The Atrox Army are the main antagonists of the 2007 Korean-American fantasy film Dragon Wars (also known as D-War). They are a group of humanoid and dragon-like creatures that serve the dark Imoogi, Buraki. It is also Buraki's evil magical army from another world, as revealed in the comic background story.
The army is also quite formidable, with thousands of soldiers, and for some reason, they do not have firearms, but instead possess weapons such as large artilleries with incredible power, so their power is considerable. In fact, they seem to be a much bigger threat than Buraki himself. In fact, this is largely because Buraki has no long-range attacks or weapons, except for his enormous size, close-range attacks, and bite force.[1]
Biography[]
1507[]
Every five hundred years, a maiden would bestow an Imoogi with the power of Yeouiju, a source of power that transforms them into Celestial Dragons. But Buraki, the most malevolent of the Imoogi, only sought the Yeouiju so he could become a Celestial Dragon and destroy Heaven and Earth before rebuilding them to his twisted images. The gods hid the Yeouiju in Narin, the daughter of a village chief, so Buraki would never find her. However, he knew exactly where to find her and upon Narin's twentieth birthday, the Atrox Army invaded her village.
Despite the guards of the city trying their best effort to hold them off, the Atrox Army easily overwhelmed the resistance and slaughtered everyone who stood in their way. With only the elderly sage Bochun standing in the army's way, Buraki chased after Narin himself, but failed as she and Haram jumped off a cliff into the ocean. Despite losing their chance to obtain the Yeouiji, Buraki and the Atrox Army swore to return the next half millennium.
2007[]
Five hundred years later in the year 2007, Buraki and the Atrox Army reawaken from their slumber in their next attempt to capture Sarah, Narin's reincarnation. After Ethan rescues her and drives off in a car, the general attempts to stop them, only to be struck by their car. When the army attempts to attack Buraki while resting in a cave, the Atrox Army appear and kill the intruders. As Buraki invades Los Angeles after Ethan and Sarah, the general orders his men to capture them and unleashes Bulcos.
After Buraki is forced to retreat when he is injured after helicopters shoot him down from the U.S. Bank Tower, the Atrox Army invades the city. The army, consisting of immense, slow-moving reptiles carrying rocket-launchers on their backs, identified in the dialogue as "Dawdler"; dinosaur-like cavalries called "Shaconne"; and small, winged Western flying dragons called "Bulco", proceed to duke it out with an army of modern soldiers, tanks and helicopters in the middle of Los Angeles. A dramatic chase ensues, full of monsters and explosions. Despite humanity's more advanced technology, the Atrox Army gains the upper hand and wipes out the military.
The Bulcos eventually catch Ethan and Sarah's car and capture them, taking them to Buraki's fortress. At the fortress, the Atrox Army offers Sarah to Buraki. Before he could absorb her Yeouiju, the medallion given to Ethan by Jack that belonged to Haram glowed. A beam of light came from the sky and shined on the medallion, unleashing its power. A golden force strikes out of the medallion, obliterating the entire Atrox Army except for Buraki and the general, having survived due to his magical armor. Determined to take the Yeouiju by force himself, the general effortlessly defeats Ethan in a swordfight. Before he could kill Ethan, Ethan tricks the general into striking the medallion, causing light to traverse through his sword and armor, disintegrating him.
Members[]
Buraki[]
- Main article: Buraki
The leader of the Atrox Army, Buraki is a twisted Imoogi that seeks to become a Celestial Dragon so he can destroy the Earth and heaven, and recreate them in his own image.
Atrox General[]
The unnamed general (credited as the Evil General) is the right-hand leader of the Atrox Army following Buraki, and the secondary antagonist of the film. When disguised as a human, he was portrayed by Michael Shamus Wiles.
In the comic version backstory, the general's name was revealed as Drakan. His human form also has a completely different appearance to his form in the film.[2]
Atrox Soldiers[]
The humanoid soldiers who make up the majority of the legion are all wearing silver armor and armed with mysterious weapons such as swords that pull out blades from the air or shields that are stored and unfolded. They mainly use cold weapons such as spears and swords as their main weapons, but they are also armed with shields that can easily deflect bullets, and they tame various monsters and use them as weapons. The soldiers are hermaphrodites, and can reproduce without a male or female, and they are a mysterious race that does not belong to any race.
According to the comics, they are soulless zombies who extract the souls of dead humans from corpses and resurrect them with undead magic to make them the Atrox Army, and they are said to obey and follow orders until they die. However, their language is quite different from that of the 21st century.
Shaconnes[]
| “ | Shaconne looks like a dinosaur in shape. It is the easiest of the four creatures to domesticate because of it's higher intellectual ability. With a singular temperament, if often aggresses the other creatures. It has solid muscles and well-developed ears and nose. It is very agile and used as transportation and is the carrying means of the infantry section of Atrox soldiers. | „ |
| ~ Description of Shaconne from official website.[3] |
Bipedal dinosaur-like creatures that are about twice as tall as a human, serving as the cavalry for the Atrox Army. They have a ferocious temperament, and wear a helmet reminiscent of a horned theropod like the Carnotaurus. They lack any particularly outstanding combat abilities, so they are used more like horses than weapons. They have very low intelligence, a strong desire to run, reaching speeds comparable to that of an average horse, usually travels in packs, and are dull and cruel. In the initial setting, they had a design that seemed to be a mix of a wolf and a horse, pulled war chariots, and they resembled Velociraptors, they moved independently in groups rather than being soldier mounts.
Bulcos[]
| “ | Bulcos are mutated birds bred by Atrox Soldiers to be used in battle. They have fire-breathing abilities with flames that reach five hundred feet. That ability combined with their incredible flying speed make these extraordinary birds formidable opponents in any battle. | „ |
| ~ Description of Bulcos from official website.[3] |
Large flying western dragon-like abominations, they are the only units in the Atrox Army that can fly, and their combat power is not to be ignored. They are about the size of a medium-sized dinosaur and are slightly shorter than an Apache helicopter from head to tail. Bulcos can spit out explosive fireballs from their mouths while flying, reaching up to 150m; although they can only spew fire from their mouths in the comic version. They also inherent incredible flying speed and can easily change direction and evade obstacles in the air. They can evade the attacks of the Apache attack helicopters to some extent, or even move under the helicopter that was chasing them in the blink of an eye by rapidly decelerating to attack.
According to official website, Bulcos were once regular birds until they were taken by dark powers of Atrox Soldiers — a ruined and terrible form of life existed as aerial beasts of war under Buraki's command.
Dawdlers[]
| “ | Of all the creatures in the army, Dawdlers are the largest and most powerful. Although they have almost no intelligence, they are very obedient and loyal to the Atrox soldiers. Dawdlers are not fast but they possess awesome destructive power and will stop at nothing to annihilate their targets. | „ |
| ~ Description of Dawdlers from official website.[3] |
They are the second largest in size after the Imoogi and have little intelligence, but are blindly loyal to the Atrox soldiers. They are equipped with "Duddler guns" (weapons) resembling massive cannons on their backs that fire two rocket-launcher-like weapons at a time. They make up the heavy armor of the Atrox Army, and appear near the frontlines to increase intimidation. They are extremely large, easily over seven meters long and resemble reptile-like creatures with a dull appearance reminiscent of a walrus. They have a long body reminiscent of a slug and do not have hind legs. The belly part that drags on the ground when moving is made of hard keratin and has tremendous destructive power, so even just one of them can cause chaos in the surrounding area. Their thick skin is highly resilient, so they can't take damage with moderate bullets, and need to be hit by a very large and powerful weapon, such as a 120mm smoothbore cannon, the main gun of the Abrams tank, to the level of being knocked down. When the Dawdler units fires simultaneously, it shows power that matches the volley fire of the multiple rocket launcher unit, and they are the main cause for the scorching of Joseon City and downtown LA. When the Evil General clarion calls resurrected the Atrox Army, the Dawdlers were summoned from a sealed scroll. In the initial setting, they resembled a quadruped walking reptile.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The "Atrox" name comes from Latin, which can be roughly translated to the following: fierce, terrible, cruel, savage, atrocious, grievous, horrible, horrific, unrelenting or abominable. These are all the words that atrox itself could be described and many things that have the name "Atrox". It is generally used as a pronoun for the word "evil".
- Realistically, the Atrox Army would have never stood a chance against the US military and they will be massacred by the US National Guard before they can even dream of reaching Sarah. The only thing that can give them the slightest chance is Buraki. Of course the "magic element explains a lot as far as script plot holes. When the Evil General calls resurrected the Atrox Army, member units were resurrected via a sealed scroll. If there was no "magic" involved, then the battles would make even less sense.
External links[]
- Atrox Army on the Legends of the Multi Universe Wiki
- Monsters of the Atrox Army on the Non-Alien Creatures Wiki