The Warrior's Way

Welcome to another episode of Lights....Camera....Popcorn!

Today's review is The Warrior's Way. Written and Directed by Sngmoo Lee

100th review countdown....#93

MPAA Rating: R for strong bloody violence.

Runtime: 100 min

Cast

Dong-gun Jang - Yang

Kate Bosworth - Lynne

Geoffrey Rush - Ron

Danny Huston - Colonel

Tony Cox - Eight-Ball

Lung Ti - Saddest Flute

Analin Rudd - Baby April

Ladies and Gentleman. After holding it's post for almost a full calendar year. Legion has now been
supplanted by this for WORST FILM OF 2010. Great Scott was this film AWFUL!

What do you get when you combine a master swordsman on the run. With his clan hunting him down as the master swordsman adjusts to life in his new surroundings in the wild west.


You get the plot for this dreadful excuse for a movie.


There is so much wrong with this film that I don't know where to start. So I'll begin with what was the film's biggest failure.

It's rather obvious that this is supposed to be a martial arts film so the first thing that is established is Yang's superior fighting abilities against his rival clan warrior's. It's at this moment not 2 minuets into the film that it goes right into the toilet. The fight that takes place is on par with some of the genre's worst executed choreography (if you can even call it choreography). All Yang does is swing his blade one time at his opponents and they drop like flies while he poses for dramatic effect. The lack of intricacy in the fight is also masked by super slo mo and CGI. Immediately I got that nervous felling that this was what I was in store for the rest of the film. I still held out hope that maybe this was just a quick throwaway fight just to intro our hero and showcase his bad ass-ery.

NOPE!

It was just more of the same and it was less impressive later on. Look I get it. You want to show us that this guy is not to be messed with but that doesn't mean he has to be invincible. The film contradicts itself by making him so formidable. If he's the best warrior of a clan of warrior's, shouldn't the other warriors possess some skill as well? Apparently not in this movie. They are just there to provide a body count. As an authority of Martial Arts Cinema, this display or lack of weapons combat was not only offensive but and insult to me as a member of the audience. I can best describe how unbelievably simple the fights were in this film this way.

Back in 2000. My friends and I made a Kung Fu film. It was as low budget as you could get but the one thing this movie had was detailed fight scenes. I spent 4 months studying up several different disciplines ranging from Tae Kwon Do to Wing Chun and figured out a way to blend the best ones that would make an interesting fight while making the moves easy enough for everyone to learn at the same time. Needless to say the film was an absolute joke but to this day I continue to receive complements on the fight choreography. Especially since I was the only one who had any formal training or knowledge in the 1st place while having no idea what I was doing. A bunch of college kids with a video camera and a mall loading dock were able to showcase developed fight moves that pale in comparison to a Hollywood feature in the year 2010.

The rest of the film follows the action's lead when it came to the absurd and overall underachievement. The dialogue was lazy and poorly structured. The cast was equally lazy and poorly structured headlined by Kate Bosworth's portrayal of a tough western chick who has fighting ability. Just god awful.

The story as paper thin as it is seems to find a way to make no sense between acts 2 and 3. That is quite an accomplishment when you know from the opening credits what this movie about. How the narrative gets lost between it's start and finish is beyond me but it executes that masterfully.

That's it. I'm done.

On the 5 star scale. The Warrior's Way gets the whopping goose egg 0 stars with a resounding "For The Love of God Stay Home!" recommendation.

There is absolutely nothing of value here. Please avoid this one at all costs. You have been warned.

That's a wrap for today. Not sure what's next but I'm pretty confident that it will be 1,000,000% better than this.

Until Next Episode...."I'll Save You A Seat!"

"D"