WOW -- this thing is so weird, so bad in many ways that it is a cheesefest for bad movie lovers. Now, Ronny Yu is a talented director - his magical fairy tale THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR is beautiful and wonderful. I also know many horror fans enjoy his FREDDY v.s. JASON (I haven't seen it) but this film - an odd attempt to mesh a kiddie film, an adventure, martial arts, evil villains, music video art direction AND KANGAROOS that can kick butt with karate and ninja moves - has to be seen to be believed. There is a mopey kid with a bad leg who longs to play football - he is teased by the jocks who convince him to try a physical dare and he falls into a sewer plant's whirlpool (you with me??) and sucked into a magical world where HIS LEG IS OKAY - and gosh, once you have a group of kung-fu kangaroos, life is sweet. The make-up or masks - whatever they did to make the kangaroos' faces - well, its just plain creepy. And the villain in the fantasy world is played by Angus MacFayden who has gone on to be good in Braveheart and as Orson Welles in Cradle Will Rock- but, um,,,Angus gives a performance that is so over the top it is jaw-dropping. Major ham and cheese sub job. It's funny how an actor will know he's in some trainwreck and many times will just sleepwalk through it (or drink through it) and just mumble their way through it dead-eyed BUT sometimes they figure, Aw - what the hell - I know the movie's crap but I'm gonna have fun! And he does - made up to look like the lead singer of The Cure, he screams and pouts like a fey King Lear. It's wild. The movie has so many strange things in it that I highly recommend it for fans of cinema oddities.
Review of Warriors of Virtue
