Dream of a Warrior
Director: Park Hee-joon
Year: 2001
Rating: 3.0
Country: Korea
I watched
this about twenty-years ago when it first came out on DVD and I didn't remember
much other than it made no sense to me. But I figured that now that I am
older, wiser, more mature, less judgmental and yes not as thin, my opinion
might be different. Yup. As clear as mud. I could better explain how children
are procreated than this film and I know nothing about that subject except
how it gets started and I expect some old girlfriends would disagree. But
it just isn't me. I checked a few other reviews and everybody basically said
this is one of the worst films ever. A misbegotten travesty of a film. It
is a Korean film but they somehow managed to acquire the services of Hong
Kong star Leon Lai. The only actor who has fewer expressions than Keanu Reeves.
Keanu has two, Leon has one and it really isn't an expression at all - just
him keeping his eyes open and his mouth shut. The odd thing is that over
the years they have both grown on me and I watch their films. Proof that
man can used to anything - even a skin rash. Here of course Leon is dubbed
(I assume) into Korean, so that was probably a plus.
This is hilariously bad. It is as if Robert
Howard, the author of the Conan books, produced a TV pilot in the early 1960s
with cheap cardboard sets, special effects stolen from Dr. Who and a bizarre
plot on some planet with a huge orange moon and warriors fighting with swords
and magic. Which actually sounds ok - if it made any frigging sense. It seems
to begin sort of in the present and sort of on earth - and the cop cars are
chasing some terrorists on motorcycles. Leon is one of the cops along with
his buddy. They corner them in a steel cargo storage area and kill most of
the terrorists but then one of them pulls out a bazooka from her back pocket
and takes out a few police cars and a helicopter and is about to kill Leon
when his friend shoots her though the head. Now this really has nothing to
do with the plot but then it sort of does.
Now is when it gets weird. A scientist has
invented a device that allows us to go into the past or future and meet yourself
in a past or future life. Who would really want to do that? Someone who looks
just like you. The scientist tried it with his beautiful daughter (Park Eun-hye)
but she got lost somehow. And Leon is asked to go find her because their
past lives have a connection. But before that let's spend the next hour of
the film checking out this past life - that mysteriously is on another planet.
The planet of Dilmoon which is on the verge of war with Paxtos. Here Leon
is a warrior third class - a Lorin and is in love with daughter of the ruler
who is played by Eun-hye but he is too low class as everyone in the film
constantly tells him. The Senate decides to attack Paxtos first - with seven
soldiers against tons of well-trained killers. Maybe not a great idea.
Among the seven are Leon, his buddy from
earth and the female terrorist who the buddy falls in love with not knowing
that he kills her in the future. She is played by Lee Na-young, the wonderful,
adorable nerd in Please Teach Me English. It is all so cheap. The fight between
the two forces takes place in a warehouse with a few walls put up to turn
it into a labyrinth. When some of them are about to be killed, they have
flashbacks to when they were happier - about two minutes before. Then the
first Leon is sent to find her - you have six hours before you will disintegrate
into a thousand pieces - I look at the time left in the film. Six minutes.
So, the big save gets a lousy six minutes? I need a flashback to before I
watched this film. I was so much happier then. I will give it another
go in twenty years. I will be senile by then which may help.
