The Warriors Gate attempts to be a Karate Kid & Forbidden Kingdom in-between. It ends up being two hours of unbearably lame humour.
The Warriors Gate Synopsis
A teenager is magically transported to Ancient China to save a princess in distress. To help him battle formidable enemies, he also acquires powerful kung-fu techniques, all of which are based on his impressive video game skills.
Snappy Review
Oh gosh. This is bad. Unbelievably bad.
Let’s see. It isn’t the story. I’ve played games and watched Anime with flimsier stories.
It isn’t the terrible dubbing or lacklustre kung-fu fight sequences too. I’m not that much of a stick-in-the-mud about technical perfection.
It’s the fact that The Warriors Gate is entirely dependent on outdated 80s racial stereotypes. Stereotypes involving both Chinese and Western actors. Understandably, a movie with this sort of East and West crossover would have to rely on some degree of such stereotyping for humour.
But for goodness’ sake, at least try to get the comedic timing right. Every joke in this movie either felt late, lame, or waaaaayyyyyyy too drawn out.
As in, waaaayyyyyyayyy drawn out.
To quote the (Singlish spewing) youngster who sat behind me in the cinema. “Nabei. Still got people make this kind of movie meh?”
That The Warriors Gate is a Chinese-French production, that there are Chinese professionals who actually believe this sort of humour is still funny, makes everything doubly tragic.
Click here to view the trailer.
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