shabby defense.

 

The defender is clearly outgunned. Those cannons on Kodo beast are stronger than the defender’s old cannons. The attacker’s artillery also breaks the wall which allow the attackers to infiltrate. Not only the defender is bad at ranged warfare but also bad at melee warfare. Look at them! The dark soldiers can easily defeat the guardsmen even though the defenders are armed with the pitchfork which substantially longer than invader’s long sword. Ok, I’m too harsh here. They’re not pitchfork. Let’s say forked spear for more accurate term, I hope. What these stupid defenders should do is: form solid line of spear so they can outrange enemies who only armed with long sword. What they did is just engage enemies in sporadic melee situation and let them get slashed with sword which is utterly stupid!

 

The monsters also terrorize the city. One of Kodo beast headbutt a wall. Another one chased group of civilian and end up tramples one of them. Meanwhile, there’s this civilian climb on a tree hopping to get into safety only to get bitten by the raptor monster in the backside. This scene is pretty hilarious.

Not all of civilians are killed. The dark invaders gather the female civilians to check for the chosen lass with dragon tattoo on their shoulder. One of captives tells the soldiers that it’s the princess that they’re looking for.

 

The dark soldiers swiftly go to the Lord’s residence. I’m baffled that the lord is still there. Shouldn’t the lord escape instead of stay in his house? At least put some armor before confronting the enemies, your highness. I notice how these dark soldiers surround their target in orderly manner instead of brutally attacking the target at once. They let their targets fight them one on one in true chivalry. Perhaps, this is intended so the viewer can see the lord clearly for the last time. What also baffles me is this gardener try to fight the soldier with only a hoe. He’s both reckless and stupid is what I want to convey. Soon after the lord step up and get killed without meaningful fight. The princess run toward the dying lord and soon captured.

 

The soldiers get the princess however, the Kung Fu master attack them. This is example of early bombing run: a Kung Fu master flying toward his enemies while making explosion with his Kung Fu magic.

 

Then he fights those soldiers with swordsmanship because he no longer has enough mana or MP to cast the explosive magic. Next time, brings some MP potion, old man! I think I’m not the only who think these battle scenes are fairly similar to Lord of The Ring trilogy the movie. The antagonist’s armor design. Monsters deployed as war beast. Then there’s old man with grey cloth as protagonist. But no matter how successful this old man slashes enemies left and right, he receives an injury in right arm,   

 

Meanwhile the young warrior manages to rescue the princess. After some dialogue that I can’t understand, the lad discards the pendant and run away with the princess…

 

...and they end up chased by the evil snake Buraki. With slight hesitation, the couple jump to the ocean. Good work, warrior. [Godzilla sized sarcasm]

 

That’s the end of the story. The shopkeeper named Jack, by the way. He adds “The story probably is hard to believe” then he reveals old scar on his left arm which mean he’s the reincarnation of the Kung Fu master. Jack also says that Ethan is the reincarnation of the young man who’s tasked to protect the princess. Jack return the pendant to Ethan and tell him to look for Sarah who Jack believes to be reincarnation of the princess.

 

After finish remember his memory, Ethan hurriedly search for the “chosen” Sarah. He rudely cut off this man’s phone so Ethan can tell him to search Sarah in civilian database. Ethan search key is “Sarah”, “19 years old”, and has dragon tattoo on her shoulder which describes thousands Sarah in LA. I wish Jack tell Ethan her last name at least, which can narrow the search pretty significantly.

 

Meanwhile in a gym, prophesized Sarah and her friend watch Ethan’s news about the strange crater. How irony! Conveniently, she wears tank top so viewer can spot the dragon tattoo on her shoulder. After look at the glimpse of the scale, Sarah feels not well and go home hastily.

 

Meanwhile in some hi-tech forensic lab, the investigators learn that the scale which left behind in the scene is stronger than diamond and it belongs to reptilian creature.

 

Jack meditates while floating in mid-air. But suddenly, he stops meditating because there’s danger nearby. The leader of dark soldier is here and he passes through the fence with ease. See that old lady in pink? She follows the antagonist and bump her head by the fence. I genuinely laugh so hard here because the joke comes unexpectedly and her senile acting is so natural and quite believable.

I forgot to mention that there’s the leader of those dark soldiers. When wearing full armor, he’s more similar to Nazghul than his subordinates. When he’s not wearing his evil armor, he’s quite similar to Chancellor Palpatine. I know I can see the real name of the antagonist in credit roll but I keep calling him Palpatine for fun.

Meanwhile Sarah is frightened and set lots of Korean talismans for her protection or so she believes. She’s not sure why she’s afraid. In rather nonchalant way of solution, her friend invites her to drinking in a bar. Eventually, Sarah agrees.  

 

It doesn’t take long for Sarah to stay at the bar. When she’s about to go home, these 3 bums tease her. This scene is so generic.

 

But Jack beat out the teasers. One of them hit Jack with wooden board, but Jack is unfazed with the attack and toss the attacker away. Then he simply leaves, leaving Sarah confused with what just happens. This is ludicrous. Isn’t the sage/Kung Fu master/ Jack also responsible to escort the chosen one? So, he just defeats these bastards and leaves everything else to Ethan? That’s so stupid and lazy!

 

Meanwhile Buraki visits the zoo to bite 5 elephants. The zoo security sees this terror and luckily, he gets away unscathed after witness this horrible experience.By the way, he looks similar to Dennis Nedry from Jurassic Park.

 

Sarah is on police office. According to the investigator, the teasers are football player which means they’re not ordinary street punk that can be beaten easily. Suddenly, a reporter barges in and take photo of Sarah. Later the investigator send him out of the room.  

 

Through some weird twist of fate. The rude reporter works at the same office as Ethan. So, he knows where to find this Sarah. Her last name is Daniel, by the way.

 

Meanwhile, the zoo security reports the giant snake bites 5 elephants and toss them around, to the police station. Unfortunately, they don’t believe him. Even one of them making gesture of crazy to his coworker. I know the story is hard to believe but at least they should dispatch a team to investigate the crime scene. There is solid evidence there: dead elephants with big bite mark. It’s not like the security able to remove the dead elephants easily and I believe they’re still there when the zoo is open which can cause public panic nonetheless.

 

Sarah decides to isolate herself in a hospital. While her friend picks up change cloth for her from her wardrobe, Buraki pays a visit to Sarah’s house. He kills Sarah’s friend with big bite after her boyfriend is assassinated by Palpatine in that green-lit alley over there. Funny thing is: it seems the scene where the boyfriend getting slashed, is skipped. It just shows Palpatine draws the blade from his magic sword and then it skips to Sarah’s friend run into Buraki’s bite while her boyfriend already lies dead. Is it because someone getting killed by sword looks too gruesome for the movie? But person getting killed by giant snake’s bit is considered more gruesome even though no dismemberment or vore involved. Moreover, in Korean history tale they show bits of people getting slashed by dark soldiers just fine. 

 

Meanwhile Sarah becomes hysteric for no reason other than she’s overly terrifying of something that very dangerous. Hold on! Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 Judgement Day also afraid of impending horror and locked up in psychiatric ward. They’re both Sarah! *mind blown*

The police and ambulance arrive at Sarah’s house. Ethan follow to arrive. Once again, Ethan is sent away by the investigators but he knows that Sarah is in the hospital from the interrogated lady over there, who I believe is Sarah’s neighbor. I wish police also investigate the zoo because 5 dead elephants are clearly more suspicious than dead Sarah’s friend and her boyfriend. By the way, Ethan’s coworker acts as his chauffeur, cameraman, and also database searcher. His name is Bruce.

 

The receptionist doesn’t allow Ethan to visit Sarah at isolation room however lucky for him a doctor that claims to be his fans allow him to meet her.

On the other side of hospital, there’s the zoo security who’s currently in straightjacket, is currently interviewed by psychiatrist. He keeps insist that there’s giant snake bites 5 elephants on the zoo. Eventually he lies that there’s no giant snake. The psychiatrist is happy to hear that and order her assistant to release the straightjacket. But suddenly, Buraki peeks from the window. Instinctively, the zoo security tells the psychiatrist to look behind for the giant snake. But when she looks back Buraki hides just in time while the assistant is busy to open the straightjacket. Thus, she orders to keep the straightjacket despite the zoo security’s protest. 

But the evil Buraki isn’t slithering around hospital for joke. He wants to pay a visit to Sarah. Obviously, the visit doesn’t mean good. The hospital building trembles as Buraki getting closer to Sarah. The kind doctor tells Ethan and Sarah to escape via elevator instead of emergency stairs. Immediately, I feel there’s something weird in that scene. Most people know that during emergency situation, you don’t use elevator because it’s too dangerous. It could be fall or you could be trapped within it or both! Anyway, turns out the doctor is Jack in disguise by using his magic.

 

The elevator directly connects to parking lot but I still stand by my point that you shouldn’t use elevator in emergency situation. Anyway, Bruce, Ethan, and Sarah manage to escape. While Buraki stills hot on their trail and breaking everything in the parking lot in process.

 

The runaway goes smoothly until Palpatine casually walk into the car and make it stops.

 

But Palpatine can still stand up after being hit by speeding car. He conjures his armor, turning him into Nazgul mode. Bruce swiftly takes revolver on dashboard and fires all of bullets…into Nazgul’s small shield! Clearly not clever move by Bruce. Also, there’s a chance that he hit Sarah instead. I mean look how quite close Sarah besides Nazgul.

 

Ethan hit Nazgul with wooden board that happen to be lying around. But Nazgul just shake it off and choke Ethan. Bruce manages to steal Nazgul’s magic sword however Nazgul retracts the blade with telepathy leaving Bruce confused and defenseless.

 

Suddenly, another speeding car hit Nazgul but this time he’s knocked quite long time. While he’s down, Ethan and Sarah hitch a ride on the newly arrived car. The lady that drives it, is kindly enough to let them hitch a ride.

 

After fail to capture Sarah, Palpatine goes to Jack’s antique shop to resurrect his army that happens to be sealed within scrolls in the shop. Including the Kodo beasts!

 

FBI calls the defense minister for the emergency meeting regarding Buraki. The agents conclude that there’s connection between Sarah and Buraki. That female agent adds that the snake is related to foreign legend. Although we know it’s true but the minister doesn’t satisfy with that statement. Later, they split into 2 groups: one seek Buraki while the other search for Sarah.

 

The female drops Ethan and Sarah near the beach. Turns out, she’s Jack in disguise, again. Then Ethan and Sarah develop some romance to the point where they make out in the end. This romantic scene is so boring. Even that lone seagull looks more interesting. I like to call him “Steven Seagull”.

Special force is dispatched to investigate a cave and soon Buraki chase them. This scene is I want to say stupid but that’s too rude. Let’s just say not well executed. You can see those troops run away and some of them open fire…at nothing! The Buraki is still in the cave and they don’t get clear line of sight of him to open fire! The logical act should be keep running and/or fire few round to hinder the pursuer if they can clearly see him. But here obviously Buraki isn’t there yet so they don’t have reason to fire their gun at that time. Soldier_jeers12.wav 

 

However, the special force is cut off by the dark force. They try to shoot few rounds at the enemies but their bullets are easily blocked with shield. Later Palpatine draw his sword and line of explosions erupts, killing the special force. I don’t know why my brain instantly think of Power Ranger when the special force is killed with line of explosion.

I don’t think I ever see a test bullets versus shield. But I reckon repeat fire from 5.56 mm caliber has some capability to wreck a metal shield or at least make a serious dent. In Bruce’s case, I can understand why the shield works well against Bruce’s firing because the bullet is small caliber of 9 mm. But in this case, the special force can weaken their enemies with assault rifle firing even just a bit. Unless the dark force use magic kind of metal. Don’t quote me on this though.

Meanwhile, Sarah is back at home. Jack use some medical machine to evoke Sarah’s memory in previous life. When Sarah can reach the memory, her body engulfed in light and floating in mid-air. I think we should call exorcist.

 

Sarah finally has the memory of the princess but suddenly Buraki appears once again on her home. After chased by Buraki for 2nd time, Ethan & Sarah meets up with Bruce in a cafe. Bruce has made arrangement for chopper to take them to Mexico.

 

Bruce ask Ethan to meet up at cafe’s kitchen. The he lends Ethan a pistol for self-defense although as we witnessed before that it’s fairly useless against Palpatine. After Bruce is gone, Jack suddenly appears before Ethan to remind him to take Sarah to some place called Grand Cave and also not to repeat the same mistake of running away from destiny, like in previous live. But Ethan doesn’t listen to him.

 

However, Buraki is already near. Ethan and Sarah try to escape using the car again but this time Buraki is smart enough to throw a car at them instead of chasing them mindlessly like before. As Sarah and Ethan getting cornered by Buraki, these policemen shoot at Buraki and give Sarah and Ethan enough time to escape.

 

Meanwhile Palpatine readies his dark army including the small dragons to attack LA. Those dragons actually present in the past memory however their screen time is not many compared to the upcoming battle.

 

Sarah and Ethan climb aboard the helicopter but Buraki manage to get hold of it just few minutes it takes off. Sarah and Ethan jump safely to helipad just in time before Buraki slams the helicopter to the ground, killing the pilot and co-pilot.

In desperation, Sarah points the gun (which is lent Bruce to Ethan, I remind you) at herself, which is futile because 1) Probably Buraki doesn’t understand English because he’s from Korea 2) The problem is not over with Sarah’s dead. Ethan calms Sarah with tight embrace. As Buraki manages to corner the couple, 3 attack helicopters shooting at the evil snake. Unlike the cops from before, these helicopters can deliver hurt to Buraki pretty well. As Buraki being shot, Ethan and Sarah escape through emergency exit.

 

However, Buraki gets some reinforcement! The small dragons attacking the chopper squadron. This is where the great battle begins…  

 

There’s a squad stationed at top of a tall building. It may look good however I reckon MP5 SMG is wrong choice of weapon in this situation because it’s more appropriate for close range combat due to its bad bullet spread.

But let’s dig deeper into this issue about how appropriate MP5 SMG in this situation, through some browsing. MP5 SMG has an effective range of 200 meters or 656 ft. In August 2023, Los Angeles has over 816 high-rise buildings over 30 meters or 100 ft. 56 buildings are 120 meters or 400 ft and 21 buildings over 183 meters or 600 ft. I’m not sure how tall the building they’re at. My best guess is 60 meters or 197 ft, maybe? So, we can conclude that MP5 is quite appropriate for this situation. But I still by my point that they should use bigger caliber gun like assault rifle or bullpup rifle. Or 1 for each 5 men should use sniper rifle, in my opinion.

 

Like in the battle on ancient Korea, ground troops also deployed in this battle. The cons in this battle: no wall or line of cannon to attack the invader preemptively. While the pros: no civilian casualty. Presumably because the dark ground troop can barely cover LA city because it is substantially bigger than whatever that small city in ancient Korea is. Look at how well arranged their formation is! They’re astoundingly discipline.

 

In the defender’s side, there’s line of M1 Abram tanks. Some troop armed with assault rifle fills the gap between the tanks. Looks pretty solid. However, I’m not sure how useful the Humvee and armored personnel vehicles behind the line of tanks.  

 

Once again, the dark soldiers can block bullets. But this time they draw their shield to become bigger which felt more reasonable.

 

The fireteam at the rooftop does pretty well against raptor riders. However, they’re attacked by a dragon. Now in this situation, MP5 SMG feels more appropriate because the enemy is quite near.    

 

Another pro in the modern era battle, they fell some Kodo beasts. Something that the old Korean defense can’t do. Although the tanks get bombarded by Kodo beasts.

At some point, Ethan and Sarah are rescued by the FBI agents. You can’t blame me to lose focus on the protagonists because I’m distracted by the battle which is 200% more interesting than the couples. Anyway, they’re led to abandoned warehouse and the senior agent shoots at Sarah thinking it will solve the problem. However, Ethan protect her and get shot in shoulder. The FBI agent probably happy enough to shoot Ethan because I think he doesn’t like reporter. 

 

When the FBI agent is about to fire the second shot, he’s getting shot by the junior agent. I’m not sure whether he will get promoted to replace his senior or get dragged into martial court. He can just confess that the senior agent is killed by the dark army and no one proves the otherwise. Probably Ethan and Sarah just agree with his confession. Anyway, the FBI agent gives Ethan the car key and tell him to run away to safety.   

But their escape cut short as those small dragons catch up on them. Care to guess what happen next?

 

If you expected helicopter reinforcement intercept those dragons, saving the couple. Well tough luck this time. One of the fireballs manages to hit the car directly. This look like the end, folks. Except not. *sigh*

 

Ethan left unscathed for some mysterious reason. Come to think of it, I didn’t see the gunshot wound either. It seems the director hates blood wound because throughout the movie, I barely seen any. Anyway, Ethan miraculously survives that fatal accident and only passed out for a bit. Then suddenly, he’s bound in a pole in outskirt of Mordor. I mean seriously. I have no clue where this is supposed to be! It’s wasteland expanse with a huge dark building and altar around this part which could be rejected concept of Lord of The Ring. Sarah also survives but she’s currently dragged by dark soldier into the altar. Anyway, please remember where Ethan being held.

 

The dark building houses Buraki himself and he’s ready to receive Sarah’s unwilling sacrifice. Do you still remember where Ethan’s location, don’t you? He’s roughly near the base of the altar on the left side (or right side in this screenshot). But he’s nowhere there! This is so baffling!  The inconsistency of character’s location is truly unacceptable. Not as awful as a group of special force shoot at nothing in panic. But this is still illogical and unacceptable.

But very suddenly, the pendant that Ethan wears, becomes glow then it fires unibeam along with radial shockwave! Demoman_sf12_badmagic11.wav

The unibeam disintegrates the dark army and also make fault line that reveal hot magma where the remaining dark army falls if they are not disintegrated by unibeam.

The shockwave stunned Buraki and Nazgul/Palpatine. Also break the rope that bind Ethan. After getting up, Nazgul tries to chop Sarah’s head off however Ethan saves her just in time.

Ethan lose the sword duel pretty quick despite the fact that in his previous life he was capable Kung Fu fighter. However, Nazgul get electrocuted because he unintentionally stabs the magic pendant. Learn to use your sword more accurately, idiot!  

However, Buraki awakes and there’s so much what reporter with sword can do against the evil giant snake. It doesn’t look like there will be attack helicopter that can save Ethan now.

 

But suddenly, Imoogi attack Buraki then they wrestle, biting, slamming, wrapping around, etc. Can’t tell which one is Imoogi? It’s simple. He’s white and Buraki is black.

 

Although Buraki has sustained damage from guns in previous battle, he manages to defeat Imoogi quite effortlessly. What a letdown! Sarah steps up to sacrifice herself. Her dragon tattoo glows and produce a brilliance light that later become a light orb. It flies to Imoogi’s mouth so he can eat it. Furiously, Buraki bites Imoogi…   

 

…but Imoogi’s scales gradually peeled off and he changes into eastern dragon. Now Imoogi has 4 limbs and ability to fly whereas Buraki remains limbless and stays on ground. Clearly, the evil snake is at huge disadvantage.

 

Imoogi can also shoot fireball from his mouth like legit dragon. In fact, Buraki dies because he swallows Imoogi’s fireball. His defeat kind of anticlimactic but that also goes to his army’s end. The overall of problem-solving phase is anticlimactic and also felt rushed.   

 

Sarah gives up her ghost. So, the story doesn’t have good end unlike in Ghosts ‘n Goblins Resurrection or Ghouls ‘n Ghosts. “Ethan don’t be sad. I love you for all eternity” she said. Ethan doesn’t look happy with her words because ghost’s eternal love will not make Ethan’s kid.

 

Imoogi flies up to heaven. Suddenly Jack appears from Ethan’s behind and disintegrated for unknown reason.  Scout_sf13_magic_reac06.wav

 

That leaves Ethan alone in this unknown wasteland. I feel like I need to put the red circle so you know where’s Ethan in this scenery. I can’t blame you if you can’t see him, if I didn’t put the red circle.

I was making joke about the place being outskirt of Mordor but seriously where on earth we are??? I am complete clueless about America’s geography. My best guess is this is part of Grand Canyon but I could be goddamn wrong. Feel free to correct me. Anyway, the movie just ends here. Maybe this ending has more aesthetic feeling into it but me personally wants epilogue to expand the story a little bit more.

 

So, there you go! The story of D-War: Dragon Wars (2007). So, what’s my thought about it? First thing I want to say and it’s very obvious one: the movie ends with anticlimactic and haste! No epilogue or even blooper at the end of credit roll. I’m guessing it’s because the middle part of the story is too long. I’m fine with the early part though. The battle at the LA also fine as it is. It’s even the most entertaining part of the movie. Ironically yet (perhaps) reasonably, the scenes with the couple of protagonists, need to be trimmed. My suggestion is: Ethan get knocked out should happen sooner like within the big battle or in the abandoned warehouse where dragons should attack there sooner. Then there are graphic flaws like the special force shoot at nothing while in panic and Ethan isn’t shown in big scene where Sarah is about to be sacrificed to Buraki. Since this movie is collaboration between American and South Korean, I assume that the Korean tale is made by South Korean while the 80% remaining part of the story is made by American thus explaining why the Korean tale part feels bit different with the rest. Plus, there’s no English subtitle on it unlike in some Hollywood movies where any small dialogue in language other than English will get subtitle. It’s kind of a shame since the movie (probably) intended for American audience who most likely don’t understand Korean. I think there’s something important speak in Korean on that part like the reason why the warrior wants to escape with princess instead of fulfilling his duty. I mean you can guess he runaway because his love to princess but I just curious about the detail of the reason. The morale of the story is pretty good actually: Don’t run away from the problem and be brave to fulfill your duty. Also don’t throw away the FRICKIN’ MAGIC PENDANT! Like seriously. Why the freak that bloke throws away the magic pendant. That thing can fire unibeam? Steven Stark (AKA Ironman) runs for his money to compete with the pendant.

My biggest problem with the movie is: the movie just abruptly ends as Buraki dies. I mean sure he’s the main villain but there should be epilogue after that because what Buraki and his army do is gigantic scale [pun not intended] accident! Whole Los Angeles know or even experience it. It can’t just the end like that. What about Ethan next? Or Bruce? Or the FBI agent? Or the zoo security? I bet when the battle unfolds, he yells “I fricking told you there’s gigantic snake!” also “Get me out of this isolated ward and release my straightjacket!”. My vision of epilogue will be Ethan’s popularity is skyrocketing because he’s the sole survivor of the accident who know how Buraki dies. Maybe even he is involved in making film about Buraki vs Imoogi. Or maybe Government tries to cover up about the truth or maybe they establish memorial to remember those who passed away at the great battle and even put the battle on history curriculum. Also, Bruce and/or the FBI agent get promotion. Or the security zoo becomes renown witness of Buraki’s rampage. Then there are some logical gaps in the movie like why Jack doesn’t involve with the battle or at least have duel with Palpatine? Is it because he still has grudge with Ethan in previous life what’s with him always want to run away from the problem/duty/destiny? Or why they capture Ethan alive and not just kill him while have the chance? I mean I know it’s anime/game/movie cliché to let protagonist alive so they can fight back and save the day. But I still call that out. Or why there's no cafe's staff in the kitchen when Bruce gives Ethan the handgun? Or where the last scene takes place and why there’s already building to house Buraki? Or why Imoogi doesn’t fight earlier which can make the story shorter but more reasonable and more action-y? Perhaps the most positive aspect of this movie is the graphic technology and they like to show it off pretty much everywhere. From the various kind of dogfight between combat choppers and the dragons. Palpatine’s ability to pass through fence. Magical nightmare that the protagonists experience (I don’t show the scene to make the article shorter, sorry). Palpatine summons his army from the scrolls. Buraki and Imoogi themselves. Imoogi's dragon transformation. Etc. I’m not expert at criticizing visual effects so I can only say they’re quite neat.

As for the battle analysis. First, in the old Korea tale, the defender is pretty pathetic. They only rely on cannon and I can barely remember if they hitting any of the enemies with the cannons. Then they don’t deploy group of archers which is pretty staple in medieval period warfare. Sure, they can’t make do with catapult or trebuchet. But archers though! They MUST deploy archers! No question asked. The horribleness doesn’t stop there. The defender also incompetent in melee combat even though they have spear while the dark force only armed with long sword which is noticeably shorter than the defender’s spear. This battle scene has Lord of The Ring movie’s vibe. Perhaps because of the armor design of the dark force. It resembles Nazgul. I won’t be surprised if the director learns to make the battle scene from Lord of The Ring movies. Presumably they learn from Two Towers one. Of course, minus the Kodo beasts with cannon. Aragorn and Co. can’t do anything against war animal armed with cannon, I bet.

The second battle analysis which is for the modern-day battle. It’s slightly more even because the human’s side has guns, tanks, and attack helicopters. Perhaps there’s too many dogfight scenes between attack helicopters and small dragons. I think the ground combat should be more expanded instead. I think real life USA army can do substantially better than what’s shown in this movie. They can or -rather- must use grenade against those armored soldiers. Perhaps flashbang or smoke grenade can work against them. Rocket launcher also required in this situation. At least the portable ones such as ZEUS MPAR or AT4. Policemen also involved in battle but with only armed with handgun. Some of them should be armed with shotgun or grenade launcher. The choppers do good job against the small dragons or even Buraki himself.

Long story short, I like the movie. I prefer this over Cloverfield anytime. Both movies involve relatively stupid love story. However, there’s some redeeming factor in this movie. Like the humor scene where the old lady bump into the fence. Or Bruce’s badbloodness and humor demeanor. Also, I like giant monster that can be harmed with human’s modern weaponry. Because I can’t understand giant monster that’s invincible to human’s cutting-edge weaponry but vulnerable to other giant monster’s punch or kick. Sorry Toho Co., Ltd. I’m not fans of your monster movies.