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I swear the following things are true about The Warrior's Way. It is about cowboys vs. ninjas. It really was in theaters at some point. And, I believe it may be the same person as Ninja Assassin. And you know, that one still doesn't get enough love. Apparently I'm like the only person in the world who got the joke or something. So yeah, credits aren't even over, and we're already off to a good start. We've got a narrator who seems to be trying to split the difference between grizzled old cowboy and wise mystic martial arts master. And now here's a bunch of ninjas leaping 10 feet out of a pond to challenge this guy who can pretty safely be assumed is the main character, or at least the main character from sword land, and... he just kinda teleported to the far side of the dozen or so ninjas, who all spouted gouts of blood and fell over a second later. A quick double check with IMDB sez this is not by the same guy who did Ninja Assassin (or anything else actually), but it has the same philosophy, cranked up way higher. The leader of the ninjas is, as handy text floats in to tell us, "The greatest swordsman" "In the history of mankind" "Ever" who he proceeds to kill Ninja Gaiden style, then the wind swirls the text over to him.
Basically there's this whole sworn to wipe out an enemy clan deal going on, and this was the last one, except for this baby. He doesn't particularly feel up for baby killing though, so he walks off, and gets attacked by his own ninja clan traveling through this bambo forest. They don't take kindly to showing mercy it seems. They too are labelled something really elaborate that I was laughing too hard to cath, like The 12 Silent Flutes of Death" or something. He kills them in pretty ridiculous fashion, goes to a restaurant, stabs an old lady through the eyes with his chopsticks as she's pulling a hidden knife out of the side of the table, burns the place town, and decides to go hide out in a western. There's a very intentional lack of realism to... well, everything in this movie, so it's pretty much just this dusty clump of houses in a giant tusty field surrounded by mesas. The mayor is the midget from Bad Santa with an 8 painted on top of his head, and the only other character of note here seems to be this red haired Token Girl, who was his old friend's apprentice, both in doing laundry, and in sword fighting. So she's going to teach out hero here how to do laundry. Clearly, he already pretty much has th sword fighting down. And man, I can't get over how cartoonishly Mayor 8-Ball here is dressed.
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So if I didn't explicitly mention it yet, this movie is totally awesome. Also, it turns out this town out in the middle of nowhere here doesn't exist just for gold mining like you'd figure. The citizens are actually trying to build an awesome circus. I mean yeah, presumably it was originally a prospecting town, but seriously, they're really dedicated to the circus thing now. That is a huge frelling ferris wheel. Also, did I mention that Rival Clan Baby is still around? Because Rival Clan Baby is totally still around. Also, now we seem to have some exposition and character development going on. Token Girl likes opera apparently. Main character is pretty much just, OK. Narrator explains how he's going all Zentradi here and taking joy in all the simple basic joys of simple life because basically all he's ever done is teleport around cutting people in half who realize it a couple seconds later. Here's his crazy flower garden. Also his Grim Warrior's Visage is good for playing poker. Also, seriously, the sky in this movie. Always totally ridiculous.
Now here's a flashback to Token Girl's entire family being murdered by evil.. uh... badguys. Bandits? Civil War deserters? Soldiers? Their leader totally looks like a corrupt Union general, but te rest are all brown coats and goggles masks. So yeah, her father, mother, and 1 year old brother were all shot for rushing to her presumed corpse after she through boiling water at the rapey general, ran off, and was shot in the back. Apparently she's some kind of innate mystical warrior type, who managed to not die, recovered super quick, and began training in crazy knife throwing. So main character gives her some extra training in that, by having her put on a blindfold and chuck knives all around him. One he has to dodge and move to not in his eye, but the rest are pretty good. Also he explains why his clan is called the Sad Flutes.
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So now we have to flashback to his tragic backstory of ninja training. Here he is when he's like, 8, being given a puppy. How long before we get another flashback of him being asked to kill it you think? Oh, well, we're holding off n that for now at least, because we've got a ship full of the rest of his clan sailing after him in the same ship he took over, with the whole crew dead, a trail of their blood behind it as it all runs down the sides. Oh and here's some more montage training. Parry these rocks with these knives! Wash the bearded lady's corset! Parry two rocks at once! Teach that baby to walk! Oh wow there's such surreal visuals to these backgrounds. Oh hey, it's Christmas now, so they're building snowmen out of tumbleweeds. "So whose birthday is it?" asks our protagonist, which isn't a joke you get that often really. Also wow. Those are some endless rolling sand dunes there. It is absolutely ridiculous how in the middle of nowhere this town is. Anyway, crazy paired knife training kiss time.
Now here come 50 bandits charging over the flower garden! Again, I'd like to know what's up with this guys. Their leader now has a pretty slashed up face half-hidden under a brown leather mask with kind of a phantom of the opera sort of deal going on. Presumably from earlier boiling water burns. He notices that they have a clown (with antennae oddly enough), and because @#$% clowns, they start putting stuff on his head and shooting it off. Oh, and his face isn't slashed up, there's just a strap going all the way around. Also most of these bandits have goggles, which is always cool. A random drunk swipes the whiskey off the clowns head and drinks it, so the bandit leader whips him around the neck (as in, like, swinging a whip at him) and has him dragged around by horse a while. Most of the townsfolk preemptively grab Girl and tie her up so she doesn't go all vengeance happy and get everyone killed. The main character opts not to free her and just goes off to do some laundry. Because, you know, he's all done with killing and whatnot. So we can safely assume the bandits will be left alone, do their plundering and raping and murdering, and be sent on their way.
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... OK, I was joking, but... he does totally fail to intervene while Evil Bandit Leader selects a rapey victim, is told she's married, says "Well I'm not the sort of person to have sex with a married woman," throws her back towards her husband, shoots them both and asks to her their daughters brought forth. Girl eventually gets free, puts on a ridiculous frilly dress, and offers herself up in their place. Meanwhile the main character is sitting there looking at his sword, all "hmm." Eventually he decides heck with it, takes his iron, and breaks off the bit where he fused it into its sheathe. The evil ninja army off on a random mountain a couple miles away hear this and prepare their attack. Seriously, they just cut to that real quick. Also, Bandit Leader actually does remember having shot Girl when she was 12 or whatever, counter-ambushes her, and after his goons grab her, he licks her nasty scar from where he shot her in the back, has someone go boil a pot of water, and prepares to rape her. About then the main character jumps through the (second story it turns out) window and decapitates all of goons. Girl insists she has dibs on leader though, they go through another window. He hops on a horse, she closes her eyes and chucks a knife at him. The good news is, direct neck hit. The bad news is, she passed his mask off to a goon while she wasn't looking, so real Bandit Leader escapes. He's only to be killed parallel to the ninja leader, obviously.
Anyway, after that, the main character packs up his baby and sword and prepares to wander off. Presumably because he knows his clan probably heard him unsheathing his sword from miles away. I can't stress enough that that happened. Mayor 8'Ball's all "no way dude, you just started a little war here with the local bandits. You need to see this through." Also, girl offers to come with him when he skips town at the end of the movie. Also the local graveyard is secretly full of guns, so the circus folk can mount a resistance. The town trunk turns out to be trained sniper. Which he demonstrates by shooting a bottle without disturbing any of the many other bottles around it. I didn't see this particular big reveal coming. Now we get his tragic backstory. Also a vague hint that the giant ferris wheel we be put to defensive purposes at some point. Looking forward to that.
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Now here's Main Character very sappily showing Girl the three best places to hit someone with a blade to instantly kill them. And here's the circus folk in full battle gear. WOW. I don't mean they ditch their circus costumes for more serious things to fight with. It's... not possible for me to mean that less in fact. No, they are in full War Clown Regalia here. It is frelling awesome. Main character meanwhile is dressed all cowboy style and staring down the onrushing bandits with just his sword. One is charging with his saber out, and has his hand shot off and sent flying past Main Character's head, that was pretty awesome. Also, Sniper Drunk is being put to best use, shooting sticks of dynamite buried in strategic locations. This creates a huge dust cloud, allowing our hero to better do his proper ninja thing. This is actually a really cooland elaborate fight scene. Now we've got the bandits freaking out at all the automated steam powered circus attractions, and more dinamite sniping from atop the ferris wheel. So they start scaling it, with Sniper Drunk taking them all out handily as they go. And here come the war clowns! Man, that is just... wow. I was expecting to see a lot of ridiculous stuff in this movie, but... wow.
Oh, and now comes the real proper deal with the ferris wheel. The whole thing's rigged with explosives. As soon as the vast majority of bandits are climbing, Sniper Drunk and his assistant light it off and zipline clear. Bandit Leader isn't dead though, and kills a couple of celebrating war clowns. He has a whole second wave of goons it turns out. One of the war clowns breaths fire on them. That's super awesome. And then... EVIL NINJAS LEAP DOWN ONTO EVERY ROOFTOP. Mind you. I said down onto. Not down from. They just kinda... rain down out of the sky. ind you, there is nothing higgher than these buildings around. So... now it's pretty much a 3 way fight. Well, mostly it's the bandits and ninas fighting, because they're the most obvious visible threats. Plus most of the war clowns went down pretty quick,sadly. Oh and the main character is just kinda slicing a path through whoever. Again, I'm really surprised after the teleporting bit at the start, but this movie can totally do a legitimately awesome fight scene when inclined. Oh hey, that bandit has a gatling gun! And now he has no arms! And the main character just parried and killed someone with an iron. As in, for ironing clothes. Because he multiclassed into launderer and all. And that sucks! 8-Ball died before he had a chance to really make use of his crazy spiked glove. Also, the bandit leader now has the baby. I'm actually impressed at how well some of these bandits are holding their own against the crazy magic ninja army. Not so much against the main character though of course. But then, he IS "The greatest swordsman" "In the history of mankind" "Ever." For instance, just now, when Evil Bandit Leader was trying to shoot the baby in the head with the gun basically to her temple, he managed to leap over and cut through the barrel of the gun as it was firing to stop it. Then he stepped aside, because Girl totally has dibs still. Time for a sword fight between these two.
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Also, again, surprising for how this movie started, we've got some pretty realistic asymmetry to this. He's kinda twice her size, and easily just knocking her around the room and such, she's all ninja trained and jumping off the back of his sword when it plunges into a wall. She wins though. Also, he has awesome last words. "I'll see you in hell. Wear something nasty. Heh heh heh." And now of course it's time for a proper duel between the main character and his old master. They go off to have it in the desert. It starts raining cherry blossoms. And we get epic mariachi music. Then as they fight we kinda switch over into them fighting in a flashback, in a big mud puddle in the middle of a storm, slicing through raindrops and such. Then another of him as a little kid, with his bloody hands tied to his sword, as hegets tossed around barefoot in a snowstorm. And now of ourse, to when he had to decapitate his puppy, Unsullied style. Yeah, that's about how long I figured it'd take to get to that. And of course, since he's tough enough to have done that, killing his old master is no real problem. He does kinda give him a dying reminder that he's just here to kill dudes though. Which is emphasized by panning over a bunch of burning tents and dead war clowns. And burning dead war clowns. And 8-Ball. Yeah... this isn't exactly a clearcut victory here. There's... 8 survivors beyond Main Character Girl and Baby.
Main character decides to leave Baby with Girl and this handful of clowns before wandering off alone. Oh, and hey! Sniper Drunk lived too! Also, we get canonical confirmation both that A- Those cherry blossoms are really falling, because he grabs one and sticks it on his cheek to make the baby laugh like he did when they first met, and points out that the baby will be perfectly safe, because while there's still totally evil ninjas after him, they aren't listening for her crying, just the sound of him unsheathing his sword. Because again, that was seriously a real thing that happened.
Then we cut to him in Alaska, or maybe just the pacific northwest, selling fish. Someone walks up to him to buy one. He stabs him in the eye with a fish as he draws his knives, sets his little wooden hut on fire, retrieve his sword from one of his snowmen who's using it as a broom handle, and rushes out to fight the 30 more ninjas who just kinda spontaneously leap out from underground.
That movie was AWESOME. Aside from maybe giving the war clowns a little more screen time, I can't really think of any way it could have been better. I look forward to what this director does next. For that matter, I also have to take back anything bad I've ever said about korean movies in general. This very much had that Korean sort of feel to it, and used it to great success.
