Reviews & Previews - The Warrior's Way

Posted on Friday, December 10, 2010 at 06:00 PM

Review Type: General

The Warrior's Way

By: S. Tran

Starring: Dong-gun Jang, Kate Bosworth. Geoffrey Rush
Directed by: Sngmoo Lee
Running Time: 100
Rated: R

Super Kewl

That is probably how the average 10 year old might describe this ninja/cowboy movie. For those who have reached puberty we would probably use words like "laughable" "cringeworthy" and odd. I can't say for sure, but I think the entire script for the film may have literally read something like this:

Opening scene: Cool ninjas, swords, cut, slash
Cut to: baby cute, ninja sad, run away
Scene: Cowboys, need cowboy accents, more cowboy accent, make sure people know these are cowboys.
Character development: Give everyone sad story, more sadness. Can NOT have too much sadness.
Scene: Ok, things getting boring, now need big fight, ninjas and guns, more ninjas. Make ninjas look cool, jump around lots. Cut, cut, slash, more blood. Kill most of cast, make more sadness.
End: More ninjas, so cool, make them jump.

This may sound ridiculous but if you see the movie I think you will agree it's probably pretty close. The story starts off with Yang (Jang) as some kind of assassin who is tasked with killing the last member of a rival clan. When he fails to complete his task he finds himself on the run from his own clan and runs away to the American west to find an old friend. There he meets a motley group of townspeople living in what looks like the remains of a western movie set.

Bosworth plays Lynn, an orphan with a sad past (see above) and an even sadder western accent. She and Yang start grooving on each other and he turns her on with his bad ass, silent but deadly looks and wicked ninjas skills. They also meet Ron, a drunk with a sad past (see above) played by Geoffrey Rush, who I have to think was probably really drunk when he agreed to sign on for this.

Stylistically the movie is an odd mix of special effects and weird community theatre looking sets. It looks like most of it was shot in s studio and the director seemed to be going for a Sin City/300 kind of feel, especially when the blood starts to flow.

A movie like this can probably overcome the bad story and terrible accents though if the action can carry the day. Sadly this is not the case as the director seemed more interested in making thing look cool than anything else. Supposedly Yang is being pursued by assassins. Yet for some reason every single one of these assassins has no idea what the word assassin really means. Instead of trying to sneak up on people to kill them, they have all been trained to jump really high giving plenty of time for their intended victim to see them coming. Yang also seems to be the only one of the group that understands you might want make some move to duck when someone is pointing a gun at you.

At the end of the movie this leads to a lot of these amazing assassins to be killed by a bunch of brainless cowboys who shoot them out of air. I imagine that the last thoughts of the assassins before they are killed went something like this: "Man, look how cool I look jumping into the air. Chicks love this lo....."

1.5 stars out of 5.

S. Tran also writes at Cracked.com, Gunaxin.com and Uproxx.com