1-1-2011
Happy New Year everyone!
12-4-2010
Which Way?
The Warrior's Way stars Dong-gun Jang, Kate Bosworth, Geoffrey Rush and Danny Huston in an East-meets-West Ninjas vs Cowboys showdown. From the trailers I expected a movie full of balls-out mayhem and that's what I got. Sort of.
Jang plays Yang, the current world's greatest swordsman, who goes on the run from his clan, the Saddest Flutes, after refusing to kill a baby, the last living member of a rival clan. Yang ends up in a rundown desert town in the Old West where he was looking for a friend of his. The town is populated by a travelling circus, a drunk former gunslinger named Ron (Rush) and a Lynne (Bosworth), a young woman with a score to settle.
After finding that his friend is dead, Yang takes up his friend's former job as the town's laundry. Over time he builds a relationship with Lynne, training her to throw and fight with knives, a talent she wants in order to avenge the death of her family at the hands of Colonel, played by Danny Huston. With help from Lynne and the others, Yang looks to raise the baby and protect her from the Flutes who he knows will be looking for the both of them.
The back story for Lynne and Yang is filled in over the first hour and a half of the movie, mostly in flashback. The balls-out mayhem was definitely on hold during that time and some will really ding this film for that. I thought there were slow times, but it added a dimension to this action film that sometimes is forgotten, story. Unlike other films, you actually cared about Yang and Lynne and when the Colonel, and Yang's clan, catch up with the town in the last half hour, you're really rooting for them to win.
Jang plays Yang without a lot of dialog, but manages to pull off a character that you like just by his actions. Although someone should feed Bosworth a sandwich, she still manages to fall into that class with Keira Knightly; you can drench her in grime and blood and she still looks hot, plus the girl has some acting chops which works to her advantage as the character with much of the dialog. Geoffrey Rush is basically playing Captain Barbossa in this film, only instead of a British accent, sword and water he's sporting an American accent, gun and sand. Huston puts on the full creepy to play the Colonel and you can't wait for Lynne to exact her revenge.
The motley crew of circus folk are mostly nameless but Tony Cox has a very funny role as Eight-Ball, the ringmaster of the group. Lung Ti plays the leader of Yang's clan, Saddest Flute, while his ninjas and the the Colonel's bandits are basically faceless targets for our heroes to unleash their fury on.
And unleash the fury they do. That last half hour is full of hacked and bullet ridden bodies dropping from all directions. Lynne gets a showdown with the Colonel and Yang faces Saddest Flute.
The film is very stylized and generally gorgeous to look at. I liken it to films such as 300 and Sin City with a little Tarantino thrown in for good measure. Sngmoo Lee brings some of the tricks that we would expect from a good Asian martial arts film like Hero or Hidden Dragon while infusing it with some humor. Lee, who also wrote the film, has this as his only credit on IMDB.com and I think he did an overall excellent job.
As I mentioned, the film slows down for nearly and hour and a half, but you may not notice. I was actually surprised how much time had gone by because the story moved things at a decent pace, and the wait is worth it to get to the battle at the end.
Generally speaking, I wouldn't necessarily rate this as a film that has to be seen on the big screen, but the gorgeous and stylized look really pops. If you wait to rent this, I hope you get the Blu-ray and watch it on a huge HDTV because you'll be impressed. The acting isn't worthy of an Oscar but it's probably a little better than other action films on the same level.
If you're a fan of action films, ninjas and generally good storytelling, I think you'll like The Warrior's Way. If you're just after bloody mayhem, also going to like this. I'll slice off three wheels of cheddar out of five for The Warrior's Way.
12-1-2010
Holy Shit
Raise your hands if you thought I'd never post to this blog again. Yep, that's pretty much everyone. But, I have to prove you wrong.
It was never my intention to completely abandon this site, it just seems that time passed and I didn't really have the time or energy to post anything. Till today.
How could I possibly let the month of December slip away without the annual Advent Calendar of Porn? That's right, I couldn't. So starting today, enjoy 25 days of hot broads.
And I think I'll probably be around more starting this month. There are one or two movies coming this month that I'd like to see and if I do, I'll probably post up some reviews. After June when I went to see The A-Team I kind of slacked off. I did see Predators in the theater but that was it till a couple weeks ago when the new Harry Potter film dropped. I basically skipped July - October even though there were a couple of movies that looked good.
And while I'm mentioning Harry Potter, can I just say that the first part of The Deathly Hallows was an incredible film. I can not wait till next year to see part two.
Anyway, enjoy the calendar, and I'll be back on a more regular basis starting this month.