Eager for a new face in the kung fu genre, I had kept this Tod Fennel vehicle on my radar for the longest time before finally renting it, and in the aftermath, I'm just glad that I didn't buy it. WUSHU WARRIOR is an occasionally pretty but consistently substandard effort to make a Hong Kong period piece thru European production companies. In its heart of hearts, the film wants to be a martial arts version of DANCES WITH WOLVES but ends up so bereft of its own identity that I'll be surprised if I can still remember it in a week from now.
The story: When his father is killed for interfering in the opium operation of the devious Lord Lindsey (Matt Frewer), Jonathan Elders (Fennel) - a British boy living in China during the 19th century - is raised by a group of rebels and learns the art of wushu to enact vengeance on the evil lord.
I'm not sure what medium this movie was produced for (theaters, video, TV?), but it has a curiously contained look. I'm pretty certain that the entire film comprises less than ten whole sets, and while generally nice-looking, they're all relatively small. Stylistically, the picture makes me think of a small-scale version of SON OF THE DRAGON, and instead of David Carradine, we have young Tod Fennel in the lead. Tod seems to be a good martial artist, but his screen presence leaves a lot to be desired: were it not for his singularly awful haircut, he'd be completely faceless. Then again, such is the case with most performers in the movie, the majority of which are Chinese first-timers. Veteran Matt Frewer is a rare exception, though he too isn't on top of his game: the scene wherein he intimidates and then shoots a guard ought to have been impressive and foreboding, but because of the inauspicious script and blocking, it just looks contrived.
The martial arts content likewise ends up being pretty forgettable - not terrible, just not worth much notice. A karate practitioner in real life, Fennel gets the wushu moves down pretty good, but the choreography tends to be basic and unambitious. There's a lot less wirework than I had expected (what's there is pretty silly, though), and I appreciate how many of the five matches remain grounded, but I can't point to a single one that rises higher than numbingly average in quality; there's just not a lot of cool things going on in them. Likely realizing this, the filmmakers addressed the problem via some really laughable CGI inserts throughout. In the film's universe, martial arts seem to be synonymous with magic, and as a result, one character (Gang Zhao) is inexplicably able to teleport while Tod manages to conjure a wispy dragon which blasts Matt Frewer against a wall, DRAGON BALL Z style.
On an offhand note, the film managed to surprise me with the treatment of the character played by Amber Goldfarb, taking her in a different direction than convention intended. Needless to say, this isn't enough to make the movie worth watching, and I can't recommend this to too many people. Its PG-13 rating may make it accessible to younger fu fans, but I can't think of anybody who'd genuinely appreciate this one.
