The Warrior's Way -- Film Review

4:25 PM PST 12/3/2010 by Kirk Honeycutt

Movie houses may have to expand their concession-stand choices to accommodate fans of movies such as "The Warrior’s Way" to include perhaps Szechwan popcorn and kimchi pasta. For its Korean-born but American film school-educated writer-director, Sngmoo Lee, has tossed into the blender about as many different film genres and heroes as you can imagine. One ticket buys you cowboys, samurais, gangsters, ninjas, spaghetti Westerns, Hong Kong martial artists, knife throwers and even Fellini-esque circus performers. But like kimchi pasta, some things aren’t meant to mix.

The ingredients here congeal into a gooey mess that is not without amusing moments thanks to a what-the-hell attitude that seems to have permeated the set. Certainly, the designers, cinematographer and digital crew went to town with an exotic ambience, a kind of Arizona by way of the Mongolian desert that features arresting matte paintings and fabulous skies behind a desolate town that looks like nobody could possibly live there. The actors, other than South Korean star Jang Dong Gun, take turns mugging for all they’re worth, with Geoffrey Rush and Danny Huston going toe-to-toe in a scenery-chewing contest. You can almost see wood splinters and nails spewing from their mouths.