Dragon Wars follows a number of different storylines, most of which are connected by only the most tangential and implausible plot contrivances. The ostensible lead character is Ethan Kendrick, a reporter for a network based on CNN, though its ramshackle offices look more like those of a student newspaper. As a boy, Ethan meets a wise antique shop owner named Jack who instantly (and, like most of what happens in Dragon Wars, inexplicably) realizes that Ethan is a reincarnated warrior fated to do battle with dragons and demons. Now, the adult Ethan covers a story in which he realizes that dragons are now here on Earth, and it is time for him to face his destiny. This destiny involves taking a young woman named Sarah (Ethan's reincarnated lover from 500 years ago) to someplace called "the Grand Cave," and fighting off both an evil warlord named Buraki and an overzealous FBI agent who knows Sarah's true nature and wants to kill her. Most importantly, it places Ethan right at the center of the action when hundreds of dragons gather in Los Angeles to mow the city down in their hunt for Sarah.

There are a lot of other subplots and supporting characters in the film, and a lot of very funny (some intentional, some not) moments thanks to the filmmakers' commitment to pace and pyrotechnics at all cost. Dragon Wars is designed to move, and move it does—there isn't a slow moment in it, because the story never slows down to explain exactly what the hell is going on (one of the biggest laughs comes when Jack gives a young Ethan some backstory and Ethan says "what are you talking about?"—a question burning in the audience's minds as well). The movie also has some hilariously stilted dialogue; it stars American actors but was written and directed by Korean filmmaker Hyung Rae Shim, and his command of the English language (or lack thereof) makes the whole film sound as though the performers are reading subtitles. Yet to the actors' credit, they play their odd exchanges with utter sincerity—which makes the movie's more ridiculous moments all the funnier. Robert Forster, the most reliable character actor on planet Earth, provides some genuine wit as Jack, and Chris Mulkey is equally terrific as the most serious FBI agent in the history of movies.

Of course, the most colorful characters in the movie are the computer-generated dragons, who are surprisingly expressive, scary villains (of course, they have the benefit of not being weighted down by the script's leaden dialogue). Then there are the action set pieces, which are truly thrilling at times. The blend of CGI dragons and human actors is more convincing than one might expect, and the sheer scale of the spectacle is awe-inducing. This is not a "less is more" movie—it's a glorious celebration of the theory that more is more, and the incomprehensibility of the storyline pays off when all the seemingly unrelated threads of the plot come together in action sequences that make Transformers look like My Dinner With Andre. Helicopters, tanks, cars, dragons, soldiers, and some creatures so weird I couldn't figure out what the hell they were (although they looked an awful lot like the lizards the Stormtroopers rode in the original Star Wars) all do battle in a violent, kinetic special effects freakout. The most impressive thing about the movie's lengthy wars of the title is that they're visually, if not narratively, coherent—explaining the logic of the premise takes some work, but Hyung Rae Shim always keeps us acclimated as to who is fighting who, and it makes for a viscerally charged climax as satisfying as what one would find in any of the numerous films that Dragon Wars rips off. In the end the movie's pleasures are pretty simple, as Dragon Wars' greatest value is as an outlet for people who just want to see a lot of shit get smashed to bits—it's admittedly pretty dumb, but in the end its fierce commitment to its own goofy ideas is oddly admirable.