Dragon Trap

The film's story-line in a nutshell is: A serial killer hunts down released convicts who did time for pedophilia related charges. Two police officers Akrep Celal and Commissioner Abbas are out to get Istanbul's first serial killer, whom all the visible traces suggest to be Ensar, a young man who just returned from his army service and has lost a sibling to pedophilia!

First of all lest just mention the ONLY positive thing about his film: the CAST! Director and actor Ugur Yucel manages to use his persona and connections very well to bring together gorgeous Kenan Imirzalioglu and psychotic looking, mad-acting Nejat Isler in the same movie! This is the equivalent of having Brad Pitt and Christian Bale in the same picture with Robert De Niro as the director and mentor. Good, no? Well not really! Not when the rest of the cast is composed of FLESH and not actors. Berrak Tuzunatac, a beautiful face placed on a big and curvy body and Ceyda Duvenci, looks that loose meaning after staring for 5 seconds, as well as all other co-actors make this what-could-have-been a well ensemble cast look like they were put together not to make a good movie but to make few bucks of the talent and name of some and the body and sexuality of others! I am afraid this is the case with Dragon Cage!

Now to the constructive criticism as to the very nisch-nischs of this movie. If Ugur Yucel is to look back to the failure of this movie in a few weeks (and fail this movie will at the box office) and ask why, he should be told: It's the script you stupid! Ugur Yucel might be one of the best actors of Turkish cinema and definitely a GREAT director based on his first two movies. Looking at these facts one would assume he would know what a bad script is when he reads it. Seems not! The script for Ejder Kapani is not only a bad montage made from similar famous movies (seven, crimson rivers...) but it lacks any local taste it could have inserted and gave a taste of originality with! The storyline is obvious and it gives itself away from minute 10 and the dialogs, oh the dialogs! Could they have been more obvious?!

As a good director, based on his previous two films, Mr Yucel does a less than OK job directing here. The films editing and pace never match, mood building scenes of walking and chasing are the SAME all across the film, the city is meant to be turned into a labyrinth through camera angles and dark choice of film footage however it lacks the, again, locality of Istanbul and all the 'fear' and 'expectations' are pushed on the audience by simply making the screen darker and the music heavier! And the music! Oh lord when will my people learn to not do what Hollywood stopped doing 30 years ago? Mood pushing music? Really! The worst part of Mr Yucel's directing though is closely associated with the film's greatest strenght: the cast! Main characters over act too much! Which brilliant mind thought that casting Kenan Imirzalioglu as an angry police officer and Nejat Isler as a psychotic looking type is a good idea, hasn't both been done many a times before?! Why do they allow to be type-casted is another question and worry I have!

The movie fell very short of what I was expecting and it was the one movie I have been looking forward to the most in Turkey this year! Avoid it!

Well first of all, the premise of "Ejder Kapani" which indicated a vigilante-type serial killer being loose on the streets of Istanbul seemed interesting enough taking into consideration the lack of the same genre movies being made in Turkish cinema. And although the direction, music and performances from the cast are decent enough it is the story itself that moves on the fringes of utter stupidity. Sexual offenders who have been pardoned by the government are being killed one by one and it takes like more than 10 corpses for our detectives to realize what the hell is going on. OK I get the notion that Turkish law-enforcement may not be as familiar as their US counterparts with the concept of a serial killer but still we never even get a guess from any of the officers that they may be facing a different kind of criminal.

Ugur Yucel is the best thing about the movie, his portrayal of a tired, experienced detective who reluctantly pursues his last case before retirement is very strong. His performance alone -not the dynamics of the story- prevents his character to be a stereo-type. Kenan Imirzalioglu is also good in his role as well as is Sirri Sureyya Onder who makes out the most of his limited screen time but the rest of the cast are given little to do. And this is indeed the main problem of the story itself: there are very few characters. This is a big no-no especially in such a "who did it" movie. You understand who the killer is after 10 min or something in the movie mainly because there is no alternative presented by the plot. No red herrings of any kind. And because of that the director does what he has to do: refrain from giving any hints throughout the entire story just to reveal the identity of the killer rather conveniently at the end. In my opinion this is nothing but lazy writing.

The cinematography is not bad with some interesting lightning however the backdrops of the city of Istanbul is presented pretty awkwardly. We see the Galata Bridge like 6 times during the movie which gives the impression that all roads in Istanbul somehow leads to the Galata Bridge. Even the final scene takes place there but the question remains: Why? And dot get me even started on what is the biggest let down of Ejder Kapani: A total disregard for -the not so small- details. Only one example will suffice: We see the serial killer a lot of times during the movie. He always wears a mask however there are several scenes where his height is obvious to the eye by comparison with the characters he interacts. (like the scene where he is pursued by Ugur Yucel) He seems short let alone middle-sized. But the final revelation makes you think that the killer was a real master of disguise shrinking his height like 30cm when he is on his killing spree. An unacceptable error on the part of the film-makers which treats the viewer as plain stupid.

Another problem was with the sound, especially with the volume of dialogues. I had so much difficulty in understanding most of the dialogues after some point I had to turn on the subtitles. To sum up: Ejder Kapani is a decent effort although it lacks a coherent storyline and suffers from a low-tempo. The direction is not ground-breaking although it cant be critized much either. Only the performances of Ugur Yucel & Kenan Imirzalioglu & Onder save the movie from being a total Hollywood knock-off. All three of them succeed in staying Turkish while playing characters who we have seen for so many times in American movies. I believe that deserves nothing but praise.

When i saw the movie, i was excited. Because this one reports us a new generation action-crime. The cast has been chosen well and the direction is unquestionable. I loved the movie. There are, of course, some script and scene errors but if we should take the movie in one piece, it shows us that there could be any other good ones get pictured in Turkish cinema. My wish is that the Turkish cinema will increase for all over the globe. The last five year's one of best movie. If the script was more powerful and the budget was much more, then it would have been more successful and i think it could have been a nominee of a Best Foreign Language Film of the Year nominee. I'd like to see an Oscar® awarded Turkish movie. Please work harder.