Director Sngmoo Lee combines martial arts and deadly assassins with cowboys and the wild wild west in The Warrior’s Way. This fantasy action movie smashes all kinds of genres together, but it is full of cliches. The main star (international star Jang Dong Gun) is a silent assassin, but also just silent in general. In fact, he never utters a word. Instead of giving him dialogue, Lee just puts a sword in his hand. And I must admit, it is cool when he uses it to slice and dice.
Yang (Jang) is a warrior-assassin who becomes the best swordsman ever but refuses to kill a child. The laughter of the baby ends up opening Yang’s heart, and causing him to feel again. Knowing that his own gang will come after him for disobeying, he escapes to America. There, he ends up at an old western ghost town where a circus troupe lives. He meets Lynne (Kate Bosworth), a country gal who is good at knife-throwing. Her family was murdered by the Colonel (Danny Huston), who is a mean cowboy with a teeth fetish. Lynne survived and wants her revenge on the Colonel. Yang becomes the motivation the town needs to stand up and fight for themselves. And it is going to take all of them to defend their town against ninjas and cowboys.
The Warrior’s Way is an odd, yet imaginative, movie that uses a variety of visuals and styles. But that is all this movie has going for it. Luckily, it looks cool and the action is entertaining – but the characters aren’t that interesting and the story itself is too familiar. An assassin who has gone into hiding because he is being hunted by his own clan for doing the right thing is nothing new. The movie has to bring something different to the table and what it offers is its visuals and crazy storytelling involving a circus, ninjas, martial arts, cowboys and violence.
While some things worked and some things didn’t for this movie, the most disappointing is Geoffrey Rush. He plays the town drunk who used to be a bank robber in his glory days. While he has a past somewhat like Yang (as in they both have killer reputations), he serves almost no purpose whatsoever. Rush is underused and his talent is never showcased and he is better than that. A lot better.
The Warrior’s Way is cool up to a point. It is fun to watch and is not afraid to go outside the lines. But that does not give the movie or its director permission to create a story we have already seen with talent being wasted on characters who are half-hearted and one-dimensional.
“Nature Boy” Brandon Vick is a member of The Music City Film Critics’ Association, the resident film critic of the SoBros Network, and the star of Brandon’s Box Office In Your Mouth. Follow him on Twitter @SirBrandonV and be sure to search #VicksFlicks for all of his latest movie reviews.
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