Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
12/10/10
Genres
become like dances, with their steps laid out on an invisible dotted diagram
on the floor beneath our moviegoing feet. It might seem the only
way to shake them up is to mash them up, pitting cowboys against aliens
or Jane Austin heroines against zombies. But sometimes combining
genres only illuminates how similar they are. Take the Western and
the Samurai flick, the two components of Sngmoo Lee's debut feature The
Warrior's Way. Yes, by the time Ninjas, Cowboys and Circus Folk
are slugging it out in a climactic three-way battle royal, you will know
you're seeing something you haven't seen before. But the conventions
of both (silent warriors haunted by their own deadliness, damsels in distress,
downtrodden townsfolk in need of saving) are fairly similar and The
Warrior's Way rarely feels as novel as you might expect. It is,
however, a diverting little oater, as visually impressive as it is narratively
threadbare. It's got issues, but, given that it was shot in 2007
and narration papers over what seem to have been extensive cuts, it's best
appreciated if you can simply be grateful for the awesome sight of Confederate
Soldiers blasting away at airborne ninjas with Gatling Guns.
Yang
(Jang Dong Gun) was one of the Sad Flutes, an elite clan of assassins at
perpetual war with a rival clan he succeeded in killing almost to the last.
Because that last as an infant girl, he could not bring himself to finish
his task and instead traveled across an ocean to America, where he hoped
to visit an old friend. This friend had a thriving laundry business
in a town inhabited exclusively by circus performers like ringmaster Eight-Ball
(Tony Cox), would-be knife thrower Lynne (Kate Bosworth) and trick shot-turned
drunk Ron (Geoffrey Rush). While the circus seems to have gone to
seed, the town labors on a giant Ferris Wheel they hope will become a tourist
attraction. Yang finds himself taking over the laundry business with
Lynne and becomes a comfortable member of this odd desert community.
Problem is, The Colonel (Danny Huston) has a long-simmering grudge against
this town in general and Lynne in particular, and if Yang so much as unsheathes
his sword to defend them, he will draw the wrath of the ever-vigilant Sad
Flutes waiting to take revenge upon him and everyone he loves.
The
Warrior's Way starts with a very firm grasp of how you blend two genres
together: everyone in the film is either a character in a Western
or a Samurai movie, and they act and react accordingly to the oddities
the other genre thrusts upon them. I couldn't help but think people
simply humor Yang when they accept at face value the fact the he must keep
his sword soldered shut lest the Sad Flutes hear its call over great distances:
given the number of odd characters kicking around this peculiar community,
humoring quirks seems to be a necessary survival skill. Of course,
aggressive editing has made it even more necessary to roll with the punches,
as no mention is made of who The Colonel is or where he and his forces
came from, and the movie keeps inventing new ways to work in expository
material from a now-nearly non-existent second act in assorted flashbacks,
visions and flat-out narration.
It
seems to have been a mistake to cut down the scenes of Yang bonding with
the townsfolk as it makes the period between his settling in and all hell
breaking loose kinda dull. But the movie is filled with likable characters
played by game actors, which goes a long way in this kind of enterprise.
Gun makes a solid Strong Silent Hero and Cox leads a solid group of supporting
players who summon tremendous local color just by standing around.
Bosworth, Rush and Huston fill their usual niches of spunky, quirky and
psychotic with flair, although the Lynne/Colonel backstory is a bit much
for such a quirky genre lark (The Colonel certainly puts the “rape” in
“rape and pillage”), and Bosworth isn't as successful with its most extreme
excesses.
We're
also kept occupied by the fact that The Warrior's Way is certainly
something to look at, with its gorgeous, perpetual soundstage sunsets and
outrageously beautiful fight scenes. As in most movies that mix martial
arts masters with common folk (last year's superior Ninja
Assassin comes to mind), they are depicted as being more or less superhuman,
and the blood flows in a wild, surreal manner that recalls the comic book
depiction of flying plasma as much as anything I've seen before in a movie.
And
there's certainly plenty of blood to go around once Warrior gets
down to business. The climactic showdown continues to play by the
movie's rules, with Circus folk using their skills and props, The Colonel's
men their weapons and brute force and the Sad Flutes their magical ninja
powers in a no holds barred struggle to stay alive. It's interesting
to see the soldiers actually have so much lock blasting away at ninjas
with guns, and Lee gets all he can out of that massive Ferris Wheel.
I just wish the showdown between Yang and the Saddest Flute (Ti Lung) weren't
stylized to the point of incoherence.
If
a part of you doesn't tingle at the notion of Cowboys Vs. Ninjas!, odds
are The Warrior's Way won't float your boat. It's slow-paced
and riddled with cliches, albeit ones I've grown pretty comfortable with
over the years. But it's got a likable cast, a strong visual scheme
and, dare I say it, Cowboys. Vs. Ninjas. |
