Fuse Media, Sad Flutes
Dong-gun Jang, Kate Bosworth, Geoffrey Rush, Danny Huston, Tony Cox, Lung Ti, Analin Rudd, Markus Hamilton, Rod Lousich, Matt Gillanders
Yang (Dong-gun Jang) has been trained from childhood as a samurai warrior. He’s the best. His clan was at war with another clan, and the other’s were defeated. The last remaining member of the other clan is a baby girl. Refusing to kill the child, Yang becomes the number one target of his clan, requiring the shedding of his blood to make up for disobeying the order. Yang takes the baby in tow, and heads to the old west to visit a friend who settled there long ago. Alas his friend has passed on, but Yang meets a young woman, Lynne (Kate Bosworth) who is a knife throwing circus performer, and the town drunk, former gunslinger Ronald (Geoffrey Rush). It seems everyone is after Lynne for a terrible secret she is hiding, and Yang’s clan is not willing to forget what he failed to do as well. All this leads to an unbelievable showdown in the street.
This is a Samurai Western, much like the original Kung Fu with David Carradine. But this is a very beautiful film. A lot of it is dream-like and very artistic. It is a grand battle that we get to witness, but by the same token, it has the magical, mystical feel of many of the great Chinese Kung-fu films. I was very impressed with the drama and the beauty of this film. It is not really literal, but very visual treat that is hard to forget. It’s funny and suspenseful, but above all, poetic in the telling of the story. This is a very, very good film, and I really enjoyed it very much. Don’t expect a pure kung-fu film, nor a western. It’s a blend of the two done with a lot of artistic license, but if you stick with the film, it is very, very beautifully done. Very worth watching!
EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog
