Ninja's fighting Cowboys is always good, right? ...WRONG!
The trailer for Warrior’s Way lied to you. It promised pedal-to-the-metal guns blazing craziness and little else. Sadly, for every ridiculous fight sequence, there are a hundred truly awful moments, mainly due to an over use of CGI and some terrible acting, dialogue and plotting.
Warrior’s way follows Yang (Jang Dong Gun), a warrior who is forced to take refuge in the old west after failing to kill the last of his enemy’s clan, a child. Here he meets an assortment of strange characters, especially Lynne, Kate Bosworth, who he strikes up a close relationship with. Obviously things go array and Yang has to face off against local outlaws who threaten the town as well as his old clan who has followed him to kill him and the child.
It’s saying something when all the action which is shown in the trailer is either taken from the first 5 minutes or the last 15. For all its action promises, the meat of the film is little of the sort. Mostly, it is the interaction between our hero and the people of that dilapidated western town – none of which is exciting. The majority of the characters seem nothing more than gross caricatures for the most part and the film relies too heavily upon montages with Geoffrey Rush’s strangely gravelly voice as a voice over to push the story along, especially in the initial parts of the film. It would be easy to blame the actors for many of the film’s pit falls, but actually it boasts a rather stellar cast. Jang Dong Gun, though probably little known in the west is actually rather a major star, starring in Friend, at one time the highest grossing Korean film of all time, and also Taegukgi, also a massive box office success. Furthermore we have Geoffrey Rush, who is undeniably excellent in the Kings Speech (released the same year as Warrior's Way!) and Danny Huston, who has had his own great performances. Clearly the writer/Director Sngmoo Lee failed to utilise their acting talents.
Mostly though, for the meat of the film, nothing interesting really happens, focusing on a relationship between Yang and Lynne which is just dull. Perhaps if there had been more over the top action and less serious focus upon the films ludicrous plot then such flaws might have been able to be overlooked. Sadly, the pacing of the film, and the strange lack of action, pushes these critical flaws right to the forefront leaving me, and I presume many others who watch this film wondering when their actually going to get to the good part – and it takes a long time, nearly the entire running time of the film, to get to some truly decent action.
When the action comes, it is as crazy and over the top as expected seeing Yang face off against both Cowboys and Ninjas at once in a huge CGI bloodbath. The combat is heavily stylised, seeing Ninjas literally flying through the air and Yang performing impossible acts, like zooming through a group of a dozen enemies in a blink of an eye or dodging a bullet shot at point blank range all of which seems like something more suited to a video game than a film. Almost all of this action is done through CGI, which is understandable due to the craziness of it but the CGI is so blatant and sometimes so obviously fake that the combat has almost no weight to it, while Yang’s enemies are nothing more than grunts, either faceless ninjas, or nameless bandits, who give Yang almost no trouble at all, reducing the excitement of the who fair. In some ways, the action scenes seem lazy, replacing something that could have been done better through physical effects, but was just much easier done in front of a green screen (George Lucas Syndrome?)
In the end, Warrior’s way is intentionally a dumb and ridiculous movie, but also one which wants to put forward some kind of serious story in a situation and setting that is both visually and theatrically ridiculous. These two ideas conflict to leave behind a mess of a film which will neither satisfy those looking for something substantial, or those just looking for crazy CGI action. Really they should have named it Cowboys Vs Ninjas, cut the film down to just the last 15 minutes and be done with it – at least then it would have been somewhat entertaining.
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