Dragon Nest: Warriors' Dawn

The storyline in "Dragon Nest: Warriors' Dawn" was actually surprisingly good and entertaining, especially for one whom has been playing Dungeons & Dragons for over 30 years.

The characters were well-rounded and nicely fleshed out, although not everyone obviously had an equally big part in the storyline, or equally much on-screen time. The animated movie had lots of likeable characters that you instantly take a liking to.

The CGI was good for most parts, though sometimes it felt like it lacked some natural blending as the characters popped out like a sore thumb in contrast to the background.

It had a nicely paced storyline with a good combination of action and character development.

Unfortunately, I watched it with an English dubbing which actually was quite alright. And that was a surprise for me, as English dubs usually tend to kill the atmosphere for an Asian produced animation.

Building a movie from online multiplayer games is not easy. These games are known for social interaction or accessible gameplay, not strong narrative. Dragon Nest animation resorts to utilizing mediocre antics from many other games or movies, then put it in one predictable story and weak animation. It's a dull journey and what few sparks it has, mainly from vista or music, can't save it from mediocrity.

Story is very basic, cue in your typical hero-in-training, alliance with other race, some comedy reliefs and potential romantic angle, then you'll have the 101 good versus evil plot. It's a dreary development with just about everything one would expect not to see again in fantasy genre. Granted, this sort of plot has been used many times and it can be to great effect, but Dragon Nest merely stacks them without novelty and hope for the best.

Animation isn't its strong suit, the visual looks pedestrian as though it's from last gen video games. Sometimes the audio sounds out of place as the mixing stutters on some parts, dubbing is the usual sloppy mess, especially for supporting chars. There's a bit inconsistency with details as well, shadows or texture don't sync well into the scenes. Frankly, these kinds of problems shouldn't happen on feature length animation of today's technology.

If there are some redeeming parts, they are the decent soundtracks and design for the world. They manages to draw that fresh fantasy vibe, although much too briefly before the average animation kicks in again. Watching Dragon Nest offers the same level of excitement as grinding in online game, low at best.

As a 23 year old, watching this movie was much more enjoyable than I thought it would be. What interested me about this movie was that I've played Dragon Nest in the past and I was interested to see what the movie would be like. Don't worry if you've never played Dragon Nest before, you do not need to know the story of the game in order to follow along in this movie. Everything was explained well enough throughout the movie that you will follow along just fine. To start off, I should warn you that there are deaths in this movie, but the fighting and deaths scenes are very contained. What I mean by that is when a character is cut, they do not show any blood or the wound and they do not die in any gruesome type of way. The atmosphere, character, and the cartoon style sort of resembles How To Train Your Dragon in many ways. If I had to choose something memorable, I would have to say the music really stood out the most. They did a great job of creating the atmosphere and setting the mood for most scenes.

There are a couple of things that I didn't like. It might be nitpicking since it's just a children's movie, but I feel like they could've done much better on some things. First of all, the whole story developed at a very fast pace, so fast that there was no room left for character development at all. Whatever character development did happen was only focused entirely around the main character. However, because of the fast pace, they were able to squeeze in a lot of enjoyable action scenes. Secondly, it was painfully obvious who the bad guys were. The stereotype of bad guys wear black clothing were very prominent in this movie.

In conclusion, this movie has pretty much everything you want in a children's action movie. Swords, magic, princesses, warriors, fighting, and DRAGONS!!!!

This is the best Chinese animation movie I've seen. I watch what is coming out of the mainland and in animation it has been bad. Same with live action, but sometimes we get movies like Kung Fu Hustle which was amazing. Where are all the great HK movies? Why don't the mainland movie makers watch more international films and understand that good plot is essential to a good movie. But Dragon Nest might be the movie that proves the mainland can make movies now. This movie feels like it came from a game, but Song Yuefeng, the director, took his skills to add feelings and fun to the action. This is a director to watch out of China. I now want to see the sequel.

(no specific spoilers mentioned but if you want to go in completely without any comments about the storytelling then don't read, though you should definitely watch the movie if you are unsure, you wont regret it unless you have no interest at all in magic and fantasy world sword fights, at the very least it is a decent story)

apparently inspired by a game called dragons nest that I know nothing about.

for someone that doesn't know the lore this movie was a great watch, though the ensemble of 'heroes' was a little off 'strictly story wise, though that is understandable by it being based on the lore of a game, essentially character classes that are different from one another having prejudices about each other yet work together to achieve a common goal for the greater good.

while the story might not be the most original, if you have any interest in sword fights and combat magic, great animation and a movie with possibly perfect pacing/highs and lows this is certainly worth a watch.

compelling story telling for someone that is unfamiliar with the lore, only thing it suffers from is the introduction of too many (main?) characters right away, that might be because there is already an established lore for them I don't know but thankfully the narrative doesn't focus to much on previous events just that "they know of each other".

as mentioned a lot of talent went into the animation, they really deserve praise for it.