Bollywood movies have never made it in any significant way with mainstream American audiences in the U.S.

We have watched dozens of Hindi and Tamil movies in U.S. theaters but seldom see Americans – White, Black or Hispanics – in the movie hall. For the most part, it’s only desis who watch Indian movies in theaters here.

There are plenty of reasons why Indian movies have not found favor with American movie goers – they are way too long, the movies are far too crude with little finesse, mostly mediocre performances by our Bollywood stars, garish costumes, weird songs, poor plots, not enough action, 19th century special effects…the list is endless.

The Chinese, Taiwanese and French have done a better job in attracting mainstream audiences to their movies in the U.S.

Now the Koreans are trying to woo Americans with a new English movie called Dragon Wars that’ll hit theaters this Friday i.e. September 14.

Interestingly, Dragon Wars was made in English and released in South Korea with Korean subtitles.

Today’s New York Times has a piece on Dragon Wars:

The producer, Hyung Rae Shim, is aiming a film squarely at American moviegoers, an ambitious and expensive endeavor called “Dragon Wars.” Hissing, computer-generated dragons terrorize Los Angeles as a television reporter unravels a mystery that will stop them.

Made on a $30 million budget, Dragon Wars is expected to debut on 2,000 screens, according to the NYT story, which also notes that early reviews for the movie have not been favorable.