Sometimes fanboy cinema can be a bad thing. The Warrior's Way is a curious blend of Kurosawa and Leone, a cross between 300, Lone Wolf & Cub, and A Fistful of Dollars. The Warrior's Way comes to us from first-time director, Lee Sngmoo, who studied cinema at NYU and currently teaches at the national film school in South Korea. Lee isn't the first to come up with the idea of fusing the Western with the martial arts film. We've already seen Jackie Chan's Shanghai Noon, Takashi Miike's Sukiyaki Western Django, and another South Korean export, The Good, the Bad, and the Weird. So how does Lee's movie stack up?
Jang Dong-gun, from the incredible Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War, makes his English language debut as Yang, the greatest swordsman in the world. How do we know he's the greatest swordsman in the world? He kills the guy who used to be the greatest right at the beginning of the movie. As a member of the ninja clan known as the Sad Flutes, Yang has been charged with wiping out a rival. The former number one was penultimate member, leaving behind only a baby girl. Yang balks at killing a child and together they seek refuge in America.
Yang and the baby make their way to a tiny town in the middle of the desert known as Lode. The eccentric inhabitants of the town include your usual gallery of slack-jawed yokels and a traveling circus that decided to move on in. Yang settles in, running the laundry and befriending Lynne (Kate Bosworth), a comely knife throwing lass. As a young girl, Lynne's entire family was murdered The Colonel (Danny Huston), a sadistic and disfigured Confederate officer. Under Yang's tutelage furthers her abilities with the blade. Lynne finally gets her chance for revenge when the Colonel and his henchmen ride back into Lode. Yang must rally a ragtag force of cowboys, clowns, firebreathers, and the town drunk (Geoffrey Rush), who turns out to be a helluva sharpshooter. And then the ninjas arrive.
The climax is where The Warrior's Way truly shines as it descends into a bloody free-for-all of samurai swords versus six-shooters. While Lee tends to copy Zack Snyder's slow-motion accentuated style, the fight scenes are the type of brainless fun that action junkies eat up. If only the rest of the picture was on the same level. The lead up into the action-packed third act is full of stilted dialogue and empty attempts at character development. The extensive green screen work adds a cartoonish feel that Lee heightens by using a comic book font. It's too artificial looking to truly be an old-fashioned Spaghetti Western. Shooting the film on an actual set would have lent a strong sense of personality and authenticity.
Jang Dong-gun learned English for the movie and his delivery is passable, if wooden. Lee wisely has him play the taciturn hero who rarely speaks. The rest of the international cast include Kate Bosworth whose spunky Southern belle act feels like an audition for Hee-Haw and Bad Santa's Tony Cox as the circus's ringmaster. Danny Huston hams it up as the villain as does Geoffrey Rush. His signature line, "Ninjas…damn," was a highlight of the trailer, but is conspicuously absent from the final cut. The leader of the Sad Flutes is played by Ti Lung, the star of classic Hong Kong action films like A Better Tomorrow and Drunken Master II.
The Warrior's Way is the type of genre fare usually reserved for the direct-to-video market. Somehow it managed a theatrical release and disappeared from multiplexes almost as soon as it arrived. It's silly and dumb and if that's all you're looking for, give it a rent.
Rating: * ½ (*****)
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