It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

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.

For anyone who doesn't remember analog cable television there was this amazing phenomenon where if you didn't pay for HBO or Cinemax you could still hear them and could see a little bit of a picture every couple of seconds. As a teenager I would, of course, sneak into the room with the TV after respectable hours and try to catch a glimpse of fuzzy nudity. Why tell this story? I felt like trying to find wushu style martial arts in Wushu Warrior was liking trying to find out what a woman looks like naked with fuzzy cable. It's the same as trying to find Waldo in a room full of Santa Claus suits, with one main difference. When you find Waldo you're excited. When you see the Wushu in this crappy movie you go "meh" and then realize you just wasted an hour and a half. It's not a good movie. Don't watch this. If you're reading these reviews thinking 'at least I'll get some sweet kung-fu, right?' ... don't fall for it. This is not worth watching. Rating: 4/40

If I could go with 0 stars I would! This must be made for a children's network channel or something. This entire movie could be a sub plot for Walker Texas Ranger.The acting in this film is just atrocious. (SPOILERS COMING UP) There will be a scene when the adoptive father of the main character disappears and reappears up in the rafters.. when that happens you'll think to yourself "Self, I should turn this off" and you should listen! It would be better to watch anything that the Lifetime network can throw at me than to watch this again!Plot: A boys father is killed and he is raised in a remote village by the adoptive ninjas. There he learns of his inner dragon and for about 10 years learns martial arts. Trying to prove that he belongs as part of the village, he try's to gather information about a continuing ploy to enslave Chinese people. When the other guy on the mission gets spotted, he starts yelling his name out and they both get seen. While trying to get away, they are seen by the 1,000th person who happens to be the villains daughter and they kidnap her. Rest of the story you can get from Madam Chleo it's so predictable.***SPOILER*** As for the ending, it ends almost mid-thought and almost makes you wonder if they'd attempt a sequel; for the love of everything Holy just stop the bleeding now!

It seems that the way to go for Alain Desrochers is to direct the most cliché-ridden scripts available to him.His take on "The Fast and The Furious" was the forgettable "Nitro". Now, he goes "Crouching Tiger/Onk-Bak" with this boring martial arts adventure, even more forgettable.This tale of revenge, while well shot, will make you lose interest once you see Matt Frewer as the bad guy, delivering the kind of dialogue a 10 year old kid uses when playing with his action figures.The combat scenes are as best as they can afford, meaning they're pretty lame. Everybody fights kinda slowly, going through the steps of the choreography like grade schoolgirls doing an unrehearsed Swan Lake.Sure, today's technology allows the post production team to easily erase the wires during the less than spectacular acrobatics, but you can still feel those wires supporting the fighters in many of the confrontations. Embarrassing.Other digital effects are on par with today's video games. Not tody's movies.Yeah, I realize I don't spend a lot of time talking about the plot: it's just not worth my time. Nor yours.You'd be better off seeing a Uwe Boll film if you want to be entertained: at least, he's decent at sucking and his movies are laughable. Alain Desrocher's Wushu Warrior won't event make you laugh at it. It's just a boring, unremarkable waste of your time.