So, far, D-War has earned a 14% at Rotten Tomatoes, which isn’t really so bad, considering it was 14% higher than commenter ZZOOzzoo expected.
We all knew the film was going to get panned — my wife, for instance, described it as the worst film she’d ever seen. And this was just one day after we’d watched “Showgirls” on OCN. But some of the commentary so far has been hilarious.
Wrote Brian Tallerico of UnderGroundOnline:
On a script level, D-War is the movie that Ed Wood would have made in the era of CGI, complete with awkward editing, wooden acting, and a story that becomes impossible to care about at all.
Meanwhile, Josh Larsen wrote in the Naperville Sun:
Yet the only real entertainment comes from watching Robert Forster, in the Mr. Miyagi role, fruitlessly trying to explain the difference between an Imoogi, a Buraki and a Yuh Yi Joo.
Actually, I was wondering what Robert Forster was doing in this. Must have needed the paycheck.
My personal favorite, however, was courtesy Uri Lessing at eFilmCritic.com:
This is not a movie to watch for escapism. This is a movie to watch with a bunch of friends and heckle mercilessly.
Uri saves the best for last, though:
“D-War” comes from South Korea, and according to the newspaper, JoongAng Daily, the Korean prints of the film ended with the following statement from director, Shim Hyung-rae: “D-War and I will succeed in the world market without fail,” I’m guessing Hyung-rae wrote that statement while smoking the same stuff he was on when he wrote the script for this abominable movie.
Ouch. One wonders if the netizens will share the critics’ sense of humor once they discover what’s being written.
On a bright note, at least Jin Jung-gwon might feel vindicated.
Now, here’s some quality reporting — StarNews (Korean) reports that “D-War” is the 4th most popular search word at Yahoo.com, and that netizens there have given the film a “B-” rating. So, diligent citizen reporter that I am, I checked it out — yep, it’s a lot of Koreans driving up the grade (odd that StarNews should neglect to mention that), which despite this has still managed to fall to C-.
UPDATE: MoneyToday Star News (Korean) with more classic journalism:
Attention is focusing on how successful D-War, which opened on Sept 14 on 2,267 screens across the United States, will be.In particular, with local critics and media giving ‘D-War’ mixed reviews, people are watching to see how much it will affect the film’s box office results.
Mixed reviews? Wouldn’t that suggest that somebody’s actually given it a positive review?
Anyway, the piece noted that the Hollywood Reporter skewered the film, and that the Golden Raspberry Awards have given “D-War” its “Best Bad Movie of the Weak” award.
My favorite line of the piece is this:
In the reviews posted at Rotten Tomatoes, a website syndicating many US film critics, D-War has been getting not-so-good ratings.
Not-so-good ratings? It’s got a fucking 13%!
Within the general current, overseas Koreans are giving the film good reviews on Korean community websites, drawing attention.
You don’t say? Despite the threat from the gyopo crowd, however, I think Russell Crowe and Christian Bale can rest easy this weekend.
I shouldn’t be too hard on MoneyToday Star News, though. They at least tried to convey the Razzie in the making. That’s more that we can say for Newsis correspondent Noh Chang-hyeon, who must have been smoking the same shit as Shim Hyung-rae when he penned this joke, entitled, “Green Light to D-War Success in US: Audience Give Film Over B+ on Opening Day.” Roh went to the film opening in New York, and apparently found a whole lot of folk who liked the film. I mean, seriously, it’s almost worth learning Korean just to read this thing — it’s jaw-dropping.
And speaking of Rotton Tomatoes, I’m not sure what it is, but I don’t think Dustin Putman of TheMovieBoy.com liked the film:
“Dragon Wars” is destined to go down in history as one of cinema’s most blunderingly, catastrophically bad big-budget films of the last few decades. Only worth seeing with a large group of friends and a bottle of hard liquor by your side, the movie bypasses the barest hints of behind-the-scenes sanity and enters a realm where the viewer legitimately wonders if what he or she is watching was made by homosapiens.
At this point, however, I have to wonder whether all these bad reviews might actually help the film in the end — could “D-War” become a cult classic?
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126 Comments
If you look closely, you’ll see one of the earliest reviews from some moron named ZenKimchi.
Rotten Tomatoes currently has 320,000 emails in its inbox, all looking like this:
To Roten Potatoo,
Please for tell me how I are getting job to film kritik for Potatoo website. I am good for grade the movies and especially please review me the D-War moviefilm. SUCH A NICE!
Say to Corea netizen how to makeing movie grade, so we are know how to use the internet site and make A+ Corean director number one!
Have a nice time,
cuteykim2334
I knew someone would eventually make a reference to Ed Wood in a review of D-War.
“StarNews (Korean) reports that “D-War” is the 4th most popular search word at Yahoo.com,”
I’m willing to bet that quite a few of the people who did the searches read the reviews and decided not to see the movie.
…that and people to be fascinated by train wrecks.
…I just hope this movie doesn’t become a stereotype.
After reading the reviews, I dunno… I’m kinda wanting it to flop in the US. Only because Korean internet posters, well a majority of them, think it will do so well. They come off sounding really delusional (then again the media has a hand in this too). Well as for the director, he’s got guts to push the movie so hard despite what critics say. And I just feel bad for the actors casted in this movie.
@#2 IHBB:
You’re in true form. Thanks for starting my day with a laugh.
And it’s not in the top 10 searches of the day anymore at Yahoo. Oh cruel world.
I had long been anticipating Sept 14th just for the reviews at rotten tomatoe… what I can’t get is how the hell it got a 3/5 from Kevin Carr….
one thing thats easy to miss but was the cut from “ask men” on the left side “Aren’t straight-to-DVD movies supposed to go straight to DVD?”
MWUH HA HA!
14% for the movie is indeed too high. It’s 13% now, and as more reviews come in, it’ll get lower and lower. That single Fresh review is an aberration and I don’t think it should even count as Fresh. (isn’t 3 out of 5 like, C-?)
“At this point, however, I have to wonder whether all these bad reviews might actually help the film in the end — could “D-War” become a cult classic?”
In spite of Shim’s nationalistic posturing and his grandiose claims, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what he has been aiming for. After all, he produces very cheesy kids movies that emotionally arrested adults flock to (well, Korean ones at lease). It’s a win win situation for him. If adults get suckered in by the pseudo-mysticism, he gets his wish to be known as the ‘George Lucas of Asia’…Of course, his movies lack likable characters, so the odds are that he’ll be known as the ‘Ed Wood of Korea’…which can still be good for him in the long run (although it wouldn’t be as financially rewarding).
Only if you’re curve grading in a class fulla retards. 3 out of 5 is 60%, which is pretty solidly in the “D” range.
I actually went to see D-War yesterday because I had read several comments here at the Marmot’s mentioning it… you bastards now all owe me $7.50 and 90 minutes of my life back.
The sucktitude of this movie is nearly beyond description. The giant CG snake would qualify for a best actor nod ahead of the rest of the cast. I actually nearly fell asleep at one point during the middle of the movie.
By the way, did anyone notice that the one female agent from the FBI was the same woman who played Chris Tucker’s partner in the first Rush Hour? She has really let herself go. That’s pretty much all I’m willing to recall from the movie, that and those tin soldiers looked like they ripped off cylon uniforms from the original battle star galactica.
Jing, Thanks for saving me $7.50 and 90 minutes of my life.
“I actually went to see D-War yesterday because I had read several comments here at the Marmot’s mentioning it… you bastards now all owe me $7.50 and 90 minutes of my life back.”
Jing, you apparently didn’t read the comments too carefully. The Youtube trailer alone elicited ridicule, and those who saw the movie in Korea panned it. Nevermind cursing us; you ought to smack yourself in the head for not heeding the ample warnings posted here not to see the movie.
The best review of the movie I’ve read so far.
“What did the United States ever do to Korea to deserve this [D-Wars]“
“At this point, however, I have to wonder whether all these bad reviews might actually help the film in the end — could “D-War” become a cult classic?”
Yeah… it’ll be like the Plan 9 From Outer Space (speaking of Ed Woods ^^). One of my friend holds a bi-monthly movie showing where he shows the movie with rifftrax… we learned the most painful way imaginable that no matter how funny rifftrax is… it still cannot redeem watching Battlefield Earth. Maybe that’s what D-War will turn out to be…
Mixed domestic review is ridiculous… almost every critic in Korea said “Guys… there’s no plot, and the cast acts like they just got out of acting class… in high school”. Wasn’t it the public backlash against the supposedly elitist reviews + media hype that made the movie so popular domestically?
There are plenty of quality Korean movies that could’ve had this level of marketing and succeed… damn Shim and his delusional marketing…
$1.5 mil on Friday for D-War, looking at a total weekend gross of 4-5 mil, assuming the Friday numbers don’t fall off the map on Sat/Sun through crap word of mouth, which is a distinct possibility.
I love the fact that Shim claimed he couldn’t wait for his shitbomb to “amaze the world,” and then refused to even have it screened for critics. Also the reason there are so few reviews on RT, and a surefire predictor that the distributor was deathly afraid of awful Friday reviews killing its already meager box office.
Someguy, put down the bong and quit deluding yourself into thinking Shim was going for the “It’s so bad it’s good” genre. There’s not any knowledge or understanding of the MST3K phenomenon in Asia. He’s been bragging that his film will “amaze the world,” not bragging that his film will “be so horrible that it will be fun to laugh at.” He’s not an evil genius, he’s just a guy that can’t distinguish shit from shinola. Are you really so dense as to believe he’d spend 6 long years and 70 million, investing his entire life into this movie, only to say “Here’s a big piece of crap, come laugh at it and make fun of it!”
Next you’ll be telling me that Cheney planned for Iraq to be a cluster-fuck all along, and it’s a “win-win” situation for him.
watch 3:10 to Yuma
do you know Jang Hyuk? He said, in order to make it into the American market, he took up a form of moo-sul, or martial arts.
Although I haven’t seen D-War, and I choose not to, unless it’s on netflix, I’d imagine there are some hai-ya’s in here, too.
This is undeniably a product of American white race and black race racism and the perpetuation of it by mostly Chinese actors and Chinese movie studios.
Jackie Chan shares the same opinion as me, ironically enough. He said he’d like to do a role other than a hai-ya-ya role. A role that depends on character and lines. A REAL ACTOR !
I think that attempt on a real US movie that was released in the US flopped. People didn’t want to see Jackie do a real acting job.
Jet Li claimed again and again, that this was his last martial arts “epic”. That douche does flying kick movies over and over again. With no limits.
Lucy Lu has done more than her share of martial arts roles, even though she started out as a normal lawyer on tv sitcom.
Pretty much all the Academy Award nominated Chinese movies were something on the lines of House of the Flying Chinese, Crouching Panda, Flying Dragon, etc, Emperor of the Bamboo wielding Shaolins, etc.
What kind of ingenious title is Kung Fu Hustle?
this formula has doomed East Asian actors in Hollywood forever.
They will always be asked to make a stern face, say, Hai-ya, fly around, and their roles will be for those characters and those characters only.
Vanishing Yellow dude, Showdown in Asian town, etc, etc.
Mark my words. 20 years from now, if there’s an East Asian actor in a movie, he’ll say hai-ya.
Chinese princess and the Talking Eddie Murphy, etc.
my upcoming leisure activity is to watch Internal Affairs and note any hai-ya scenes, compared to the Departed, an Academy Award winning film.
this would prove to myself that yellow face = please say hai-ya in an American movie for Hollywood formula.
#21 — You’re right…. The Joy Luck Club. Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle… Sideways… All those Star Trek Movies… When will Hollywood finally cast an Asian actor in a film where he or she doesn’t have to do kung-fu???
Seriously though, I refuse to feel sorry for either Jackie Chan or Jet Li… anyone who makes more money than the GDPs of some countries doesn’t really merit any pity. And I’m not entirely convinced Jackie Chan can act, anyhow.
All the A+ reviews at yahoo are well worth a read. Probably more entertaining than the movie and free to boot.
I wanna thank u to Korea ppl for laugh in deep mind. Wow!
#25 - What I find amusing is that, with all the Nutijens VANKing the Yahoo Movies boards, they can’t quite manage to get the average user rating score above a C+…
@ Zonath
Perhaps wjk’s opinion applies in the 1990’s? All those movies you talk about (except Joy Luck Club) were made in the 21st century… No one can deny the pigeonholing of Asian actors into martial-arts role in Hollywood history. I’m glad actors like Sandra Oh and John Cho are breaking the tradition… I loved John Cho especially in TV shows (even though they all get canceled despite the shows being brilliant…)
@Wjk
Milyang (Secret Sunshine) is being submitted to Oscars this year for nomination by the Korea’s movie council. Maybe non-martial art Asian movie will win the foreign film award this year… Having watched the movie, I think it has a good chance (though I’m biased in that I am a RABID Song Kang Ho fan, and Peppermint Candy is one of my all-time favorites…)
The Yahoo movie review board is a hoot! At least one D-War fan has predictably slung the R-word:
All of you who hated the movie are racists, including Jing.
@ Sonagi
… Does that mean I’m a self-hating Korean? Now I know how my Jewish friends feel…
Here’s a beaut over at Yahoo Reviews from vingageblue01:
Well I am japanese and i just saw this movie today..I am shocked and impressed by good picture!
This movie is really terrific!!
I hope ‘D-war’ rocks the world!
And i wanna say
“Dokdo island is certainly belongs to KOREA!!”
All the reviews aside, it ain’t doing any worse than the rest of the stuff out in the US this weekend.
http://boxofficemojo.com/daily/chart/
Let’s see what week 2 brings though.
good input, bumfromkorea.
You got me there, Zonath.
But, it’s still true, dammit !
stky, hundreds of bad movies have opened at least with opening day of a million bucks, based on curiosity and the fact that they secured a lot of screens nationwide.
Actually, D-war’s opening $ reminds me of a lot of Hollywood flops.
1st weekend is crucial. People don’t start revisiting a movie 2 weeks old, unless that movie won an Academy.
It’s all down-hill from this point. Gross will add up, but weekly revenue will be decreasing, and they might lose screens quickly.
If that’s true… The releasing company is already calling this one a lost venture.
I would go outside and watch it in a heartbeat, if Roger Ebert said it was good. But you know what? Ebert usually doesn’t even critique certain movies. And some of them are real bad.
Pigeonholing? More like cornholing. Blatant favoritism. Except for Chuck Norris no whitey ever gets a fair shake. When will the kung fu genre open up? Whitey has the brawn, the charisma and the guts.
C’mon. It’s it really plausible he’s a martial arts superhero?
So what’s the problem?
It certainly sounds better than “Borat”.
US$1.5 million on 2200 screens, opening day, is a flop of massive proportions. And I’ll bet that the take is skewed by strong turnout of ethnic Koreans on the first day — Saturday, after word of mouth gets around from loose-lipped Korean-Americans who don’t understand the national objective at stake here, we will see a drop in box office take.
#17,
Funniest thing I’ve read in a long time.
#19,
I don’t smoke. I’m just willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. The point I was making is that Shim’s movies, like Ed Wood’s, transcend other bad movies. I guess the point I was making is that it’s easy to make a bad movie, but it takes skills to make one that you actually don’t walk out of.
#21,
Hmm, hmm.
1985 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and that’s without uttering one ‘hai ya’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haing_S._Ngor
I was really saddened by his death.
#29,
#30,
That’s pathetic.
31,
The movie was probably released this weekend because it’s one of the slow ones. All the summer blockbusters have run their course at the cinema and few big releases are planned.
Problem is, kids and university students have gone back to class and midterms are just around the corner. Kids are also saving their money because Halloween movies are just a few weeks away.
#32,
Bingo!
Each theater has earned, on average, $681.81. What’s a movie ticket? Eight bucks? That 85 viewers per theater. And how many shows per day? Three or four?
They’d better start selling dried cuttlefish lickety-split so there’s money to pay the employees.
Why in bloody hell would you do that? Because of his track record of making laughable piles of shit, or his record of comparing himself to George Lucas and pretending like he’s amazing the world when he’s actually repulsing it? He’s the last person on earth you should even consider giving the benefit of the doubt to.
The free market would like to respectfully disagree.
Right, and Kerry didn’t do any worse than Bush in 2004. And North Korea’s economy isn’t doing any worse than South Korea’s.
It’s almost as if you’re not aware that math even exists.
the shim hyung rae I remember was a good comedian who had the dream of being accepted as an actor, which was not to be in his generation mostly due to his looks in an immature entertainment industry.
I’d like to see and judge for myself. But not in the theater. Netflix, if it even makes it out, that is. I actually think they’ll lose a lot of screens next week.
what Shim wanted the world to know is that, he was a bae-woo, not a kwang-dae.
Due to whatever circumstances, he now wants to be known as a director.
If I see for myself that this is a horrible movie, then I must criticize him for wasting mankind’s resources.
If I see for myself that this is actually okay for the genre, then I’ll have trouble believing another X-pat in Korea for a long time.
Well, to be honest, I already have my bias.
#38,
Because I think he’s putting on an act. I think he knows his movies are hokey. But, by using whatever marketing strategy he’s following, he’s been able to sell movie tickets in Korea and use that buzz to sell some tickets in the US. It’s a gamble that will either kill his career or allow him to really become known as the ‘George Lucas of Asia’ by his Koreans fans (he is in a sense. After all, George Lucas also makes cheesy movies). I think he thought that by releasing the movie in a slow weekend in the US, he’d get 10 million more out of his movie.
But, I’m not defending him. He might come out a winner, but we risk seeing fewer great Korean productions. It might make Korean movies a harder sell internationally. The movie also risks making Korean products the subject of mockery once again in North America.
correction…the renewed subject of mockery in North America.
Wjk wrote:
Then I guess you will also have trouble ever again believing American movie critics, who do not live in Korea? LINK
The opposite seems to have happened for some disappointed movie goers. A few angry Yahoo reviewers commented that they had gone to see the film based on initial positive reviews at Yahoo.
“If I see for myself that this is actually okay for the genre, then I’ll have trouble believing another X-pat in Korea for a long time.”
Okay for the genre? It’s all relative to the genre it is being associated to and how you would define ‘okay’. For example, I’d say Ed Wood’s movies are ‘okay’ for the genre if the genre in question is bad or campy horror/science fiction/exploitation movies (I’ve seen far worse, some movies were so bad I couldn’t bring myself to watch more than 5 minutes. Plan 9 from Outer Space, for example, was very watchable…but it certainly wasn’t Oscar material). Peter Jackson’s earliest work is quite impressive when you consider how little money he spent on making the films (which is why they are considered small masterpieces of the independent horror movie genre), but you probably won’t want to watch any of them twice in a row.
D-war is being marketed as Korea’s answer to American blockbusters. That’s one of the main reasons I wouldn’t say it’s ‘okay’. Had it been compared to straight to DVD movies, then you might have been able to convince me that it was nothing short of a small masterpiece.
#24,
You forgot Grey’s Anatomy.
It is the height of apologia to now argue that Shim Hyung-Rae is hamming it up over how bad his movie is. He thinks it’s good, and he’s had millions of Korean sheep lining up to throw money at him to reinforce the delusion.
The funniest thing is all the Korean Netizens shooting their own country’s movie industry in the foot by giving this movie good reviews. The more good reviews they give, the more Americans might see the movie and get a bad impression of all Korean movies from now on.
Shim has single handedly blown away all the fledgling gains that all other Korean directors have worked so hard for put together.
From #27:
I’m not sure what its chances are, but “Milyang” is definitely an excellent film, and I’ll be pulling for it at the Oscars. Jeon Do-yeon, Song Kang-ho and director Lee Chang-dong at the top of their game.
What I find more interesting than the failure of this movie, is your apparent glee at its demise. Why is it so important for you to see ‘d-war’ fail? The answer to the question is obvious; because it’s Korean, you want it to fail not because it’s a bad movie, you want it to fail because it’s Korean.
Just like you wanted Korea to lose the world cup. Just like you want Korea to fail economically, just like you wanted those Korean hostages to die.
You want these things for Korea because you care about Korea and want it to a better place.
ps ‘you’ is generic.
****
wjk, don’t blame the Chinese for knowing how make a hit movie here in the us. They understand what Americans want to see when it comes to Asian cinema. Korea does not.
The answer is only obvious to you. There’s plenty of reason to want the film to fail, starting with the director and his “wrap himself in the flag” marketing strategy. Even granting that this year was a bit slow in terms of good Korean film, there were plenty of films I’d like to see succeed in the US, starting with “Secret Sunshine.”
In fact, it anything’s obvious, pawikirogi, it’s that the only reason you’d want it to succeed is, ironically, because it’s Korean, which would make you little different from the “patriotic” netizen twits who bashed on Jin Jung-gwon for having the audacity to point out the film was terrible.
“Except for Chuck Norris no whitey ever gets a fair shake.”
Try Transporter and its sequel..
This movie is the sequel to Oldboy, right?
I want to see a remake of Zontar:Thing From Venus.
“It is the height of apologia to now argue that Shim Hyung-Rae is hamming it up over how bad his movie is. He thinks it’s good, and he’s had millions of Korean sheep lining up to throw money at him to reinforce the delusion.”
Far from it. The difference between him and other hacks who cater to the lowest common denominator is that they have dozens of high-priced ghost writers who can tweak each new edit according to the test audience’s reaction (besides the fact that they know how to tell a story because they went to film school). I doubt Shim had a test audience, but if he did, I’m sure it was Korean kids who were taken by his spiel at the end of the movie and voted accordingly.
#50,
Explain then why I buy Korean movies and send them to my brother? Explain to me why I thought that Oldboy should have been nominated for an Oscar? Explain to my why I think that I wish Yoo Sang-hwan would learn English because I’d love to see him in American movies? Explain to me why I’ve been looking forward to the release of ‘Expat’ for close to 10 years? Explain to me why I have been on Korean movie sets on several occasions?
My disgust for schlock like D-war has nothing to do with its Korean-ness, although I find it frustrating that it contributed to its success. How about supporting good homegrown movies instead of bad ones for once? We’ve got the same problem in Canada. For years, ‘Porky’s’ was the highest grossing Canadian movie…may still be, for that matter. Canadians flocked to see it, so did Americans. Yet, guys like Atom Egoyan, Denis Arcand, and David Cronenberg can’t get the crowds to see their movies on the big screen.
Cheer up, pawi. It’s less sucky than Daddy Day Camp.
#56,
“Daddy Day Camp, a comedy for no ages, has an amazing amount of CGI — Cuba Gooding Incompetence.”
LOL.
As a Korean, I want it to fail because it’s a bad movie and because it’s Korean. I daresay the same goes for several others here. See #48.
If a shameless steaming pile of cinematic shite like D-War succeeds, it’s a kick in the face to the rest of the Korean film industry.
My only hope is that Shim, along with anyone of his ilk who similarly doesn’t have a clue, will learn something from D-War’s performance. At the very least, may it sink quietly into obscurity.
Stop being paranoid. It’s that delusional director and all his sheeps that are shooting themselves in the foot.
From the start this movie was a failure, it’s his fault for promoting it abroad to be ridiculed by Americans.
And stop attaching nationalistic sentiments to a movie. At the end of the day, it’s just a movie.
Only Pawi’s mind would conjure up a connection between the hostage crisis and D-War.
#60 - It’s not hard… I daresay shelling out for and sitting through this movie is very much like being held hostage in Afghanistan for almost a month.
Aww damnit! I forgot to put a smiley face at the end of my post, so that the more humorless and literalist of the commentators here (you know who you are) don’t take it too seriously.
Saw your review on Yahoo, bumfrom Korea:
Why in heaven’s name, then, did you give the movie an overall rating of A+???
It’s true I would like to see a Korean movie succeed here because it’s Korean. I knew D-War wouldn’t be that movie because it isn’t set in the past.
That’s something chungmuro doesn’t get; Americans want to see Asian movies set in the past so they can take a look at a different culture. They don’t want to see Asians imitate everything western.
Why don’t Koreans make a historical action movie chock full of Korean art and exaggerated hanbok? That kind of movie would have a chance here.
PS: wanting to see someone succeed because of who they are is a lot different than wanting someone to fail because of who they are.
I tip my hat to Shim for his effort. At least he tried. At least he made the attempt.
Man! If Koreans took the advice of your average westerner in Korea, they’d still be eating bark off of trees.
Bottom line pawi: The scorn, criticism, and schaudenfreude for Shim and D-War come from two things. One, the massive disconnect between his public attitude/boasting, and the actual reality of his obviously sub-par film. And two, his shameless, pathetic use of nationalism to drum up support. It has nothing to do with who he is or the fact that he’s Korean, so quit crying racism.
Honestly, I don’t care about directors that make crap movies. It’s so common in Hollywood and everywhere else in the world that it’s barely worth mentioning. 95% of films are pure shit. But I do care about a director making a crap movie, and then going on a public relations blitz declaring what an incredible, ground-breaking, world-amazing film they’ve made when the reality is light years away from that self-serving, delusional bullshit. Mentioning George Lucas, or Jurassic Park, or Lord of the Rings in the same sentence with his own piles of shit is an insult to those people and their talent, and he deserves to be called out for declaring himself a cinematic genius when he’s obviously quite the opposite.
If Shim weren’t out there pumping himself up and bragging about having artistic merit when he is clearly a failure without an ounce of talent, I wouldn’t give him a second glance and could care less. But the fact is, he was stupid and vain enough to make those comparisons, and so he deserves the heat and criticism he’s getting for publicly making a complete ass of himself.
And yes, Shim does get credit for making the effort. But that means very little in light of the fact that not only did his effort fail miserably, but he’s so stupid and blind as to believe that his failed effort is actually a massive, world-beating success.
Shim Hyung-Rae may not have amazed the world, but I am amazed. Box Office Mojo reports a weekend box office estimate of almost US$5.4 million, with a per-screen average a little over $700 on Friday and Sunday, but $932 on Saturday. I would have thought that word of mouth would have killed this movie so quickly that Saturday would have dropped, but it looks like the tepid attendance did not decline like I predicted.
Now, remember that each screen shows the movie at least four times a day (five or six on weekends). That means each theater showing Dragon Wars had about twenty-five bums in seats (possibly literally) for each screening of the film. The financial performance is absolutely pathetic.
Here’s a question: How did the distributor of Dragon Wars convince American theater owners to take up this movie with so many screens? Was there a guarantee offered? A guarantee is a kind of bribe, so given the source of this film one has to wonder.
Ridiculous, as usual. The Republic of Korea, the part of the peninsula most open to Western ideas and advice, has become prosperous; the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, land of “our own style” ideas of Juche and Korean pride, is where they eat bark. Yet you blame Whitey.
Distribution companies lease screens, and guarantee the theater owner a percentage of the box office. With most big studios, it works on a decreasing percentage scale. Opening weekend, the studios take 80% (or more like 90-95% with huge films like Shrek, Spiderman, Pirates, etc) and theater owners take the rest. Each weekend thereafter, the take decreases for the studio and increases for the theater. By the 6-week mark, the %s are about opposite, with the theater owner taking 75% and studio 25%.
D-War was able to get into 2000+ theaters by very likely increasing the % to theater owners on the first few weekends, because it’s a given that it won’t be in theaters for 6 weeks and even if it is, it won’t be making money anyway. The Korean media will buy the bullshit that opening on a lot of screens equals success, when in fact just about any distribution company or studio can get any pile of shit in 2000 theaters by jacking up the % and picking a weekend with no alternatives.
The other factor was that this was the absolute worst weekend of the whole year for opening films, with only The Brave One having any potential at all. There’s no way D-War opens in 2000 theaters anywhere between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Not a chance. Theater owners gave it space because there was literally no other alternatives this weekend. Mr. Woodcock? Across the Universe? Eastern Promises?
It was a graveyard, and still the per-screen-average was awful, and will fall off a cliff next week. Guaranteed.
@ Sonagi
Because I’m a Korean.
…
Just kidding. I don’t know why they did that… I rated F for everything except visual (C-), but I guess Yahoo decided that my ratings didn’t fit the pattern with the rest of the review with “Korea” in its screenname.
Wrong. The Koreans who don’t take the advice of westerners are still eating barks off of trees.
As always, we’re here to help. An occasional thanks would be nice though. Shipping that movie to the U.S. is more like flipping us the bird.
Typical pawi logic. You think the advice from westerners in this case is “Don’t make films, don’t make money, and starve.”
Here’s actual advice from this westerner: Quit the nationalistic pandering on all levels. It distorts the free market and allows sub-par crap to succeed where it should otherwise fail and lowers the reputation of Korean products in general. And more importantly, try to integrate some honesty and integrity into the process of assessing the accomplishments and failures of your own countrymen. The current process of blind support and rampant jingoistic cheer leading by the overwhelming majority of the culture in general and the media in particular has led to nothing but mass delusion and inability to be critical for fear of losing one’s uri nara cred.
And if you look carefully pawi, all the above can be accomplished without having to devour a single bowl of bark soup. Imagine that.
Part of the problem is that some MSM like the NYT are publishing generous reviews that barely hint at how awful the movie really is:
http://movies.nytimes.com/2007.....amp;emc=th
Likewise, early Yahoo user reviews raved about the movie, giving it an A+. Some later Yahoo reviewers complained that they were taken in by the glowing first reviews.
I read Amazon book reviews before purchasing. It took me a little while to figure out that there are professional reviewers who are paid to give 5-star ratings to books. An easy way to check whether the reviewer is legit is to click on their username to see other reviews.
My bet is that a guarantee was offered to the theater owners. I mean we are talking about a director who is little known outside of the States touting a movie that has questionable value. To the American theater owners, this is a high risk item. So, no American theater owner will agree to give his/her screen unless there were some guarantees to cover that risk. Besides, the guy got millions of funding from the chaebols and spent 30 million of that to produce the movie, so to him spreading a few million to the theater owners to satisfy his long held dream of showing a monster movie in the States is something worth investing in.
Besides, we are also talking a guy who is rumored to have paid off Korean netizens to put up good reviews of his movie at major Internet portals.
So basically, the only reason why an awesome Korean movie like The Host couldn’t get 2000+ screens is because the actors weren’t white?
Understandable reality, but aweful nonetheless. I just hope demographics continually change for the better.
Given the fact that D-War already made a considerable chunk of change in Korea, the approach to the US and international markets is not based on generating more revenue, but rather is purely a search for pride points and giving Shim more grist for his domestic marketing mill.
Their distributor likely gave up 50-60% of the box just to get a wide release. Theater owners aren’t that picky in obviously weak cycles, and would gladly take a 75% opening weekend cut no matter who offered it. If the options are 75% of D-War or 15% of Mr. Woodcock, that’s a no-brainer.
Theater owners increase profits and lower their risk, and Shim uses the opening to declare himslef a “World-Famous Superstar Director” and points to 2300 screens and the biggest-ever opening of a Korean film in the US as his proof.
Netizens swallow it whole, brag to their English teachers about Steven Spielberg being terrified of Shim winning all the Oscars, and the sheep flood to the theater in droves when Shim makes his inevitably awful sequel….F-War, known in the US as FISH WARS!
JW, thank you for bring that up.
Zonath, take notes.
Mr. Min, would Mr. Shim sink that low?
I’d like to believe otherwise, but I’ll make my judgment later.
Mr. Bevers. Basically, rotten tomatoe or not, I don’t believe anybody except Roger Ebert.
And myself.
#75 & #77
Oh come on. Point to any other non-English-language film made by a director (with actors) who are more or less unknown in America that’s gotten onto 2000+ screens before it won an Oscar, and maybe I’ll start believing your self-righteous (and self-indulgent) cries of institutional racism.
Regarding #75: I was going to say, it’s because films like “The Host” are foreign-language films, not because they aren’t white. There are plenty of good foreign films made by very white people in Europe that get no play in the states because they’re in a language other than English. Sad testament to the sophistication of the US movie-watching public it may be, but no need to play the race card.
A relevant link.
And just out of curiosity, how many screens did “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “Hero” and “Memoirs of a Geisha” open to in the US?
Interesting statement. I’ll let people ponder that for a little.
PS: I saw Danny Boyle’s “Sunshine” last night on DVD. Not a bad little film.
#70:
“Crouching Tiger” opened on 16 screens in the US, and peaked at 2,027 more than three months later.
“Hero” opened on 2,031 screens and peaked at 2,175 a couple weeks later.
“Memoirs” opened on 1,547 screens (after a couple weeks in limited release) and peaked at 1,654 screens a couple weeks after.
All data’s from IMDB.
Grr. that should be #79, not #70…
yeah, right. when korea wanted to build ships, whitey* said to stick to clothes.
korea is where it is today precisely because it didn’t take whitey’s advice.
nothing white about a ship. nothing white about a car. get?
*your word, not mine.
kj
Robert, that is utter bullshit and you know it. If language was the basic issue then The Host would have been dubbed and released to 2000 screens in a heartbeat. Acting, plot, special effects all came together like magic in that movie and it still couldn’t get a major release for the sole basic reason that it wasn’t white. Can you imagine a black foreign but dubbed version of The Host getting 2000 screens? The closer to white, and white-american in particular, the more appealing it becomes. I can’t believe you won’t admit to that reality.
Hero and Crouching Tiger only amp up my side of the viewpoint.
It was pretty hard for me to gather Korean or White friends to watch Letters from Iwo Jima. This, also in a foreign language, but this, also, having nothing to do with moo-sul.
It was pretty easy to gain a concensus on watching yet another Jet Li movie.
Very easy.
Oh and just to rehash what was implied in my first post is that I had no clue it was so easy to secure a major release in America. Until now I thought it was quite simply hard for a foreign film to get 2000 screens period. But obviously, Shim’s farce of a movie is proving otherwise.
@ JW
That’s not necessarily true… plenty of awesome European movies get shut out in American market because they don’t speak English, and American people “don’t want to read at the theaters”… I guess this also explains why some British movies make it in America…
For example… No Man’s Land, a wonderful Bosnian movie, despite winning crapload of awards including Cannes and Oscars, didn’t get little to no public attention in U.S.
And Robert, you can’t really call Memoirs of a Geisha a foreign film, considering the production, directing, and everything else except actors and Yo Yo Ma were Americans… Not to mention the original work being written by an American author.
Oh boy… any non-American produced Asian movies that was successful in U.S. that isn’t a martial arts film?
Sunshine was brilliant… it reminded me of an old movie called Solar Crisis, albeit with considerably less depth than Sunshine.
Is it bullshit? Let’s take a look at the US stats for Pan’s Labyrinth, a film that actually won three Oscars and was nominated for three others:
Opening Weekend:
$779,427 (USA) (31 December 2006) (17 Screens)
You read that right — 17 screens.
Peak:
$3,577,283 (USA) (11 February 2007) (1,143 Screens)
Which, coincidentally, is a lot better than the film that actually won Best Foreign Language Film, “Das Leben der Anderen,” a very white German film. Its stats?
Opening Weekend:
$213,589 (USA) (11 February 2007) (9 Screens)
It ended up grossing in the US $11,282,040.
Haha, technically, since Pan’s Labyrinth is set in civil war-era Spain, you really can’t make that argument.
Not to belabor this point, but not only do foreign language films generally get dissed at the US box office, but even English-language films in accents other than American apparently need to be careful. For example, the afore mentioned “Sunshine”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.....07_film%29
Roger Ebert taught me one very important life lesson when I was 13 or so. He said that the caramel popcorn and cheddar-cheese popcorn from Karmelcorn taste wonderful when mixed together in a big bag for a Saturday matinee. Roger was right as rain on that one.
#77. @wjk.
As I said, it’s just a rumor. It may be proved false or it may come true. But from what I’ve seen of events in Korea lately, rumors have a strange tendency to come true.
i’d just like to point out that the american release title of this movie is ‘dragon wars’, so if ‘d-war’ was indeed ever the second most searched for item on yahoo, then you can probably guess in less than three tries who was doing all the searching.
“If language was the basic issue then The Host would have been dubbed and released to 2000 screens in a heartbeat. Acting, plot, special effects all came together like magic in that movie and it still couldn’t get a major release for the sole basic reason that it wasn’t white.”
Dude, have you ever watched a dubbed movie? 99 out of 100 times, it makes an otherwise watchable movie totally suck. We used to get foreign films dubbed in French on Radio Canada(French language CBC). It was painful to watch…except for Slapshot and the Flintstones since the producers had the good idea of dubbing these movies in French-Canadian slang, which the voice actors did marvelously. Speaking of which…if it’s a skin colour thing only, then explain to me why it is that French-Canadian movies aren’t huge hits with Anglophones in Canada and the US?
BTW, I was disappointed when I saw the Host. My Korean friends said it was scary. I expected something very dark, which it isn’t. It’s actually quite campy. If felt like a mix of American 1950’s horror movies with mid to late 90’s Korean comedies.
Pawkirogi:
Nothing to worry about. Whether D-War fails or not is irrelevant; Shim will continue to live his dream by making movies, while most of these guys will continue to vent their frustration at failing in life by taking shots at his movies.
It’s all in good fun. Mins, Blueballs, and the rest of the village people are generating publicity for Shim’s movie by talking about it. Will anyone ever say the same about a movie by any of them?
These guys invested their time by watching the movie and time in writing their little blogland comments about the movie. They’ve invested time in Shim and his work by thinking and talking about it. Shim, by contrast, has not even invested a second in anything created by Mins, Blueballs or the rest.
Compared to anything these guys have done, Shim has already won. And its not even over. Shim will only continue to get better and better.(He can’t possibly make a movie worse than D-War.
) The Marmots Hole trolls? Most of them peaked in high school.