Dragon Fighter (2003 Video) User Reviews

Could have been good...

[sarastro7 · 4/10 · 27 May 2004]

The first 45 minutes of Dragon Fighter are entirely acceptable and surprisingly watchable. The characters are believable and interesting. The cloning lab looks really high-tech. After that, it all collapses. The characters start behaving idiotically, and a new subplot is introduced from nowhere about a fusion reactor (and this is supposedly "present day") going critical, the only plot justification of which is that it is required to kill the dragon - only it doesn't. The finish is incredibly weak. One wonders what made a movie that started out so well turn so wrong.

All the characters except Dean Cain are played by Russians. This results in some weird situations and details, like the character being played by Vessela Dimitrova being called "Bailey Kent" despite her heavy accent (and despite her, on one occasion, inexplicably switching to *Spanish*!).

Because of the decent start, I considered rating this movie a 5, but it really was more disappointing than that, so I only give it 4.

OH YUCK!

[Billy-116 · 2/10 · 24 January 2004]

The bad out takes from "Reign of Fire" strung together, without any real story.

Dean Cain tries to be a real actor, and fails again.

In the end the dragons quit in disgust.

BARF!

Watch out Dean, there's fire coming your way!

[monkeysontoast · 3/10 · 22 July 2006]

I caught this movie on Sci-Fi before heading into work. If you've any interest in seeing Dean Cain dive and avoid being enveloped in flames at least a dozen times, this movie is for you. If that doesn't peak your interest, well, I'm afraid you'll wish that YOU were the one about to be enveloped in flames, because this movie is pretty bad. The acting, to begin with, is awful, awful, awful. The characters are all completely obnoxious, and the dialogue is worse than your typical Z-grade, Sci-Fi movie. Towards the end, the movie began to remind me of 'Hollow Man' (complete with escape via elevator shaft), except with a Dragon, not a naked, invisible man. Unlike other similar flicks, however, this one wasn't even awesomely bad...it was just plain bad.

Really crappy!

[cujo2 · 27 May 2004]

I like B movies and seeing the guy on the front of the cover that used to play superman and the UFO films logo had warned me not to keep my hopes up. As an extra twist they made the dragon on the DVD box appear as the DRAGO dragon from dragon heart, what a ripoff.

Anyway, warned that this was gonna be a B movie I braced myself for a laugh or 2 and an entertaining view and yes all the elements were there. Bad FX all around, crappy storyline and uninteresting characters. I can all live with that but this flick took itself way too serious. So after some 90 ish minutes I watched most of it on fast forward and was served a cool little..big , no little whoops bigger dragon ( the volume shifting was a pain, dragon itself was reasonable.) The 24 thing with the split screens to hide uninteresting padding dialogue wasn't any help either.

When you rent a UFO films made product you know you are gonna watch a B movie, so production values aren't important. However an interesting story, an interesting hero and love for the product is very important. This is an uninteresting crap film that has been made for pocket change with no love for the genre whatsoever. Not worth a watch.

Bad doesn't begin to describe this.

[Vitarai · 1/10 · 5 January 2003]

I mistakenly kept myself awake late last night watching this thing. About the only thing I could say good about this horrid film is that it could be used by film schools to show how not to make a movie. No proper character development, wait, I'm not even sure they were characters. Set-ups were hokey and inane, and the overuse of split screens was wasted since sometimes they couldn't even synchronize with alternate shots. If I could give this a zero or minus rating I would. Sadly, it isn't even worth the time for a few laughs.

It's just a sad example of money wasted by Hollywood, and now I waste my time even thinking about it.

mild appeal of B movie that isn't pretentious

[drystyx · 3/10 · 15 February 2008]

This is a formula B science fiction movie, and the director made no bones about it. It is about a dragon who is restored to life by a scientific team. Everything done is stuff you've seen many times before. It is a weak script, with no real characters. In fact, it is full of stereotype characters and situations. The director attacks this by just making it a formula movie, with no attempt to fool us, and that gives this movie a mild appeal, but it isn't something you're likely to remember a while. It is best seen while you're cooking, cleaning, working out. Sort of mindless fun. It has its place in entertainment, but it certainly isn't something you sit down with friends to watch, unless you're all just drunk and don't care. The mass rating of 3.2 is probably fair. I don't think it is as crappy as most people, but I am surprised that some people in the postings thought this was spectacular. That really eludes me, as I see no attempt to even make this a memorable film.

I think Dean Cain hates me

[fortey · 1/10 · 20 February 2003]

Why else would he do this to me?

Not that I expect Dean Cain to produce hit movies. Or even decent movies. I saw Lois and Clark, I am aware of just how... "good" Dean Cain is.

Obviously this is gonna be a cheesey flick, and each cheesey flick has its own special way to make you scratch your head. I will not call these spoilers as you can't really spoil this movie any more than it already is.

To begin with... why is that a fake helicopter? I mean... why?

How come that one scientist is from Chicago and that other scientist is from LA and neither one could be any more eastern european if they tried? How hard would it have been to get either an american actor, or just change that lame state sheet the movie provides us with to say those people aren't american?

Why are there 2 occasions when the movie gives us a slug line? We get helipad-day and then mess hall-day later on. And then that's it, who cares about the timeline. To be honest, who cared about it even when they mentioned it, but I guess that's beside the point.

Does a movie really get better if you are able to view it through multiple split screens? The answer is no.

That dragon sure can walk down that hall..over..and over...and over....and over...

Who on earth was responsible for one of the worst endings in film history? It was straight out of scooby doo. Oh, the dragon's dead now...say, wanna get dinner? Sure, but not at some Chinese place....with Dragon in the name!! AH HA HA HA!! HA HA HA!! HAHA HA! I used to be Superman! AHA HA HA! HA HA!

fade to black

my god, it made me cringe it was so stupid.

But never fear..even though the whole building exploded...and no one was left alive..for some reason there's a second untouched, unmanned lab that survived pretty well, so they can make a sequel. Hurray for us all.

Fondue.... Take one part cheese (the movie) and one part fire....

[LeathermanCraig · 4/10 · 24 January 2004]

OK.... I just have 3 words - cheesy, cheesy and CHEESY! The only redeeming feature of this movie is Dean Cain. Other than that - it's CHEESEBALL SUPREME!!!!

The movie DOES have some promise in the concept - an underground lab creates a real live fire breathing dragon - basically giving us more of "Jurassic Park" meets "Reign of Fire"..... There are some great possibilities, but they just don't follow through.... The special effects are decent - even though you KNOW the dragon is CGI, it doesn't horribly LOOK like CGI....

I wouldn't lay the blame on Dean Cain (although he IS one of the producers), I'd lay more of the blame on Phillip Roth - the director and writer. It's HIS job to make this film.... and, unfortunately, he failed.

A THREE HOUR DRAGON

[nogodnomasters · 3/10 · 19 April 2018]

During the reign of Henry I, southern England had a fire breathing dragon issue which they managed to kill by trapping it in a cave. Now in present day California in a top secret underground facility (filmed in Bulgaria) scientist plan on bringing the species back to life from its DNA. Capt. David Carver (Dean Cain) is the helicopter pilot and in charge of security. He wasn't told what the mission was about, although he figured it out himself. As the person in charge of security he has no weapon, don't know where they are, and has no idea about the plans of the facility and is called, "a guest." He spends most of his time bird dogging Dr. Meredith Winter (Kristine Byers) because all the best dragon stories are love stories.

The film seemed like it was made for kids to watch on Saturday morning, except they toss in the F-word as an easy way to get an adult rating, because kids prefer to watch adult rated films more than kid rated films. The acting and script was bad. I watched this film as part of a sci-fi 12 pack.

This movie is crap-tastic

[a_jshurmon · 1/10 · 15 January 2012]

I wish I could accurately express in words how much you should not watch this movie, but i cannot accurately express this in the English language. any words in any of the two languages i know would be insulting the language, no quiero hacer eso! the plot is stupid, the effects are crap, and if you think about it, the dragon is the hero(ine)! she's trying to protect herself from a group of maniacs armed with shotguns trying to mercilessly kill her, or worse probe her and turn her into a sort of science display gone wrong! the main characters are a lazy drunk, a crazy, dragon obsessed Nazi, a lady-Nazi, and the 2 characters that survive are a security captain, who doesn't have any guns, and a biologist who, completely and illogically has somehow logged 1,200, yes TWELVE HUNDRED flight hours with a helicopter, yet she also remarks that she's only landed ONCE. and the nail in the coffin for this movie is that in the credits for the film is that this is in memory of someone. whoever slapped that on there needs to be bludgeoned to death, as this movie is the worse way to remember someone. so yeah, if at all possible, avoid the movie like a plague, and if you have seen this movie already, warn others, so they can avoid losing 90 minutes of their lives to this piece.

A "B" movie with enjoyable action...

[Jake_barnes · 9/10 · 3 March 2004]

Don't take it too seriously, and you'll have fun... the actors do their jobs very well, despite tough conditions, and lax direction. What you have here is essentially -- a number of good actors, notably Dean Cain and Hristo Shopov, both very accomplished with work in VERY good films, fulfilling their jobs as ACTORS in a less-than-Academy Award level stuff. It's a classic case of "doing the job..." As Michael Caine said: "why do you make all these movies...?" Answer: "Because I'm an actor..."

Lame of fire

[lordzedd-3 · 6/10 · 2 June 2007]

I got to admit, the movie wasn't all bad. The dragon was a cool design and the plot is classic Jurassic Park territory. But this movie is far from perfect. Like somebody didn't do their research about gun power. It wasn't around in the 12th century. Second, the split screens that they thought would make it more interesting only made it annoying. Lastly, the dragons may not be human, but it doesn't automatically make them monsters either. Why do dragon always have to be the bad guys in these movies? Poor Dean Cain from Superman to stooge in b-movies. He's better then the roles he's been in as of late. Let's hope someone picks him for something better and let's hope there isn't a DRAGON FIGHTER 2. A mere 6 STARS.

Painful

[Solodell · 1/10 · 19 March 2003]

This movie is some of the worst crap I have ever seen. I literally got a sharp pain in my head while watching this movie. The CGI was awful, and the story was just a waste of ink. Dean Cain's character was Mr-Super-Intuitive-I-can-figure-out-anything, except he can't seem to work his own helicopter correctly. The biggest problem was the split screen camera work. I felt like I was watching the Brady Bunch or something, only it wasn't different people in the boxes, just close ups and different views of the same thing. I can only figure that the actors really needed the money, because this movie wasn't worth the film it was shot on.

Not terrible, but scientifically flawed

[Katatonia · 26 March 2003]

I really wanted to like this movie, and i was entertained to a point. But, there are tons of things very wrong with this movie.

There is a very annoying split-screen style that occurs every so often during the movie, showing different camera angles of the scenes. Inventive yes, but i found it quite distracting and just plain annoying to watch it in that fashion.

Another thing is the cloning of the "Dragon" so rapidly. How could something go from a single DNA strand into a multi-ton beast within a few hours? Let's forget that it is basically scientifically impossible, but where was it going to get so much raw organic material to produce that level of exponential growth? This isn't the first time in a movie that they've leaped over the seemingly obvious scientific facts, hoping that the dummies out there wouldn't care or notice.

The ending was equally as troublesome, military airplanes shooting down the Dragon? That reminds me of what happened in the horrible movie "Retillian". At the very end we see soldiers (or scientists) exploring the underground facility which was blown up by a Nuclear core meltdown that was 53% of Hiroshima, right after our heroes escaped. When the soldiers go in, the facility only appears to be mildly damaged...how they could even go into it at all is beyond me.

Anything positive about the film? Well, the beginning of the movie that takes place during medieval times is decent, and the Dragon CGI effects are fairly believable except for a few scenes. The acting is admirable, but that in and of itself fails to help the weak plot.

This is far from the worst film i've ever seen, but i wouldn't recommend it or give a seal of approval. It's worth a single viewing for fans of sci-fi movies, but for everyone else...just forget Dragon Fighter.

You might just like it.

[doctorsmoothlove · 4/10 · 25 May 2020]

"Dragon Fighter" is a forgotten Sy-Fy channel film from the early 21st century. It has a unique premise: a team of scientists specializing in cloning animals receive the bones of a modern "dinosaur" they resurrect that turns out to be a dragon. They escape the bunker where the secret lab is situated to flee the dragon in a helicopter. The dragon is later killed by fighter jets, hence the title. The main character, played by Dean Cain, does fight the dragon when necessary but the air force takes it down.

The opening moments are right out of Renaissance festival. A group of knights in homemade costumes fight a CGI dragon that is only capable of appearing in a few re-used shots. The open sets you up for the strange turn the movie later takes. Most of the picture takes place in modern times in the lab. The director, Phillip Roth, frequently films multiple characters in a scene from a different perspective with all images shown on screen at once. One of the mini-frames will eventually take over the entire shot until the next transition. It's an interesting gimmick to make up for the lack of story until the dragon appears. Roth occasionally plays around with fish eye lenses and full circle camera moment. The playfulness makes up for the pedestrian script riddled with stereotypes.

Characters often insult each other in their dialog. The screenplay is nearly an exercise in seeing which character can one-up the other. After dragon's arrival, the script takes a further nosedive in describing where it will go and the layout of the bunker. The bunker has several airducts near which the dragon could be resting. We don't really get a sense for where these are in the complex. It is underground and has an abandoned bomb Shelton on top of it and something else below?

The film's true bad movie night quality lies in the CGI and the main female character. There is a shot of the dragon moving through a corridor that is repeated at least four times. My girlfriend noted that its coloring and size vary depending on which shot it is featured. The main female character has a hilarious outtake near the ending where she seemingly forgets a line then saves it. She also wears a capri top in spite of the government funding behind this project.

"Dragon Fighter" is just weird enough to watch. Not recommended of course. Yet it has that weird quality many Bulgarian films of this ear often had. It's imaginative enough to keep you motivated to finish. In earlier decades, this would have been an inner-city sleeper hit.

Bad,bad,bad

[Aldarad · 2/10 · 25 October 2003]

When I rented this I was hoping for what "Reign of Fire" did not deliver: a clash between modern technology and mythic beasts.

Instead I got a standard "monster hunts stupid people in remote building" flick, with bad script, bad music, bad effects, bad plot, bad acting. Bad, bad, bad.

Only reason why I did give it a 2 was that in theory there could exist worse movies. In theory.....

More lame than terrible

[TheLittleSongbird · 3/10 · 5 February 2013]

Judging by what I read and heard, I was expecting it to be bad, really bad. Seeing it for myself, it was bad, but not that bad. It does get off to a good start, the dragon doesn't look too bad(especially in comparison to the effects in similar movies) and Dean Cain gives an earnest and likable performance. Unfortunately he is the only one in the cast who can halfway act, everybody else either overdo it or look as though they were held at gunpoint. The acting wasn't the only bad thing though, they were disadvantaged by characters that were little more than cardboard and undeveloped stereotypes and by their stilted dialogue. There were times even when the script was difficult to understand because of the accents being so heavy. The story was predictable and never exciting due to the flat direction and leaden pacing. If there was anything somewhat entertaining in that regard, it was counting the numerous scientific errors that would either infuriate or greatly amuse scientists. The music is incredibly drab, the orchestration is very generic and sometimes repetitive and the tempos are like listening to a very painful-sounding dirge. Apart from the dragon, there's no better news visually, the rest of the effects are slipshod and the split-screen technique is annoying and at times pointless. All in all, not quite bad enough to be bottom of the barrel, but a very lame movie. 3/10 Bethany Cox

A Different Take On A Cloning Movie

[loveablejohn-46629 · 5/10 · 16 March 2019]

First off the title could be misleading as you could think you could be watching a Kung Fu movie but this is a totally different kind of movie. That said this was a pretty decent movie if you don't expect realism in most of the scenes and the cinematography was overall good but the split screens were annoying. The script was for the most part well written with some humor along the action and drama .The special effects were done well for the most part especially the dragon but the helicopter and fighter jets scenes were average at best.

Worst movie ever - seriously

[eyden-1 · 1/10 · 19 January 2007]

Yesterday I saw the movie Flyboys and my girlfriend told me it was the worst movie she's ever seen... Since I thought it was pretty awful as well it got me thinking - which film was the worst film I had ever seen and this was the only film that came to mind.

Unfortunately it was a couple of years since I've seen it but I remember the horribly miscast Dean Cain as cocky military man (pretty boy Cain doesn't do cocky very well). The strange deal with the CGI-helicopter when it would probably be cheaper to rent a chopper than to hire some CGI-guys to make it, but my guess is that they found the chopper as a free sample for some CGI program or the producer's son liked to play with his new computer. And how did it look?? Awful. And when the dragon charges through the corridors of the complex then reuse the same shots over and over - looks VERY cheap.

Avoid this movie - it is truly awful...

sounds epic...*cough*

[Siloty · 1/10 · 24 May 2008]

there are those movies that are bad they are funny, then there are those where you scream "i want that one and a half hours of my life back"...thats pretty much what this is.

dean cain tries to be an actor but fails. the sfx are really bad (repeated scenes and rocks that look like falling paper) and the fake plastic guns that have torches taped on them...the split screen effect used to show multiple things happening at once is just terrible.

this movie cant even be used as one of those simple night entertainers, its just that bad

if i could go negative ratings, i would

Boy, is this one STUPID!

[peterdfinn · 1/10 · 12 July 2009]

Dragon Fighter is the first Sci-Fi Channel (although I guess it's now called Syfy?) original movie I have ever seen. But I have seen one or two others since, and I can tell you that they were stupid, but this one really scrapes the bottom of the barrel. The CGI is done poorly, the acting is bad, the script is ridiculous, and what happens at the very end is unexpected and out of place (if you have seen Dragon Fighter, you probably know what I mean; I didn't want to put a spoiler in my review). Plus, there was this one musical tune that was used in pretty much every single dangerous sequence. That was really stupid; they just played it over and over. And it's definitely not original; I know I've heard that somewhere before (I just can't remember where). This is one to avoid.

I honestly, kinda liked it.

[FilmCreature · 8/10 · 21 May 2006]

Many of the Sci-Fi channel titles I've seen have been complete wastes of time, such as "Mammoth," or the super-violent "Rottweiler." But after watching "Dragon Fighter" I was very satisfied. Sure, it was super-sci-fi-formulaic at many parts, like the scientist whose passion becomes a dangerous obsession and he turns mad (see "Hollow Man" and "Alien Lockdown"), or how the only survivors are the most attractive man and woman, and, OF COURSE, they fall in love, and start having small talk about their impending romance after all of their colleagues have met terrible deaths at the hands of a prehistoric dragon, but...

The movie actually really enjoyable. Instead of being ridiculously violent, it's entertaining. And Dean Cain is a cool guy. He plays the hero who's trying to stop the dragon from spawning and killing more people. If you see this movie on TV and want to melt your brain watching a stupid but fun sci-fi flick, here ya go.

2.9/4

Dean Cain, what happened to you?

[bellinghop · 7/10 · 6 November 2006]

First, I love horrible direct to video SciFi movies. Dragon Fighter has all of the typical SciFi standards (crazy scientist, hot chicks, bad cgi, absurd dialogue, predictable plot). Dragon Fighter is not one of the greats bad SciFi greats(that's reserved for Frankenfish), but this film does have a few things that separate it from the pack.

*Dean Cain. Yes, he can actually act and is actually quite likable. Despite having to speak some ridiculous dialogue, he does his best and makes it work.

*Editing. During the more boring parts of the movie, they do some fancy editing to show the scene from multiple angles. This actually keeps the movie moving along in a much more interesting way.

While the deaths aren't particularly creative, this movie did a reasonably good job of entertaining me. Give it a whirl if you love this kind of crap as much as I do.

Don't go in with high expectations and you'll be ok.

[dlcox17 · 4/10 · 5 January 2003]

If Alien, Jurassic Park and countless other sci fi horror movies are your cup of tea, add a lot of sugar and you'll get this one down. The film begins in jolly old England around 1100ad and then jumps to present day California. Our hero Carver (Dean Cain) is the new Security Chief and Military Advisor for a Science Lab 400 feet underground. He arrives (Carver is also a helicopter pilot) with the lead Scientist and we soon find out it's a cloning lab and they have something newly found to clone. Is it a Dinosaur or what? As with the above movies, all hell breaks loose and our characters start getting picked off. The special effects on the Monster are pretty good for a "direct to video" movie and Dean Cain does what he gets paid for. But forget the rest of the group as we find out why we have never seen them before. Again, don't go in with high expectations and you'll be ok.