THE WARRIOR’S WAY
3 out of 5 stars

not as great as a kim-chi western should be, and also not as good as ninja assassin, IMO... however, stylistically, this one was sort of a hybrid of the two. (graphic novel story-telling with the action of a kim-chi western, i suppose?)

so, do you remember that movie i reviewed called “the good, the bad and the weird” from last year? that’s a kim-chi western because it’s got the spicy-ness of the korean people, set within a good ol’ fashion western! this... it’s definitely got some spice coming from director sngmoo lee and hottie jang dong-gun (south korea’s tom cruise) starring as the warrior AKA yang. the great sad flute warrior yang is tasked with killing the last member of his rival’s clan, which appears to be an infant girl princess. his consciousness gets the better of him, and he spares her life, which makes him public enemy #1 on his clan (the sad flutes)’s list. thus, he and the infant flee to america, where yang tries to find his friend, smiley, who apparently is running a laundry service in a little western circus town. as yang and the infant begin to settle in, there’s an evil colonel (a truly evil danny huston), raping all the young/pretty women in this town... yang soon finds out that lynn (a plain and redhead kate bosworth), a circus knife thrower, had her entire family killed by the colonel, thus helps her hone her knife throwing skills... ronald the town drunk (a hilarious geoffrey rush) is called back into “action” when the colonel comes back with a posse after an attempt on his life goes wrong... but then, the sad flutes catch up with yang for betraying their trust, and it’s a showdown between west and the east! yeeeee-haw! :P

the background of yang is not as complex as the main character in ninja assassin, which did not add depth to the character of yang. i thought kate bosworth and geoffrey rush did a great job with their roles, but jang dong-gun seemed to struggle some... maybe he was nervous b/c this was his first english-speaking role? maybe...maybe not. i thought the little princess was sooooo adorable beyond words, and danny huston really played the villain quite well. i think i would have liked to have seen a bit more action... this director could take a few pointers or two from graphic novel director, zack snyder. snyder would have maxed the action out and probably sexualized the story more between yang and lynn, LOL. but that would have been OK because afterall, what are graphic novels good for? :P