23 July - "Fellas like you and me, we don't run."

The Warrior's Way (2010)
dir. Sngmoo Lee

CAST

Dong-gun Jang

Kate Bosworth (The Rules of Attraction, 2002)

Geoffrey Rush (Elizabeth, 1998)

Danny Huston (Leaving Las Vegas, 1995)

Tony Cox (Beetlejuice, 1988)

I'm sick with some sort of heinous derivation of a summertime flu and life is basically miserable for me now as I sit and wait to see how my body will let me down next. The silver lining is that this is a perfect time to take advantage of Mom's On Demand and buy all these movies that I've been wanting to see (and a few just so my little brother will sit quietly with me).

From the descriptions I've read (because I don't think I actually watched a trailer for it) I was expecting a sort of inverted spaghetti-western, but running that phrase through my brain, I'm not exactly sure what that means. I guess I was thinking about The Magnificent Seven, which isn't a spaghetti western at all (usually when people are talking about those, they are thinking about Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly) --Rather, The Magnificent Seven was westernized retelling of The Seven Samurai, which I've never seen but it's probably something I should get around to.

So I guess my point is that this movie is like how a Japanese person imagines and idealizes the old American West. It is spare in scenery and props, but all of the ones that are there are over-the-top and in-your-face. The villain is villainous, barely humanized. He rapes girls with good teeth. The hero is quiet and noble with a dark past. He barely speaks. The ending scene was anticlimactic, totally unnecessary to the conclusion of the story arc, but upon exit interviews, this scene held my little brother's favorite line of the movie, and my mother's favorite part as well. So, buttons.

This movie is good. It's unexpected and totally different. It uses a few common tropes, like the typical old-time circus characters, but these are satisfying and not boring. Kate Bosworth is sort of annoying as always (can I say poor-man's Jessica Simpson, or is that too cruel?) being the spunky-girl-in-the-old-west. OK, I get it. You're like Annie Oakley. Let's not overkill the folksy expressions.

I feel like this review was vague. I'm tired and sick and I have to make my own chicken soup and the kitchen stove doesn't work. Next I think I'm reviewing Megamind or else that one is coming up soon.