DRAGON DAY (2013) Dir: Jeffry Travis

New review time but this time around we're throwing away the action genre and delving into the world of post invasion/holocaust/survival dramas. Dragon Day is a low-budget film about a family who get caught up in a Chinese cyber invasion of the U.S. Check out my words after the Jump!!

!!!!WARNING: CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS!!!!

I take the piss quite a bit when I write reviews, especially when the review is for a film that is meant to have the piss taken out of it due to some of the absurd things that happen. Sometimes however, I do tend to knock out a genuinely serious review. Of late, most of my reviews have been for action movies, usually starring people like Jean Claude Van Damme, but last night I watched a film that starred no name actors and actually made me think about what could happen if my family and I were in the same situation.

Dragon Day (also known as Invasion Day) could easily have been another post-apocalypse movie featuring apoca-punks, hardcore death metal and violence, or it could have been another Red Dawn style shoot'em up (see Red Dawn remake and Tomorrow When The War Began), however, surprisingly, Dragon Day is more akin to films like Lynn Littman's hauntingly bleak 1983 post nuke movie, Testament, the TV show Jericho and the dirty bomb survival movie Right At Your Door. It presents the audience with the realistic possibility of a complete take over via technology. While Dragon Day doesn't feature a nuclear holocaust, it does feature an invasion of the digital kind. It proposes the question, what will happen when China calls in it's trillion dollar U.S debt to be paid? What will happen if the U.S can't pay? And how will China act when the payment can't be made?. Quite interesting questions that are way more current than the threat of nuclear war. Dragon Day presents us with a realist answer. China has manufactured microchips which are used in all U.S electronics such as planes, cars, water plants and electrical plants. They have been built with a virus that can be controlled via remote so that the Chinese can just switch it off. Doing this would cause planes to drop out of the sky, electronics such as mobile phones and Cars would stop working and water and electrical plants would shut down. They can destroy a country at the switch of a button and this is a frightening thought.

The film follows former NSA tech engineer Duke Evans who, forced to foreclose on their LL.A home retreat to his late grandfather's woodland cabin. While on their journey to the hills, they stop for gas, ATMs and card machines are down. Cash only. Anyway, the arrive at the home and discover a Mexican man living in the house so they call the police. Within a space of 10 minutes the U.S is brought to it's knees. Duke knows what's happening when a 747 airline crashes just over the hills and realizes that this is an invasion. The president appears on TV to make a statement but is cut off by the emergancy broadcast system followed by a cue card appearing with a symbol and the words “Welcome to the peoples republic”, all their phones ring and the same thing appears on their mobile phone screens. The local sheriff alerts him to these wrist bands that if worn will guarantee food and water supplies but Duke doesn't trust them and refuses to put it on. His sister, suffering from de-hydration and malnourishment gives in and places the wristband on. As she tries to leave the band starts to burn her which causes her to die. The bands are not just identification bands but more like dog collars that go off when the person leaves their assigned zone. Duke tries effortlessly to try and help his wife and small child but with the lack of food and water (even though they have about 40 million potatoes which apparently you can eat which he uses to hook up a shortwave radio) it's a task that proves to too hard, also having to contend with the corrupt sheriff and marauding bands of thieves, life just doesn't seem to be working out for poor old Duke. Finally Duke makes contact with his former colleague at the NSA via his potato radio and is informed that a patrol will come and save them shortly. When the military does arrive, they only have orders to bring Duke, he refuses to leave due to not wanting to leave his family but the soldiers burst in at gun point and drag him away. Waking up in an underground room, he's faced with his former colleague Phill who has joined the invading Chinese and he wants Duke to do something with a code. At this point in the film we get the twist, not gonna spoil it but you'll definitely think “oh fuck off” when you see it.

There are some issues with the film. Given it's low budget the actors aren't top of the range actors and some of the acting comes off as quite bad, it's not wooden but better actors might have worked better with the script, however there are some good performances, Ethan Flower who plays the lead, Duke Evans gives a good performance as the father and husband trying to keep his family alive and find a solution to the problem and Eloy Mendez who plays the mexican labourer living with the Evans's is good as Alonzo. The biggest acting issues come from Asa Wallander who plays Leslie Evans, Dukes wife, who overacts throughout the entire film and Denis Delsing who plays the corrupt sheriff, he plays the sheriff like a man straight out of a seventies chain gang movie, his aviator glasses, mean spirit and as one reviewer pointed out, seem's like he's trying to ape the sheriff from Cool Hand Luke, and this is very true, had the film had the sheriff act more like head of a roving band of criminals and a lot more sombre it might have worked but as this character stands, it's a little on the clichéd side. There are some plot holes but they're not a huge deal and can easily be looked past if you suspend your disbelief but on a whole the film is an interesting “what if” film that one day be a reality.

Someone referred to Dragon Day as Red Dawn for intellectuals and they wouldn't be far wrong. It's an epic film on a small scale and it's to co-writer and director, Jeffrey Travis' credit that he pulls off such an important film, which unfortunately no-one will really ever see. Don't read the comments on IMDB concerning this film as it's full of illiterate people spouting how racist and right wing the film is but I put it to you to just watch it and make your own mind up. It's not a gung ho 'Murica! Movie it's a drama about a family trying to survive an impossible or possible situation. It kept me glued to the screen for 90 minutes and I hope it does the same for you.