Dynamite Warrior: Critic Reviews

Dynamite Warrior is a genre confection with more than a passing resemblance to Hong Kong martial arts movies of the 1980s.

Director Chalerm Wongpim's skull-buster makes up in wild-eyed insanity (and excessive, arbitrary slow motion) what it lacks in acting, pacing, and coherence.

Light years ahead of Ong-Bak. It features well-choreographed kung fu and high production values.

If we watch movies to see things we've never seen before, then dagnabbit, Dynamite Warrior delivers in spades.

This thoroughly enjoyable Thai supernatural western martial arts film is completely nuts.

If you're getting the impression that Dynamite Warrior is insanely plotted for deliberate hilarity, you're right.

You have to applaud the attempts to enliven the genre, but Dynamite Warrior doesn't have the visual flair or humor to make this a midnight movie worth losing sleep over.

Anytime there's a motion picture that includes a plot point where the hero must equip himself with a menstrual-blood-tipped turn-of-the-century rocket to vanquish magic, consider me in. All in.

It's crazed to be sure, but it's a lot more fun reading about these insanities than watching them unfurl in endless slo-mo flourishes.

Puts the fun back into Kung Fu. And Zen some.

More silly than existentially anarchic, and its exotic quirkiness wears thin quickly.

... amid the slo-mo furniture smashing and cheese-wizardry is a movie in touch with its inner lunatic.

Takes a bite out of Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior and Kung Fu Hustle and spits out a superfluous mess of schlocky supernaturalism, uninspired East-meets-West adventure, insipid backstory, and random feats of dexterous human might.

I know we've all thought to ourselves at some point that kung-fu movies could use a bunch of dynamite firecrackers