Wushu Warrior

OK, for the starter, let me say an entertaining movie from me always get a 7, a good enjoyable movie a 8 and so on. If i go from 6 and down, its because the movie really suck or that i want to turn it off cause I'm bored.

Personally i was thinking trough the whole movie what was its real identity and thats where it probably fail for a lot of people when personally i still can enjoy it. Thing is, you start looking at this movie like an epic story, then it become way more of a vengeance "train me master please so i can kick the bad guy ass" to try to go back to the epic trail.

Problem is, its neither of them. The fighting is not enough present, not carrying the movie if i can say, its more like there is a couple scene here and there. Then as for the story, its a little bit cliché like some said, it lack the polishing feel of a movie like Red Cliff for example.

But then at the same time, i didn't watch the clock, i was interested in following the story enough to stay in front of the TV, so i was ENTERTAINED, which is as far as many movies will go. Rarely a "Dark Knight" will pop and make you watch it every day during 2 weeks without getting bored.

I must had that I'm not a fan of hidden dragon crouching tiger, I'm not a fan of Chinese martial arts movie where the characters are obviously wired and fly over the screen. Here there is a few supernatural scene, but nothing that can be annoying. Like Dragon Tiger Gate, it pass with the rest of the movie without making you think "its so stupid" So yeah basically don't watch it as a pop corn beer time kung fu movie, don't watch it as an epic masterpiece, but just watch it as a cool little movie and thats it. I would recommend it to teen as well so you could see it with your family.

Watch this movie for what it is. A GUY MOVIE. It's simply a good kung fu flick. No horribly mushy love story, no long drawn out character development, no silly twists for the director to show how much better he thinks he is than the rest of the world, and no "indy" or "emo" blood letting or soul searching. There's even a valid historical reason for the Chinese to speak English.

The gunfire is underwhelming, while the "sorcery" and super-natural effects are very well done. It feels organic and an extension of the warrior spirit. Not sure if it was intentional, but this has the feel of "there still lies power in the old ways." Not over-the-top, for the most part. The final fight scene is a bit of a stretch though. The few "wire-fu" moments aren't over-ambitious, and serve to show growth in the art, rather than feeling like an excuse to show off (as in Crouching Tiger and the like).

If you're a martial artist, this film leans ever so slightly to the spiritual side of the art. Just enjoy it and try not to dwell on any inaccuracies. The protagonist is orphaned, taken in by a wushu master and his village, and through the years learns the secrets. He finds strength, and learns control. It struck a chord with me, as I'm sure it will with other who take their training seriously.

For anyone who doesn't remember analog cable television there was this amazing phenomenon where if you didn't pay for HBO or Cinemax you could still hear them and could see a little bit of a picture every couple of seconds. As a teenager I would, of course, sneak into the room with the TV after respectable hours and try to catch a glimpse of fuzzy nudity. Why tell this story? I felt like trying to find wushu style martial arts in Wushu Warrior was liking trying to find out what a woman looks like naked with fuzzy cable. It's the same as trying to find Waldo in a room full of Santa Claus suits, with one main difference. When you find Waldo you're excited. When you see the Wushu in this crappy movie you go "meh" and then realize you just wasted an hour and a half.

It's not a good movie. Don't watch this. If you're reading these reviews thinking 'at least I'll get some sweet kung-fu, right?' ... don't fall for it. This is not worth watching.

Rating: 4/40

Eager for a new face in the kung fu genre, I had kept this Tod Fennel vehicle on my radar for the longest time before finally renting it, and in the aftermath, I'm just glad that I didn't buy it. WUSHU WARRIOR is an occasionally pretty but consistently substandard effort to make a Hong Kong period piece thru European production companies. In its heart of hearts, the film wants to be a martial arts version of DANCES WITH WOLVES but ends up so bereft of its own identity that I'll be surprised if I can still remember it in a week from now.

The story: When his father is killed for interfering in the opium operation of the devious Lord Lindsey (Matt Frewer), Jonathan Elders (Fennel) - a British boy living in China during the 19th century - is raised by a group of rebels and learns the art of wushu to enact vengeance on the evil lord.

I'm not sure what medium this movie was produced for (theaters, video, TV?), but it has a curiously contained look. I'm pretty certain that the entire film comprises less than ten whole sets, and while generally nice-looking, they're all relatively small. Stylistically, the picture makes me think of a small-scale version of SON OF THE DRAGON, and instead of David Carradine, we have young Tod Fennel in the lead. Tod seems to be a good martial artist, but his screen presence leaves a lot to be desired: were it not for his singularly awful haircut, he'd be completely faceless. Then again, such is the case with most performers in the movie, the majority of which are Chinese first-timers. Veteran Matt Frewer is a rare exception, though he too isn't on top of his game: the scene wherein he intimidates and then shoots a guard ought to have been impressive and foreboding, but because of the inauspicious script and blocking, it just looks contrived.

The martial arts content likewise ends up being pretty forgettable - not terrible, just not worth much notice. A karate practitioner in real life, Fennel gets the wushu moves down pretty good, but the choreography tends to be basic and unambitious. There's a lot less wirework than I had expected (what's there is pretty silly, though), and I appreciate how many of the five matches remain grounded, but I can't point to a single one that rises higher than numbingly average in quality; there's just not a lot of cool things going on in them. Likely realizing this, the filmmakers addressed the problem via some really laughable CGI inserts throughout. In the film's universe, martial arts seem to be synonymous with magic, and as a result, one character (Gang Zhao) is inexplicably able to teleport while Tod manages to conjure a wispy dragon which blasts Matt Frewer against a wall, DRAGON BALL Z style.

On an offhand note, the film managed to surprise me with the treatment of the character played by Amber Goldfarb, taking her in a different direction than convention intended. Needless to say, this isn't enough to make the movie worth watching, and I can't recommend this to too many people. Its PG-13 rating may make it accessible to younger fu fans, but I can't think of anybody who'd genuinely appreciate this one.

I was relaxing at home at midnight with a plate of take-out and a beer. I figured that this was a great time for a turn off your brain movie, so I started flipping through the wasteland.

I landed upon a 12:05am showing of Wushu Warrior on The Movie Channel. I figured this would be great. Cheesy kung-fu movies and beer are a winning combination. Unfortunately, what I got was a cheesy kung-fu movie that took itself way too seriously.

If ever there was a movie that should realize that it didn't have the budget, fight choreography, acting talent, writing and post production work needed to take itself seriously, it should be this one. I mean, in the opening "I want to learn your ways" bit a guy teleports, and then tells the main character that there's a dragon inside everyone.

The movie's big fight sequence is literally about 60 seconds long, apparently both because there wasn't anyone on the film that could fight convincingly and because the screenwriter thought his plot was freaking amazing. The story's hackily-written cliché upon cliché, and when it isn't being poorly dubbed in English, it's being delivered with all the ability of a elementary school performance.

Bottom line, this isn't even worth killing time at midnight, and the laughs from the poor production can't justify wasting your time on this. Much sadness.