'Warriors of Virtue' is not just another East-meets-West
By Laksmi Pamuntjak-Djohan
JAKARTA (JP): In the stunning opening scene of Warriors of Virtue, Chinese chef Ming (the irresistible Dennis Dun, Big Trouble in Little China) performs staggering kung fu acrobatics at his, uuh, wok. Ever a cheery optimist, he is an indisputable master on his own ground, slapping fish and fried rice around with the balletic grace of a Chinese Barishnikov. Drawn to young Ryan Jeffers' lonesome diffidence, he presents him with the fabled "Manuscript of Legend". In it is the key to "finding oneself" -- as only Hollywood can manage.
At this point, you're thinking, "Right, another East meets West thing." Which it is, to an extent. Ever since Hong Kong director John Woo went West, Hollywood has succumbed to vignettes -- or wholesale adoption -- of Hong Kong movies' hyperkinetic dynamism, its cartoonish indifference toward violence, and its preoccupation with man's innate duality.
Yet the presence of the Law Brothers -- a quartet of Hong Kong-born, U.S-based medical doctors-turned-producers -- behind Warriors of Virtue kind of reverses the trend. Beyond its Chinese flavor and its highly-inspired pairing of Hong Kong director Ronnie Yu (The Bride with White Hair) and cinematographer Peter Pau, the flick ends up looking more like Star Wars meets Disney -- an endorsement of the Spielberg legacy in an age when the Master of Heroic Storytelling's star has finally dimmed (Witness Lost World: Jurassic Park's waning magic).
The common denominator? That life spring of action movies: good meets evil and destroys it. The recognizable tropes? An unlikely hero, high-kicking stuntmen inside life-size latex suits, an outlandish villain, and no explanation as to why the warriors have anthropomorphized into Dr. Moreau's kung fu mutants.
Warriors of Virtue certainly tries to pack all of the above, hoping that its virtuous jibe on reigning franchises Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles might elevate this kiddie adventure premise to loftier heights. But virtue is not the exclusive preserve of the East -- Asia's growing assertiveness notwithstanding. For what Warriors of Virtue really does is buttressing Hollywood's perennial love affair with all things Star Wars.
For one, how else would you explain Ryan Jeffers' character, a dreamy, underdog preteen with a leg brace who suddenly becomes the savior of an entire population? In our brutal world of adolescence, where physical perfection is more valued than brains, Ryan Jeffers (Mario Yedidia, Jack, James and the Giant Peach) may be no match to the school's resident bully.
Yet in the mythical world of Tao, a Star Wars-like otherworld inhabited by a medieval subterranean colony of humans and mutants, he is the long-awaited Messiah signaling extermination for evil warlord Komodo (Angus MacFadyen, Braveheart) and his raucous -- but surprisingly sober -- minions.
Good vs Evil
Sound familiar? Sure, the literature ranges from Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland to Star Wars and The Crow -- give and take a few variants. Owing to its juvenile fantasy pitch, this otherworld is also one where Good and Evil are distilled into such clean-cut polar opposites. On the side of Good are Master Chung (Chao-Chi Li) and a quintet of mutant Kangaroo warriors ("They are Roos", muses Elyssia, Tao's obligatory blonde siren, as if that alone should explain what they are).
Each representing a virtue (Benevolence, Righteousness, Order, Wisdom, Loyalty) and an element of nature (Water, Metal, Wood, Fire, Earth), these Yoda-like Roos are rather cute -- not to mention utterly unconvincing as heroes -- as they leap, spin, cartwheel and kick everything to smithereens in stylized slow- motion. Feigning the genre's violence, they don't have a license to kill and prefer to sit around garbling about their undying cause.
But the real moral to the story? "Don't underestimate the power of the ordinary man" -- a rather appealing inversion to the bleak Mars Attacks! Burtonesque worldview. Man needs only to listen to his heart to rule the world (any world). No matter that this wisdom should be found in a sinkhole of Zubrium after being sucked through a sewer's whirlpool. What's important is that the leg brace is gone and so is the identity crisis. If only everything could be that easy.
True strength, whether Chinese or Western, resides in everyone, and since this flick is also about the glorification of the recluse, Ryan's graduation from naught to hot can be best described as a spin-off to the Luke Skywalker legacy. Coming of age has never been so speedy, nor so soon.
Aesthetic strength
That said, there's no denying the film's aesthetic strength. Although hardly original and occasionally reeking of satire (blasphemy to Star Wars devotees), the Star Wars-like production design by Academy Award-winning Eugenio Zanetti (Restoration) is superb. The Hook-style sound effects, another effort at refining a Spielberg forte, has Oscar written all over it.
Peter Pau's use of soft focus and sublime colors is sometimes impressive, as is his penchant for artistically blurry visuals and slow motion. But not impressive enough to obscure a certain mechanical coldness -- imitation's worst nemesis.
Apart from Yedidia, whose blend of earnestness and quiet intelligence makes him a likable hero, the acting is, uuh, passable at best. MacFadyen's stoned-out Komodo oversells eccentricity until he sinks to the moronic level of the material. Looking like a Gothic cross between Ray Liotta and Vincent Perez in a Galliano-meets-King Arthur medieval garb, he ends up looking the most childish of them all.
While adults may find the film's cartoon mayhem entertaining, its self-conscious moralizing is precisely the stuff for which adult cynicism is invented. Yet the film's antiviolence message may be a welcome change from the usual gratuity. The bouncing Roos and all the histrionics should be ample entertainment for preschoolers. For teenagers? I'd say they'll find it a mite too juvenile, what with bigger and deadlier villains (in Empire Strikes Back and Lost World) strutting their stuff next door.