A forthcoming science-fiction film by director Shim Hyung-rae will see monsters in Los Angles. The move will preview on July 23. One must note that the director will have his film released in the States for 1,500 theaters whereas “The Host” only had 70. Not bad at all.
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You may want to be careful stating such things as fact, as taking the word of a hopelessly ambitious PR hack for a Korean film company will get you nowhere fast.
Freestyle Releasing is aiming for 1500 screens, just as IRiver was aiming to topple the Ipod. How realistic that aim proves to be is another story altogether.
A seasoned observer of Hollywood would look at the fact that the film is foreign (strike one), has no recognizable or bankable stars (strike two), comes from a country that doesn’t have a single significant box office success in the US (strike three), has a dreadful and incomprehensible title (strike four), and a rather unimpressive, cheesy B-movie trailer (strike five), and conclude that 1500 screens is a pie-in-the-sky pipe dream meant to garner number-oneism headlines but has little to no chance of actually happening.
Not to mention the fact that Asian films with far more name recognition, hype, and great reviews like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon only opened on 700 screens. And the all-time record for an Asian film is the 2031 screens that Hero opened with, and that was with Jet Li’s excellent track record, built-in fanbase, Academy Award nomination and international recognition.
If you think an f/x driven Yonggary-type no-name with no stars and zero recognition among American movie-goers will actually get theater owners to give it 1500 screens…then I’ve got some IRiver stock to sell you as well.
Post an update in September when it opens. My over/under is 400 screens, an opening weekend gross of 2-3 million, and a total cume of less than 6 million. It won’t last more than 2 weeks in theaters and the number of theaters will drop by 50-75% from wk 1 to wk 2.
iheartblueballs, I am extremely offended.
I cannot believe you didn’t mention strike six: this is directed by a man who was involved with http://www.gomushin.com/news/service/article/images/2006-11-08/c_20061108_18112_3262.jpg
and was most famous for this: http://www.scifijapan.com/AFM/d26.jpg
There are plenty of awesome movies made by Korean cinema (anything that has been even TOUCHED by Kim Ki Duk, for example), but D-War (… dragon war?) isn’t just one of them.
But who knows? Just like Harold & Kumar, Smoking Aces, and Eurotrip, I might end up liking the movie after complaining about its existence for months.
My wife and I saw the trailer yesterday. We weren’t impressed. She said it reminded her of ‘Anaconda’. (Remember that movie? No? Then you haven’t had the misfortune of watching it).
It’s a solid B-movie, and I like those so I’d watch it on cable when it gets there.
I wasn’t familiar with the guy but he really has a thing for reptiles…on IMDB it says he also did a Power Ranger ripoff called “Power King.”
Any movie that features the destruction of L.A. is alright by me
According to Wikipedia, it’s the most expensive Korean movie so far, with estimated budget of $70 million.
Looking at his filmography, it’s like the investors *wanted* to lose money.
70 million dollar???!!! are u sure it’s not 70 million won?
It’s a certainty this movie will stink, and will be a bomb internationally and probably in Korea too. Many of the factors will the same as already cited here (e.g., it stars That Guy, and Hey Look It’s That Girl, and What’s His Name, and Oh I’ve Seen Him Before; plus, from the trailer it appears the film has no plot), but after watching all the clips on YouTube, I think there will be another factor at work.
The dialogue is awful. Really, really bad. Almost at an Arirang TV level of painfulness. From watching clips on YouTube, I’ll bet the actors will have plenty to say about the wonderful experience of being handed a script and ordered by the Korean director and writers to Just read it, damn you — no matter how nonsensical the words.
Just think of all the handbags coming out of the LA sweatshops after this thing flops.
“D-War” dialogue excerpt:
Jason: “Dragon is over there. I have bad feel.”
Amanda: “We shoulda stayed in apatu. Dragon is hot and no air con.”
Jason: “Why my senior tell me to fight dragon? I just level-up from arubeitu last week!”
Brendon, did you see this video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqlt1FsS4XE&mode=related&search=
Someone, a ‘fan’ of the movie, claims it’s a blockbuster (it’s been out in Korea for what, 1 week?). Read the comments. Hilarious.
“The Rebirth of Legend”?
Eh?
“The Rebirth of a Legend”?
“The Rebirth of the Legend”?
No thanks.
“Imoogi only want Sarah.” ???
English doesn’t matter when the main audience only reads subtitles…
SomeguyinKorea, LOL the Youtube trailer, that can’t be the official one with those titles:
“What’s going on LA?”
“What a fucking monster!”
This is truly the Korea Wave
Wow, that D-war teaser must be a joke; the konglish and net noob terms . . .
Watch out for the title, Robert. Dogbertt might have thought you meant KAs.
“From watching clips on YouTube, I’ll bet the actors will have plenty to say about the wonderful experience of being handed a script and ordered by the Korean director and writers to Just read it, damn you — no matter how nonsensical the words.”
Someone who worked on the US production team had this to say in the Youtube comment section:
“tlyoung88 (1 month ago)
It is a real movie. I worked on it and got paid sh*t. It’s just that the production team, being foreigners are so friggin’ arrogant that they don’t know anything about copyrighted music or good grammar.
But I got a big laugh when you thought it was fake. I don’t blame you one bit. I WISH it was fake. But that theft into my bank account by one of the producers was real enough.
tony “
I was going to post how “is suck!” and what a failure this movie is, especially considering it’s been in the coming since 2003 or 2004. But then I watched the newest trailer. It doesn’t look too shabby actually:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwAxBeSg9zA
The other trailer posted earlier by SomeguyinKorea is a fan-made trailer that uses material that’s been around since 2004. (Facts that tlyoung was obviously unaware of when he posted his comment.)
If Shim can pull out a decent flick and save me from a blush or two then that’s alright with me.
abc,
It’s funny because it’s a rather inept attempt at creating buzz about the movie by a ‘fan’. Korean blockbuster? Imagine people’s reaction when they looked it up at IMDB.com and found out that it hadn’t even been released in Korea yet.
This is the best D-war clip on YouTube, from May 2007 — and it is nearly incomprehensible. Imoogi only want Sarah is actually an improvement.
Yes, D-war is going to suck. And the danger of trying to put D-war on 1500 screens in the US is that it could be the proverbial turd in the punchbowl for all the good Korean movies.
“This is the best D-war clip on YouTube, from May 2007 — and it is nearly incomprehensible. Imoogi only want Sarah is actually an improvement.”
“What are you talking about?!”
LOL.
The title is unfortunate, but it looks better than “The Host” and plus it’s got one of the warehouse workers from “The Office” in it.
I can’t count the number of times while discussing Hollywood v Korean films with Korean friends and former co-workers, that I heard the excuse that the only reason that Hollywood films dominated the world box office was because they had bigger budgets. Implication being that there was no talent involved, only money, and that if Korean film companies had the massive budgets that American studios have, that Korean film would dominate the world.
Of course the argument never held water if you look at the budget/quality ratio of films coming from the UK, Germany, France, Italy, etc.
But given the $70 million budget of D-War, I think that argument can safely be put to bed.
And Brendon is correct with the punchbowl analogy. 1500 screens is a huge opening for any foreign film. So if by some miracle of bribery they actually attain that number and Korean cinema’s first large opening turns out to be an embarrassment, it’s going to have the same effect that the Hwang Woo Suk fiasco had on Korean science. Theater owners will shun Korean films like science journals shun Korean authors.
I have a feeling that if the movie is as bad as the trailer, it could turn into a Showgirls-like laugher, mocked for being so awful that it’s really funny.
blueballs…Or the Canadian ones. Atom Egoyan, Denis Arcand, and David Cronenberg do fine at the box office. Heck, Lions Gate, which was just a small independent production company a few years ago, is now a big player in the industry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions_Gate_Films
There’s still time to market “D-War” as a comedy
I can see this movie turning into “so bad that it’s good” kind of movie. It could be the next generation’s “Plan 9 from outer space”…
Bum,
I doubt it can dethrone Yongari as the reigning king of hilariously bad monster movies.
I found this quote from “insider” Tony T. L. Young on IMDB message boards about D-war:
According to Tony Young, it’s headed directly to the Sci-Fi Channel, without a US theatrical release. Later IMDB messages say there will be a theatrical release. The Sci-Fi Channel’s bread-and-butter is $1 million budget “Original Production” stinkers (plus the occasional Friday-night nerd bait of Battlestar Galactica, Stargate, and re-runs of Firefly) — which, if Tony Young is right about the release, means $69 million got wasted in the production of D-war. Sci-Fi really doesn’t pay much for its filler material.
There are better ways to spend $69 million on something nobody will watch. If only these Korean investors could have been conned into giving Joss Whedon that $69 million! We’d have another season of Firefly, possibly two.
Tony Young has a Chinese name, but his professional biography seems to link him to Korean productions — in particular Young-Man Kang. I wonder if Tony Young was a Chinese-Korean emigrant from the 1970s anti-Chinese pogroms. Given that he seems to haunt all the places where discussion of D-war takes place (leaving comments on both YouTube and IMDB), we have a chance to find out — if you read the Marmot’s Hole, Tony Young, say hello!
Anyway, from reviewing the IMDB commentary on Tony Young’s own work, it appears he really knows bad filmmaking. We should trust him on D-war.
Here’s an earlier gem from Mr. Shim – seems he can’t find any new material:
http://www.apolloguide.com/mov_fullrev.asp?CID=3449
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/reptilian/
Variety says the budget is more like $32 mil:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117966226.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&nid=2566
The Variety review: “D-War,” a feast of A-grade f/x married to a Z-grade, irony-free script.
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117932736.html?categoryid=31&cs=1
“Of course the argument never held water if you look at the budget/quality ratio of films coming from the UK, Germany, France, Italy, etc.”
China and Iran are even better examples, for they make internationally acclaimed movies with low budgets and under strict censorship.
But that doesn’t follow because the world doesn’t quite watch UK, Germany, et al cinema on the level of Hollywood. If these countries had huge budget production scales the world would be hung up on their films too — and perhaps their blockbuster movies wouldn’t be as formulaic. (Has anyone seen that Fantastic Four flick lately?)
The point is, you went from box office domination to box office/quality (or “acclaim”) which are two different subjects.
As for Shim… well I’ve been dreading “D-War” ever since way back when I first read about it. I had little faith in Shim then and I basically detest him now. I don’t believe cranks like this guy ought to be making any movie – let alone one with a budget in excess of millions. But the trailers tell me this movie’s production veneer isn’t total shite — and not nearly as bad as I was expecting. That’s a point of relief for me. Plus, dialogue seems to be Konglish-free.
The acting is stilted, yes. The story is banal and ultra cheesy, but at least it looks totally sweet!
ps: I agree with BC. The fewer Americans go to see it, the better.
I hate cheesy movies where Dragons come out but,I want to go see this movie now just because everyone commenting here seems to be so against it.
The perfect benchmark to this one is “Dungeons & Dragons” back in 2000 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190374/) It also had good spx, but had a z-level script. Cost the same too at $35M. It did make $33M worldwide. Still count marketing costs and of course it’s a money loser. Wonder what it made in DVD sales?
Still, you market this the right way and you’ll have enough 12 to 15 year olds, their minds zoned out on Playstation and Nintendo, want to go see it.
abcdefg,
I agree that trying to cash in on Halryu with second-rate movies can be dangerous. Problem is, most Koreans don’t understand that Halryu is not about the Koreanness of the movies. Simply put, Korean movie-makers have earned a much deserved reputation for making original works of art. That’s what foreign audiences expect to see when they go see a Korean movie, an alternative to the sometimes formulaic Hollywood movies. That’s their niche. I just hope that making this sort of movies isn’t a developing trend because it could really hurt the Korean movie industry.
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