The legend is somewhat abstract, as mythical Asian legends sometimes go. The Imoogi are mythical serpents that have the ability to transform into celestial dragons once every 500 years by merging with the human girl born with Yeouijoo, the magical property that allows the transformation to take place. The girl must sacrifice herself to the Good Imoogi to accomplish this. 500 years ago, this girl was Narin and her protectors were Bochun, an old man, and his protégé, Haram, who eventually falls in love with Narin. As fate would have it, a Bad Imoogi, Buraki, decides he wants the Yeouijoo for himself and uses his minions to destroy Narin's village to get to her. Haram spirits her away and the two commit suicide to prevent Buraki from transforming.
Jump to present day where we meet Ethan Kendrick (Jason Behr), a local reporter and cute guy. As he is investigating a strange occurrence where a lot of property was unexplicably destroyed, he sees a large reptilian scale that triggers a distant memory of a time when he was young and a local antique dealer, Jack, shared with him the story of the Imoogi. As it turns out, Ethan is Haram reincarnated and Jack is Bochun. Now Ethan, seeing that the Buraki has returned and is reaking havoc on L.A., must find Narim's reincarnation before the Buraki does.
This sets about a crazy chain of events where a local girl, Sarah Daniels (Amanda Brooks), who is Narim reincarnated, starts having crazy visions and seems to be protected by various people, all of whom are the shape-shifting Jack. Eventually, the Buraki's main minion locates Sarah, and Ethan must do whatever he can to protect her, while fighting feelings for her since he knows she must sacrifice herself for the good of the world. Also, the FBI and military get involved in battling the serpents and the various evil creatures dredged up to help Buraki.
The special effects of the serpents/dragons look pretty good, especially once you realize that they were all done by the director of the movie himself in his home-grown art studio in Korea. Hyung-rae Shim is a comic actor in Korea whose dream was to bring the legend of the Imoogi to the big screen. It took several long years of hard work and much persuading, but he finally got his movie made. He writes and directs the film, along with doing the CG and that alone is quite impressive. Watching his making-of featurette, you can see Dragon Wars was truly a labor of love for him. Now, while Koreans may see this film and love it because it is the embodiment of a legend they've heard all their lives, most people who see it are going to think more along the lines of a Sci-Fi Channel movie, but with better special effects. The acting was decent, but I just never really found myself caring too much what happened to the characters. It was a little boring. I also never really understood why the Korean Imoogis felt the need to play their legend out in Los Angeles, but I guess everybody wants to go to Hollywood at least once, right?
If you love dragons, are interested in Korean legend or just really dig Sci-Fi Channel movies, Dragon Wars might be up your alley. Otherwise, it's probably not for you. However, if you decide to rent it and you have a Blu-ray player, you may as well view it in hi-def since the CG really is impressive considering this is not a big budget Hollywood blockbuster.
