Obligatory spoiler space - go see the movie before reading this unless you know you won’t see it…
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Yeah, I didn’t hear of this movie until a few days ago either. It’s a Korean movie, but it’s mostly in English, with some American actors such as Brenden Fehr of Roswell fame. There’s a flashback to Korea 500 years ago that’s in Korea but the rest of the movie is in English and set in LA.
The somewhat convoluted story involves a pair of star crossed lovers in Ancient Korea, the girl who is born with some kind of energy ball inside her and so has to sacrifice her self to a good giant snake before the snake’s evil counterpart eats her instead. Whichever snake eats her will become a full fledged dragon. She died before either snake could eat her and so she and her lover reincarnate 500 years later as Americans in LA.
The rest of the movie involves her and her lover finding out their destiny and running away from the giant evil snake and the army of evil that worships it while the US Army tries fighting the snake, the army, and it’s hordes of mini-dragons and dinosaur like beasts.
So anyway I went with a friend and my brother, expecting it to be pretty bad. And it was bad. Really, really, really bad. SO bad that it was actually good. The plot was absolutely ridiculous. I mean, it was fairly on par with stereotypical Asian martial arts fantasy films of a few decades ago - BUT - the plot, style, dialogue, etc that would seem unremarkable in those films became a complete farce when set in LA with American actors using the same dialogue, style, and plot.
Adding to the hilarity was the fact that the plot was serviced by actually decent special effects. I think this movie is what would happen if a 7 year old American boy and a 7 year old Korean boy were playing with their toy soldiers, cars, helicopters, dinosaurs, bargain bin evil fantasy soldiers, a few zippo lighters, and two big rubber snakes, and made up a story about them. Twenty years later the Korean boy inherits a lot of money from some rich relative and calls up his friend and asks if he wants to make a movie out of their childhood hybrid toy story. They find some evil soldier costumes on discount from Power Rangers, buy second hand cgi models from Dragonheart, The Phantom Menace, and Jurassic Park. They both call up their favorite actors from their respective countries. And they make this movie.
The beginning of the movie started out mostly cheesy until the Korean flashback. Then the evil army attacks the quaint village.
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With dinosaurs.
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The dinosaur army, 500 years ago in Korea, have…
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missiles!
At this point me and my brother started cracking up and didn’t stop until long after the movie ended. My diaphragm is sore, I had to clench my stomach to stop laughing I started hurting so bad. At that point I actually started crying I was laughing so hard.
Other fun moments:
Several characters say things like “What are you talking about?” and “This doesn’t make any sense” and the audience wants to cheerfully agree.
The main guy Ethan at one point jumps in front of Sarah to save her from a bullet. He drops to the ground. Someone else shoots the bad guy. Sarah asks Ethan if he’s hurt (he’s slumped on the floor as though he has been shot through the heart). He jumps up and says “I’m fine”. Ok, I guess the bullet didn’t hit him? Or maybe he was protected somehow? No explanation. He’s just fine.
Ethan’s best friend holds off the evil guy while Ethan and Sarah run away. The evil guy thwacks him hard with a studded metal fist glove, glowing with blue energy! The friend is sent flying towards the ground. Later Ethan and Sarah are talking. Sarah worries about the friend. Ethan says “I’m sure he’s fine”. Later, we see the friend back at work, his only injury covered up with a single band-aid.
Throughout the movie the government is aware of the giant snake but doesn’t know it’s origins. There is speculation that it’s some ancient reptile or something and then suddenly one of the agents plops down Sarah’s photo and says “I thinking it might be following this woman”. What! Yes sure he’s right, but how could he possibly know that?
Moreover, when the giant evil f***ing snake (GEFS) spirals around a skyscraper, slowly crushing it, one of the government agents shouts into his communication device “we have a code 3!” Code 3??? There’s a government code for GFS crushing skyscraper? What the hell are codes 1 and 2?
Most of the movie takes place in realistic settings, either the ancient Korean village or modern LA. But for the final showdown, the characters are brought to some giant evil castle of doom. An I’m thinking… wouldn’t that have shown up on google earth?
The big battle in LA between the evil army and it’s land based missile launching dinosaurs and small dragon like creatures against the US army’s soldiers, tanks, and helicopters was actually pretty spectacular. Completely ridiculous, but if you can accept the premise that evil soldiers in black armor with metal studs and magic swords have large plodding dinosaurs with missiles, and medium sized winged reptiles that can shoot fireballs out of their mouths, have decided to attack Los Angeles, which is defended in turn by the US Army with ground troops, tanks, and helicopters… then the battle which ensues is fairly riveting and well choreographed.
And the best part of all:
A lot…of shit…gets blown the fuck up.