Everything that happened last week was hazy to me. I remember quitting my job after telling my boss to shove it where the sun don't shine. I remember some fund-raising dinner organised by some political party and my cousin complaining that it should have been more of a rabble-rousin' event than it was. I remember some crooked politician getting the book thrown at him. I remember being in a bad mood and pissin' people off everywhere I went. And I remember watching "
The Warrior's Way"...
In fact, the silly and corny adventure-fantasy film pretty much summed up my life last week. Incoherent. Main character without a real beginning and no real plans of where he wants to head to in the end. Main character with a desire only to escape his boss - and failing that to chop off the boss' head. Main character being surrounded by freaks and feeling like his life-story is a mish-mash cross-genre piece of nonsense but endlessly delightful nonetheless.
The film really shouldn't work. It's neither one thing nor the other. A local reviewer was particularly harsh with her remarks. Like I said, it was a cross-genre piece mixing martial arts, samurai,
Lone Wolf and Cub, the wild west, circus freaks, Lois Lane (
I kid you not), William Stryker (
again, I kid you not) and Ti Lung (
once again, I kid you not). It sometimes felt like Daniel Way's "
Wolverine Origins" to me and halfway through the film, I was lamenting that the Hugh Jackman "
X-Men Origins: Wolverine" film should've been more like this. It also reminded me of those really magical Huckleberry Hound cartoons that I saw as a kid. Then again, despite the utter delight and fun of watching the film, it was also damned by the worst of cliches - that Asian guys inevitably end up as laundrymen in the West - no matter how gifted they are with the sword.
Speaking of the sword, our favourite Korean guy (played by Jang Dong Gun) became the greatest swordsman in the world at the beginning of the film after killing the previous greatest swordsman in the world. We know all this because whenever the previous greatest swordsman in the world shows up, he has this cloudy caption that tells us that he is the greatest swordsman in the world. Of course, after getting chopped up by our hero, Jang Dong Gun becomes the greatest swordsman in the world. Again, we know this because now the caption follows him. Then he spares a baby who was supposed to be the last survivor of his rival clan. Then all sorts of crazy ninja action ensues and Jang takes the baby to a cowboy town filled with circus freaks. At the town, Jang becomes a laundryman and teaches Lois Lane (aka Kate Bosworth) to throw knives at William Stryker (aka Danny Huston). Geoffrey Rush is the town drunk who is as good with the gun as Jang is with the sword. And finally, we get Ti Lung, the veteran Shaw Brothers swordsman, who turned out to be Jang's
si-fu.
Nothing in the film really makes any sense and because of that, it's ultimately another forgettable action-adventure film. However, if you're looking for just 130 minutes of fun and laughter, visually dazzling scenery and romantic starry nights with Kate Bosworth, you really can't go wrong with this one.
