East meets West - Wuxia Westerns and Samurai Cowboys

[GeneChing]

I just saw this - Orient City: Ronin and the Princess (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70309-Orient-City-Ronin-and-the-Princess) - and thought we needed a thread to collate all this as the fusion between the Wuxia / Chanbara and Cowboy Western genres is so prevalent. We ran an article that touched on this topic 17 years ago - Kungfu Cowboy-Jackie Chan-East Meets Wild West By John Brown (August 2000 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/index.php?p=magazine&article=121)).

Among our related threads already here are:
Sukiyaki Western Django (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?52606-Sukiyaki-Western-Django)
A Kung Fu Western Love Story (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53337-A-Kung-Fu-Western-Love-Story)
Untitled Kung Fu Space Western (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68452-Untitled-Kung-Fu-Space-Western)
Cowboy Bebop (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?52801-Cowboy-Bebop)
SHAOLIN COWBOY (the comic) (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?36084-SHAOLIN-COWBOY-(the-comic))
Kung Fu Cowboy (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69063-Kung-Fu-Cowboy)
Trancendence (Super Happy Funship Rocket Hour Cowboy Time) (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?67511-Trancendence-(Super-Happy-Funship-Rocket-Hour-Cowboy-Time))
and of course Kung Fu REMAKE (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?62248-Kung-Fu-REMAKE) & Kung Fu: The Movie (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?44356-Kung-Fu-The-Movie)

Then there's Billy Jack Reboot and Sequel (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?63980-Billy-Jack-Reboot-and-Sequel) and Tom Laughlin (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?67047-RIP-Tom-Laughlin-Billy-Jack)'s The Master Gunfighter, Toshiro Mifune's Red Sun, and ostensibly, The Magnificent Seven and Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name franchise (although these are really reinterpretations of classic Chanbara and what I'm looking for here are genre mash-ups).

Any more?

[GeneChing]

Has anyone read The Dark Tower (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70369-The-Dark-Tower)? Are there really martial arts in it? If so, it'll fit in our East meets West - Wuxia Westerns and Samurai Cowboys (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70310-East-meets-West-Wuxia-Westerns-and-Samurai-Cowboys) thread.


'The Dark Tower' Trailer Promises a Sci-Fi Martial Arts Wild West Movie (http://www.outerplaces.com/science-fiction/item/16407-dark-tower-trailer-sci-fi-martial-arts-wild-west)
Matthew Loffhagen Monday, 10 July 2017 - 6:55PM

http://www.outerplaces.com/media/k2/items/cache/774088bc3853d5efa7cfa6f846c140d3_L.jpg
Columbia Pictures

Looking at the latest trailer for The Dark Tower, the swashbuckling, dimension-hopping cowboy movie adapted from the Stephen King book series of the same name, it's hard to get over just how well cast this movie is.

Sure, Idris Elba's Wild West accent isn't perfect, but then, that's not really what you're paying attention to. The draw here is just how awesomely cool Elba looks as the Gunslinger, loading his gun on the fly and firing out bullets while jumping through the air in a way that makes Serenity, the current standard for sci-fi Westerns, stand up and pay attention.

As if Elba weren't enough, Matthew McConaughey is showing off his range by providing such an impressive, eerie Man in Black that you almost forget that he's ever played any character that hasn't been an unstoppable evil force of nature - it doesn't help that he comes off that way regardless. These two work together so well that, watching this (or any other) trailer for the movie, it's hard not to get excited. See the new international trailer below:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZC5FoJ-cPU

Of course, there are many things that are notably absent from the marketing campaign for The Dark Tower. We've seen suspiciously little of the Earthly side of the story - the protagonist of the movie is the young pre-teen Jake, who acts as our viewpoint in an alternate dimension. Naturally, Sony is pushing their big name stars in the trailers, but one can't help but wonder if perhaps the more pedestrian side of the movie is lackluster by comparison.

The same can be said for any genuine horror themes. Stephen King's reputation precedes him, but it does look an awful like Sony's tried to bend the source material to fit a more comic book superhero aesthetic, dropping the scary stuff to make room for more straight action set pieces.

If so, then Sony is justified in keeping the spotlight on the movie's strengths - after all, let's face it, this movie's going to be completely swallowed up by the bigger blockbusters of the year. 2017 is a fantastic time for cinema with so many heavy hitters already in theaters, or about to release, that a movie based on a less recognizable property doesn't really stand a chance.

After several delays, it seems that Sony has given up on finding the perfect time for this film, and are releasing it quickly without much fanfare to simply get it out of the way as they focus on a slew of more traditional superhero movies.

https://media.giphy.com/media/l0IyiWavIsychLXqM/giphy.gif
via GIPHY

This is a shame, as everything we have seen of The Dark Tower thus far suggests that it's going to be a lot of fun. Unless, of course, this is a classic Stephen King horror story that's being marketed as an action Western to get audiences into theaters. That certainly would explain a lot of the movie's shady, quiet marketing approach.

The Dark Tower hits theaters August 4, 2017.

[Jimbo]

Some others:

Blood Money (a.k.a., The Master and the Gunfighter, starring Lo Lieh and Lee Van Clief)
The Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe (spaghetti western)
The Way of the Warrior (villain played by Ti Lung)
Once Upon a Time in China and the West (starring Jet Li)
Dragon Blood (starring John Liu)

I'm sure there are others I can't recall at the moment...