Take it from me, writing a screenplay in one genre is challenging enough, so blending genres is certainly not easy. The speed-bump here is to mix the two (at least) different kinds of movies into one place and make it feel balanced. They have to feel cohesive, or else the viewer is going to feel as if they are watching two (at least) movies at once and they probably won't hang around to see if things ever come together. The Warrior's Way takes two genres which are similar and yet completely different and puts them together in a way which almost works.

The Warrior's Way opens in 19th Century China where we meet Yang (Dong-qun Jang), a brilliant swordsman who is a member of a clan called The Sad Flutes. Upon killing his foe, he is supposed to kill a baby girl, but he can't bring himself to do it, thus incurring the wrath of his clan. He flees to America, specifically the old West, where he hopes to see his old friend, Smiley. Upon arriving in the small town of Lode, he finds that Smiley has died, the town is in ruins, and the only residents are members of a traveling carnival who have decided to make the town their home base. He is welcomed by Eight-ball (Tony Cox), the de-facto mayor and Lynne (Kate Bosworth), who convinces Yang to re-open Smiley's laundry. Lynne longs to be a an expert knife-thrower, and when she learns that Yang is a swordsman, he begins to train her. This is a good thing because not only are The Sad Flutes coming to town, but also The Colonel (Danny Huston), a man seeking revenge against Lynne.

Let me get this straight, someone wanted to mix a an Asian action movie with a western? Can that work? Well, if you think about it, it's not that crazy. Many wandering swordsman movies aren't all that different from wandering gunfighter movies, the only real difference being the setting -- it's usually the desert vs. the forest. In turn, Western stories have always contained elements which don't vary greatly from samurai or ronin mythology. Therefore, it would seem that these two genres wouldn't be all that hard to combine.

And yet, somehow The Warrior's Way misses the mark, but not for lack of trying. First-time Director Sngmoo Lee has clearly studied many actions genres, most notably Asian films, and he gives the film's opening and closing sequences a great look. (I especially loved the final shot of the coda.) The movie was shot on sound-stages against a green-screen background and this gave Lee and his production team a great deal of freedom to give the movie a specific look. Lee's camera is rarely still and the movie gets a lot of mileage out of it's one main location.

But, Lee gets tripped up by his own script and the film's pacing. The story simply never gels, mostly due to lack of detail. Who was Smiley? How did he and Yang know each other? Why did the carnival choose Lode? Where had they been? Did Lynne join the group or had her family always been part of it? What happened to Lode to destroy it? These questions go unanswered. There's nothing wrong with Yang being enigmatic -- that's his primary function -- but the rest of the story shouldn't be a big mystery. We don't need to have every detail spelled out for us, but it's difficult to get into a movie which just keeps throwing ideas at us, but doesn't back them up with anything. The story is further hampered by the pacing. Once the main story and the villains are introduced, we know that there will be a big fight at the end and The Warrior's Way and the movie doesn't disappoint on this front. However, there's no suspense leading up to this and we are treated to one very brown and tan scene after another. When the big fight does arrive, it's simply not exciting as it should have been.

You may have noticed that Geoffrey Rush's name featured on the box art for The Warrior's Way and wondered why I didn't mention him thus far. That's because he's not in the movie very much and I can only assume that he's in the film at all because it was shot in New Zealand, not far from his native Australia. The Warrior's Way shows promise, but in the end, it's yet another post-The Matrix genre mash up which presents interesting visuals and little else. The bright spot here is that it's good to see New Zealand filmmaker Scott Reynolds working again.

The Warrior's Way will remind a lot of people of Lone Wolf and Cub on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. The film has been letterboxed at 2.35:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 30 Mbps. The image is very sharp and clear, showing only a trace amount of grain and no defects from the source material. The movie has a very monochromatic look, as most of it takes place in the desert in a sand-worn town, but the few flashes of color look good. The image is never overly dark or bright. The depth of the image is very good, as the landscape shots take on a quasi-3D look. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 4.0 Mbps. The track delivers clear dialogue and sound effects. The surround sound effects are very good, most notably during the action scenes. This is the kind of movie where objects are zipping by characters, and we really get the feel of the sounds going from the front channels to the rear. The subwoofer effects are nicely done as well, as each punch and gunshot is punctuated.

The Warrior's Way Blu-ray Disc is very short on extras. "Behind the Scenes Montage" (2 minutes) offers a brief reel of on-set action showing some key scenes being shot. This includes comments from the cast as well, who discuss their experiences on the shoot. The Disc contains thirteen DELETED SCENES which run about 12 minutes. Here we get to see the most racist tombstone ever and not one, but two versions of a cartoony scene which wouldn't have fit the tone of the film. This contains an epilogue not seen in the film.