stickman007

Like others here I was impressed by the action quotient of this flick. All hand-to-hand fisticuffs, edged weapons, and gunfight sequences were done better then you see in a lot of other similar type movies. Realistic and bloody.

The story however was weak. There was a revenge aspect that was never fully realized along with a somewhat humorous visually realized treatise on Russian real estate transactions. Also an ending that begs for a sequel.

If this same crew had a decent budget and a good script for some project with a MISSION IMPOSSIBLE or DIE HARD type vibe I think they could put out a real winner I would check it out for sure.

I got this during a free On Demand timeline and was looking forward to seeing it after reading some reviews here, but especially because I saw that Joe Taslim was involved.

Unfortunately, this show appears to have had, with the exception of Taslim, very few trained martial artists involved, and a lead, Andrew Koji, whose skill set is sadly lacking. No doubt that is why just about every fight is in a darkened room with the participants wearing middling to pitch black clothing. It's difficult to even see the weapons used, much less any actual contact. Mostly we are treated to loud crashes and an audio track crammed with heavy breathing & grunts.

I tried to look up Andrew Koji's history which claimed training in Karate, among other colorfully named disciplines but it's apparent that he probably is an actor who had some crash courses in martial arts for the series. You can tell he was not brought up in the arts because most of what he does consists of arm work. His arm work is mostly flailing & straight punches, rarely kicks. When he does kick, they are front kicks, low side kicks and low sweeps, with lots of film editing at different angles - all easy kicks for an untrained martial artist.

Watch Joe Tamlin, whose main skill set is Judo, use his kicks to move forward and make physical contact with his opponent. Also no heavy breathing or flexing for show. Even his arm work is skillful. You can see he has trained since he was young as his moves are smooth. No leaping or prancing about. If you really want to see an expert like Taslim do his thing watch THE RAID, or especially THE NIGHT COMES FOR US exclusive on Netflix. Joe Tamlin really represents the "Heroic Bloodshed" quality in Asian films today. I know he is in the film business to make a living and unfortunately this WARRIOR series is a low quality offering when it comes to martial arts action. Taslim is just coasting here.

The rest of the series is pretty boring as well. Nowhere near as good as BANSHEE. Hoon Lee is pretty fair though he has little to work with here. They don't let him do the cross-dressing tran thing which helped BANSHEE be so original in comedy as well as action. Also, for this being about gangs they do damn few illegal acts to actually make any money. No banks to rob. No plots to carry out. Instead of being villainous the villains mostly just whine about how everybody is picking on them. I will admit that I skipped about half the episodes in the 2nd season because it was so boring.

I did watch the last episode completely however, and it promises more of the same boring plotlines coming soon. Probably more of the same poorly choreographed fights in a darkened closet or dimly lit alley as well. Crashing garbage cans and heavy breathing, Can't wait.

Hopefully Joe Taslim is getting big bucks here. He's the only reason I gave this corporate studio offering three stars btw.

Can't wait to see him again in something that's actually... Exciting !!!