The Warriors Gate

It's pretty obvious that the makers of this French-Chinese co-production were really trying hard to make this movie appealing to major Hollywood studios, what with most of the dialogue being in English, the casting of David Bautista in a key role, and the hero being an American youth. However, no Hollywood studio was apparently willing to release the end results to American theaters, and it's pretty clear why. Quite often the enterprise doesn't have the "oomph" of a major Hollywood studio production; it's not seriously cheap-looking, but all the same it's missing something many times. I could have overlooked that fact had the movie compensated in other areas, but the movie falls short in some key areas. The whole "American kid transported to a fantasy land" angle has already been done to death, and this telling doesn't really have many new ideas to add some freshness. It's more humorous this time around, though quite frankly I found most of the humor to be juvenile and embarrassing. The main problem with the movie, however, is that its storytelling style is often not very clear. The script seems to be missing key explanations in several areas, and also the direction/editing in other places makes it hard to follow what is happening. Kids may be more forgiving towards this movie than their parents, but why subject them (and yourself) to this movie when there are plenty of superior family movies that will entertain both kids and adults?

A bit funny, but trying too hard only to give us a mindless entertainment. With the presence of a very good actor Dave Bautista and an action-packed trailer, it's very unfortunate to get what seems to be a spoiled food out of a sought after delicacy.The cast has a lot of potentials however they were all murdered by poor scripting, and exaggerated acting by some actors.The plot is somehow interesting, to see some kind of a gamer turned to be the actual hero himself, but only turned out to be a cheesy fantasy action film that only exists if there's a beautiful woman to be saved.Another downside of the film were its special effects, where it seems to forget that it's already 2000's and we are in the era where visual effects are one of the most significant factors when it comes to fantasy films.Anyway, despite these disadvantages, the movie delivered decent action sequences (martial arts and sword fights) and a cool bike chase scene.

The word on the street was that this was a riff on one of my all-time favorite films, Forbidden Kingdom 2008, so I could not resist checking it out.

(Word to the wise, if you have not already seen FK, and you like MMA and/or Wushu and/or Fantasy and/or Adventure, check it out. FK has humble beginnings, features two of the greatest cinematic martial artists of all time - Jackie Chan and Jet Li -- a killer script, great scenery, and solid performances. Some reviewers, including this one, think it is one of the best of its kind ever done.)

Let's start with what Warriors Gate was intended to be, and work from that.

The production team clearly thought they would "improve" on FK by adding more "teen humor." Presumably they also felt this would more than compensate for the film's considerably lighter "feel" and the awkward void formed by not having ANY famous film martial artists at all.

Also, Forbidden Kingdom had a certain edge of malice and unpredictability in the script which, oddly, only increased its impact and its fan base. This film lacks those features as well and, on its best day in its best suit, comes across more as "Forbidden Kingdom Lite," or perhaps even a Disney knockoff of the original.

Which is not to say it is not worth a watch. A lot of effort was put into the humor aspect (as explained above) and this does keep things moving along.

(For example -- if you are film buff, you will remember fondly the famous tag line from Airplane 1980 - "Don't call me Shirley" which became a sort of iconic inside joke for years afterwards. This script contains a number of attempts to mimic that sort of dialog, my favorite being -- "KILL HIM! -- slashing noise -- "NO, NOT HIM. HIM.")

Bottom Line: One hour and 45 minutes of reasonable entertainment. However, it suffers from the "curse" common to all knock-offs. Unless you see the original, you will never know what you are missing.

This must be appealing to the younger crowd but I'm a senior and have always loved fantasy books and films! I don't care if so many things are impossible and incorrect , the point is it's an entertaining fantasy feature. Sure it's been done before but so many other movies too!

The acting is good, there is lots of humor and the SFX are nice too! Beautiful landscapes add to the quality of the film! I had fun watching it and I'm sure ,if you're a fantasy lover , you will too!

Seemed like a kids film to me, so don't be too harsh on it. Bad things: some very artificial ADR, average casting, odd blend of language accents, lame bad guy jokes, average acting from the lead, which could have something to do will lazy actor direction. Great things: the concept, the music, the costumes and there would have been a good script in there somewhere.

Kids will love it. Not too much violence and very little blood seen. Has a gorgeous young lady that boys will want to fall in love with. Nice romantic escapism.