Movie theatres in Korea are expensive enough, but some of them have this neat thing where they show movies early in the morning for about 5 bucks.

I am up early, and I think that perhaps I can go see Die Hard 4 before anyone else wakes up. Eunjoo doesn't really like movies, and when we get back to Canada I'm not going to be leaving her, pregnant, laying home alone in the apartment while I go of to see a movie. So this is one of my last chances to go to a movie for a while.

It is eight in the morning. There is a light drizzle of rain as I walk to the Happy Centre Megabox theatre. The streets are quite empty at this time. My wife's family keeps quite late hours, and I thought this was just them, perhaps it is a more national phenomenon.

I get to the theatre and find that Die Hard doesn't play until 9:10am. I look at what else is playing. Either Harry Potter or D-War. The books are great, but I have only been disappointed by the Harry Potter movies. D-War is a movie, by a Korean director, about an evil Dragon that has been sleeping since failing to eat some special woman 500 years ago. Now, her reincarnation lives in LA, and the evil Dragon and his legions are back.

I ask for a ticket for D-War, and hold out my 4000 won. The boy at the counter takes my money and gives me the ticket with a smile. I feel the smile is hiding a question, so I clear things up for him: "I've only ever been disappointed by the Harry Potter movies."

He looks concerned.

"But don't worry. I'm going to read the last book. I'm just waiting for it to come out in paperback. The hard cover is 36,000 won. That's too much for a book about a wizard boy. I'll wait for the paperback."

He points to the right and says, "Up the escalator on the left." That's where I go.

D-War meets expectations completely: weak, discontinuous plot, unmotivated dialogue, and some pretty decent visual effects. There are a lot of American actors in it that I have seen before, but whose names I don't know. The main dude is the brother from Roswell, and the reincarnated woman was in Legally Blonde or some movie like that. The effects aren't really good enough to justify seeing the movie.

While I'm watching the movie I think up something really clever. When the movie is over, I walk up to the front of the theatre and announce to the rest of the patrons: "D-War? I don't know, it wasn't that bad, I give it a C or a C plus."

One girl points at me and says something to her friend and laughs. Everyone else just ignores me.

"Like grades, in school." I yell, in explanation.

A couple more people look at me as they are filing out of the theatre. I see one shake his head.

I walk out, hating Koreans for not getting my clever joke. A pretty girl taps me on the shoulder and says with a pitying smile, "I think 'D' stands for 'Dragon'."

"Piss off!" I say, petulantly.