The South Korean/New Zealand/American co-production of The Warrior’s Way (Sngmoo Lee, 2010) is wildly uneven in tone with its typhoon of severed limbs and humorous farts, but if you’re not looking for anything serious or heavy and just accept the forced juxtaposition of gore and silliness, than you might discover a little gem of adolescent entertainment. Imagine that time in your life of budding film geekery where you’ve just discovered Zatoichi (Kenji Misumi, 1962) and Django (Sergio Corbucci, 1966) and then you learn of the Samurai/Cowboy mashup Red Sun (Terence Young, 1971)…and then you actually watch Red Sun and it’s a tremendous disappointment. If only you had The Warrior’s Way!
The film begins with Jang Dong-gun’s quiet warrior slaying “The Greatest Swordsman in the History of Mankind…Ever,” claiming the title for himself, and contemplating the assassination of the enemy clan’s sole survivor, a baby girl. Instead, he straps the tyke to his back and crosses the sea for The American West. Behind him follow the members of the Sad Flute Clan (named after the sound that escapes from the slicing of a human throat); they wait to hear the chime of his assassin’s sword, pinpointing his location in the freakshow town of Lode, the supposed Paris of the West.
Dong-gun’s stranger quickly sets up a laundry shop and begins to make friends with the weird-os of Lode, including Tony Cox’s 8-Ball dwarf, Geoffrey Rush’s longjohns drunk, and Kate Bosworth’s psychologically damaged knife-wielder. Lord of the Rings producer, Barrie Osbourne definitely puts his talent for collecting creepy oddball Down Under faces together and as the townsfolk shuffle in and out of frame wearing clown makeup, wild facial hair, scars, and hangdog expressions director Sngmoo Lee’s camera takes full advantage of their beautifully grotesque visages. 90% of the film’s bent vibe succeeds on the casting of the Circus folk and as they teach Dong-gun the pleasures of getting dirty things clean and the hopes of the Ferris Wheel, it’s obvious that this badass killer certainly does not belong in this collection of innocent slackjaws—and he most certainly will be responsible for several of these clowns’ deaths.
But the Sad Flutes are not the driving force of the film’s villainy. That role belongs to the grandiose cartoon that is Danny Huston’s two-faced Colonel. Naturally in a go-for-broke movie like this, Huston’s baddie is tied to the origins of the town and the tortured pasts of its inhabitants. He’s a buffoon of a bad guy that guffaws at his violent antics and questions those who dare laugh along with him. He acts towards the heavens, screaming & snarling his snotty dialog and when he crawls and licks over Kate Bosworth’s damsel it’s easy to hide the sight behind your fingers. This is a Batman rogue performance as vile as but completely apart from his walking nightmare turn in that other Aussie Western, The Proposition (John Hillcoat, 2005).
When The Colonel’s Outlaw Gang finally goes to war with Lode’s Carnival Militia and The Sad Flutes begin to drop from the rooftops slicing & dicing, we are treated to a gory ballet of Gatling guns, severed arms, and sometimes even Severed Arm Powered Gatling Guns! And it’s all just a lark. Sure, R-Rated, but it’s that kinda-safe-for-the-sneaky-pre-teen R where 300 (Zach Snyder, 2006) styled CGI blood flows freely but evaporates before ever splattering the ground. A cartoon meant to be taken just as seriously as Tom & Jerry…you know for those sick, demented, or stunted film geeks out there.
Costing over $45 million, and if Wikipedia is to be believed, The Warrior’s Way was one of 2010’s biggest box office bombs, right behind MacGruber (Jorma Taccone) and Jonah Hex (Jimmy Hayward). That is some seriously unfortunate company to be a part of, but it also feels a little unjust. Again, this is not a sure-fire hit of a flick, but The Warrior’s Way is a true hoot that will probably rock some 12 year old’s brain one day and I appreciate that there’s a film out there now that properly pits Samurai against Cowboys even if you have to put up with farts and Kate Bosworth’s screechy Southern accent.
