Forbidden Warrior

Forbidden Warrior sounds interesting at first. Hot chick? Check! Mystical powers? Check! Martial arts? Check! It has all the right ingredients to be awesome ...

But it is so the opposite of awesome. It is, in fact, the anti-awesome.

The plot, what little there is, involves two brothers and a pirate on a quest to find Seki (Marie Matiko), the magical girl who can read the magical book that will unlock the Secrets of the Land. She is raised by a blind flying Anglo hippie who speaks in SLOW. PLODDING. SENTENCES, and spends much of her time in the wilderness, picking flowers and eating berries.

Into this idyllic lifestyle wanders an Asian pirate and his hot white chick companion (Musetta Vander, who seems to have no purpose other than to glare at people). The pirate instantly falls in love with Seki. What this plot has to do with anything, I have no idea.

The real story is about the two brothers, raised to be ruthless by their overbearing father. They're seen as kids fighting against each other, and then again decades later, only nobody has aged one bit except the two boys. Ah, movie magic!

Each brother has his own henchmen. The Good Brother has a group of misfit white guys: a fat guy who speaks gibberish named Jibberish, a Jerry Lewis imitation named Mouse, and a big guy named Tall Tall. Did I mention Tall Tall interprets everything Jibberish says? Are you laughing yet?

Fortunately the Bad Brother has some cooler bad guys, including Yang Sze (played by Al Leong, who has been in every American film featuring martial arts as every moustached Asian bad guy). Lots of time is spent establishing how bad the Bad Brother is and how Good the Good Brother is. SPOILER ALERT: These two are going to fight over the girl!

And then she will use the magic the flying white hippie taught her!

And there will be a big sword fight!

And then there will be very little actual martial arts!

And now that I think about it, there wasn't all that much magic either ...

In short, Forbidden Warrior lowers the bar for chop-sockey flicks down to its toenails, then trips over it. On the upside, it will make a hilarious drinking game.