Pretty much all one can tell from the trailers for The Warrior’s Way is that it has something to do with cowboys vs. ninjas. Honestly, no one needs more than that, but the plot of the movie turned out to be surprisingly complex. While The Warrior’s Way doesn’t have the world’s smallest budget, it’s clearly limited, but the filmmakers spent what they had in the right places.
Right off the bat, from the first scene to the last, what struck me most about The Warrior’s Way was the costumes. The costumes were over the top and seem to have been inspired by Mortal Kombat and various western space anime such as Trigun and Cowboy Bebop. I want one of the dusters the cowboys wear, so I can officially change my middle name to McAsswhoop.
Other than some fast-paced action at the beginning of the movie, the first half of The Warrior’s Way is pretty slow. Combine this with a weak supporting cast and a hit or miss performance, and I became quite restless for the action. The film’s protagonist, Yang (played by Dong-gun Jang), leaves his country and clan with the last living descendant of his rival clan, due to his inability to murder a baby. Yang ends up heading to the American West to find one of his old friends in a small circus town called Lode. However, upon arrival he discovers that his friend is dead. From there, unconditional laundry service ensues (don’t ask). The movie then introduces a few different factions and the plot becomes more complex than I originally expected.
There are actually two antagonists in The Warrior’s Way. The first is The Sadd Flute ninja clan and their leader, appropriately named Saddest Flute. The Sad Flutes are hell-bent on eliminating the last of their rival clan, and this faction as a whole reminds me of Ra’s Al Ghul’s assassins from Batman Begins. We also have the Colonel and his men, a rogue posse that periodically takes the town of Lode hostage so that the Colonel can rape his girls. Clearly the Colonel is the easiest enemy to hate. When the three factions collide in the second half of the film, he becomes real.
There are a lot of stunts used to film The Warrior’s Way, but they are all well executed and rarely repeated. Battles that were clearly inspired by movies like 300, Blade, Resident Evil, and The Matrix are brutally violent, and some of the more over-the-top deaths will have you laughing at their absurdity or cringing in pain. Yang constantly dodges bullets and slices his enemies to pieces with lightning speed. While the sword fights aren’t as epic or even as you’d find in movies like Hero or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, they’re still just as fun to watch.
The CGI in The Warrior’s Way is really hit or miss, and it’s clear that the filmmakers allocated their funds carefully in this regard. A generic explosion serving to drive the narrative might look awful, like something from an early ’90s PC game, but a complex slow-mo melee looks amazing, with blood, bullets, and limbs flying everywhere.
The good forgives the bad in The Warrior’s Way, and while it’s still more or less what I expected, it’s not the disappointment I thought it would be. There have been much worse deals this year in the action realm (I’m looking at you Expendables), so action fans shouldn’t miss this one.