Dragonwolf Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

Dragonwolf Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 28, 2014

Some of you may be old enough to remember the hilarious Master Thespian character that Jon Lovitz used to play on Saturday Night Live, an imperious and incompetent performer who would insist after having blown a simple line reading, “That’s acting!” Some may wonder if Master Thespian was the dialogue coach on the largely lamentable Dragonwolf, a 2013 Thai outing that houses some of the most wincingly horrible acting in martial arts movie history, certainly a rather low bar to begin with. There’s relatively little plot here, aside from an attempt to paint a kind of The Dark Knight- esque bleak metropolis where even the good guys are a little questionable. The film takes place in an area of urban blight known as The Devil’s Cauldron and focuses on two childhood buddies, Mozart (Kazu Patrick Tang) and Julius (Johan Kirsten), who grow up to be enforcers in a town rife with criminal activity.

Dragonwolf's general state of incompetence can be summed up in one word: Immemorail. No, that is not a typo, it's how "immemorial" is spelled in the very first sentence of a title card that serves as an introductory prologue to the actual film and seeks to bring the audience up to speed on the fictional context. How does something like this happen? Did no one see this anywhere during post? And wouldn't it be an incredibly easy thing to fix, especially for home video? It may seem minor, but it's indicative of a sloppiness that runs rampant through this film. To be fair, the fight sequences are decently choreographed, and there are a lot of them, so genre enthusiasts may be able to eke out a bare minimum of entertainment value here. The value of wooden dialogue being recited by incredibly bad actors: priceless.

Dragonwolf Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Dragonwolf Is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Though online data on this film is scarce, this appears to a be a digitally shot feature, one which offers above average clarity and sharpness, but not much depth. Several sequences have been aggressively color graded, included an almost completely desaturated, sepia toned approach toward several flashbacks. These have commendable sharpness as well, but a lack of shadow detail and fine detail. In more normally color graded moments, the palette is really nicely vivid, though a lot of the film plays out in dark, dank environments that don't pop very well here.

Dragonwolf Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

This is the rare Thai film that was evidently filmed in English, presented here in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. It's obvious that some of the actors are dubbed, but overall there are no huge changes in ambience that would be dead giveaways of bad ADR work. Sound effects in action sequences tend to provide the bulk of the most effective surround activity. Fidelity is excellent and dynamic range is very wide.

Dragonwolf Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (1080p; 2:05)

Dragonwolf Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If fight scenes without any real connection to a compelling plot or characters are your thing, Dragonwolf may fit the bill. You still may need to remind yourself that this isn't supposed to be a comedy once the actors start talking.