Jade Warrior

[Lucas]

Just watched this last night. very interesting movie. i like the myth and lore in it...as well as the back and forth of languages. it turns out to be mostly a very tragic love story. pretty old world and traditional style. one of the few cross culture kungfu films ive seen that i didnt dislike...the action could have been better but it wasnt garbage.

[GeneChing]

I enjoyed it, but as you all know, I'm easily amused as long as there's a sword fight. It was innovative as kung fu flicks go, somewhat Euro-artsy, somewhat homage to the genre, definitely a refreshing twist. The Euro-art aspect is a little ponderous (like WTF was up with that rubber duck?!?) The freaky thing was that it starred the same actress that was in Aftershock - Zhang Jingchu - which by strange coincidence I had just watched the night before. Zhang is now on my radar as an intriguing Chinese actress just based on these two roles.

It claims to be a confluence between Finnish & Chinese myth. I don't know anything about Finnish myth, so that could have been just made up. They kept citing some legend, kalamata or something (that's not it tho; that's an olive) but maybe it would have made more sense if I knew more about that. Maybe it was just made up for the sake of the film. Don't know, don't really care. As much as I love myth, I'm not going to go chasing down Fin legend just on account of this. As for the Chinese myth, well, there really wasn't anything referenced.

The film plays two story arcs, one in modern Finland and another in ancient China. There's a bit of the ol' Kwai Chang issue with a Fin in ancient China but we won't dwell on that. The interwoven story arcs are complex, yet I'm sure there was some dangling loose ends, but in the end, you don't really feel the need to sort them. It wraps up almost completely satisfactorily, except the lingering issue of WTF it was all about. Kalamata olives and the apocalypse? Eh, that didn't matter so much. The protagonist is tossed into this hallucinogenic myth, and it was more fun to share his 'WTF is going on here?' perspective.

The fights were a lot of wire work and CGI - very comic book - and enjoyable. Yes, there's a sword fight - sword vs. chopsticks even! There's also a switch fight. Most important, there's a sledgehammer fight. I love sledgehammer fights. Those are way up there, like chainsaw fights.

If interested, I'd recommend you check it out on your own, just because it's got some delightful weirdness.