The Warrior

I just finished watching this film and I wanted to find out what the D.O.P. had done before...then I read some of the comments... I cannot believe people call this film long or boring...what were you watching? This films simplicity is one of the reasons that it is so beautiful and powerful. I found this film completely engaging. The fact that the warrior was more of a 'goon' and not 'an honourable warrior' - whatever that is...is the point, surely. There was no honour in what he was doing...he realized that he was merely a hired killer, and for the sake of his son, he had to break the cycle, and to call this film, with all the love and care and hard work that has obviously gone into it, "dishonest" is just............. The locations and photography were breathtaking, the music, the acting ... it was all wonderful.

Watch this to see how films could be...

I cannot recommend it enough.

A slow moving and beautifully shot meditation on life and death, all set within a barren and inhospitable landscape. THE WARRIOR marked Asif Kapadia's breakout from short films into feature length cinema, and it's a stunning debut. A familiar storyline unfolds in a leisurely and unhurried way, promoting realism at all times. Don't go in thinking this is an action film due to the misleading title, because you'll be disappointed: there isn't a single sword fight to be found.

Irrfan Khan is a delight as the titular character, but the real star here is Kapadia himself. His cinematography aches with beauty, and he has a way of shooting isolated landscapes in a way that few other directors can match (for more of this check out FAR NORTH). Not since Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre have I seen such a film shot through with this kind of artistic composition. There are shades of the Lone Wolf & Cub films here, but this meditative film turns out to be something else entirely; I really liked it.

"Thumbs Up/Down" makes little sense in general, but when it comes to Asif Kapadia's "The Warrior," it's virtually repugnant to say just yes or no to such work of rare and consuming integrity.

This brilliant new British director made his debut at 29, when the 2005 Miramax US release of "The Warrior" appeared in its initial form in 2001. It is shot entirely - and spectacularly, with the painterly prowess of a Zhang Yimou - in India of long ago. It is a work onto itself, without regard to convention or audience comfort.

Kapadia does not bother to introduce his subject or to invite viewers into the world he depicts, he thrusts them into it with the first frame, and he doesn't stop... until about an hour into the film, there is a brief episode not involving gripping, threatening, breathtaking conflict.

As does the director, the great new star in the title role, Irfan Khan, is also making his debut, but he has a face, a presence that you feel you have always known. He plays the top warrior, the enforcer and executioner for a inhumanly cruel warlord, a man slaughtering men, women and children of the villages that don't pay their taxes in full. When he suddenly stops killing and seeks a different life, the hunter becomes the hunted.

From this point on, when Hollywood would follow one of two or three possible scenarios, Kapadia continues to enthrall the viewer, the story unfolding in its own unique, riveting way, never becoming slack, lazy, predictable. Intensity continues unabated, suffused with meaning and complexity.

From India's Rajasthani Desert to the Himalayan region of Himachal Pradesh, there are spectacular backdrops, but Roman Osin's camera is consistently on the faces - ancient, stoic faces (most of the cast never acted before), showing the barest signs of emotion - magnified in context and in the close-ups.

At the most horrendous moment of "The Warrior," the face on which we'd expect the reaction is suddenly hidden by the camera shifting up so that we see only a riot of colorful turbans. We both want to see that disappearing face, and are grateful that we don't have to witness it.

"The Warrior" takes control, arousing and maintaining intense feelings that you'll rarely experience in a theater. Which way the thumbs that wave high for the usual infantile drivel? Let's just break 'em.

the warrior is amazingly well filmed in great locations. the plot is not one of the most amazing to ever to be put to screen, and the ending did leave a lot to be desired. But this film had it's moments and Irfan Khan put in a great performance. but this is a film to be taken as a spectacle of cinematography and on that level i doubt any one can find reason to criticise this visually stunning film. i recommend this film if you have the time and enjoy the spectacle of an amazingly filmed movie but it doesn't have the best story line and the ending leaves a lot more questions then answers.

For me, three virtues define this special film. The first is the familiarity of story. The old Oriental tale, with its motifs and themes, characters and embroidery of facts. The second - the music and magnificent photography. Not the last -the fine job of Damayanti Marfatia and Irfan Khan. It is real, real difficult to not love it. Yes, it seems long and boring and the expected fight scenes are not so many. But it is a tale. Or, not, sorry, only a poem. You discover it only if you know it, scene by scene, piece by piece, before you see it.