Jade Warrior

From Zanecorpwiki

Interesting fusion. DVD

Summary

Angsty Finnish love story crossed with martial arts demon hunting. While I applaud the frontal assault on genre conventions and found a lot to admire in this film, at the end of the day, it's only above average. I would even go so far as to say that it's an important film, but it's just a little too slow to really grab you, and while I really like the story arc itself, a number of the specific plot elements were too stylized. For all the film's willingness to traipse across expectations, it's still somewhat stiff in the final execution.

Details and Notes

Spoilers.

The acting, film, and all the technical elements of the film were very well done. I especially enjoyed the post-possession Berg character.

I feel like I only got half the relation between the smith's son and the 9th child of the Nocternne. I felt the effect of it, but I don't really get the why of that relationship. Which would be okay, except that in the end, it seemed like it was important. Like there was something I missed in the climax.

Maybe the idea was that at the end of the day, the smith had a choice to live with his love and let everyone else in the world suffer, or to kill the 9th and free the world, but lose his love. The problem is that it was obviously a false choice. Not killing the 9th would not have won him love either, and in fact would have been a worse fate. I suppose one can imagine an angst driven despair kind of move, but it's just not all that compelling.