I’ll be surprised if this movie does more then $4 million on its opening weekend boxoffice gross.

I saw the “Dragon Wars” TV commerical on Fox FX. Doesn’t look half bad. With smart edits in commericals, may dupe enough people in the states to make a little money. Never underestimate what a little contentless flash bang FX can do for a movie in the states.

He’s just a movie away of being called the ‘Korean Ed Wood’…which might actually be a good thing since it would make him somewhat of a cult figure.

D-War is probably a goose egg in terms of entertainment value, but financially I think it’s already made money. About 7 million admissions at 8 to 10 bucks a ticket, right? So that’s $60-70 million gross right? If it’s like the U.S., then the studio and the movie theater split the gross 50/50. So that means the studio gets $30-35 million. Break-even for Shim. Profits (probably modest) to come via DVD sales and international distribution. So by definition, it’s not a flop.

However, does this film elevate Korean films in general? Hell no. I’d consider Shim part of the old generation. My father’s generation. Who’s idea of entertainment is hokey, 40’s style serial action. This generation is generally not internationally educated so their idea of entertainment doesn’t translate well. Shim’s idea of entertainment probably translates worst then most because of his hyper, almost childlike nationalism.

In contrast, the avant-garde of Korea’s current cinema are guys mostly in their 30’s and 40’s who have an international sophisticated world view, if not an education. We are talking about the Park Chan Wooks and Bong Joon-hos of the world.

Shim and Sun Myung Moon (founder of the Unification Church and “special advisor” to the flop Inchon) seem to have similar personalities. Both have delusions of grandeur, have the nasty habit of overpromising and underdelivering and are embarrassingly nationalistic. However, this breed of Korean ajushi is dying off or getting old enough where you don’t have to seriously listen to them anymore. Thus, D-War doesn’t represent the future of Korean cinema (and thank goodness!). It’s movies like Oldboy, The Host and My Sassy Girl (the remake with the always sexy Elisha Cuthbert coming out later this year) that point to the future of Korean cinema.

Still less expensive than 45 million (official cost) or 105 million dollars (estimated cost) for ‘Inchon’ when you factor in inflation.

#12,

Minus all the merchandising.

Will D-War’s epic flop make Korean directors (aside from art house types) “unbankable” for a decade? That would be unfortunate, but this Shim Hyung Rae seems like the kind of clueless asshole to inflict such damage.

Where’s the sheriff around here? After a much-ballyhooed introduction, he hasn’t been keeping this site free of junk like post #7.

He’s been busy, which means it’s up to me, I guess.

Anyway, could we please play nice?

http://imdb.com/title/tt0372873/business

This movie will go down as one of the most expensive turds ever made.