User reviews

This film is one of those forgotten 90s rip-offs from the Ninja Turtle fall out. It's easy to forget how insane the turtle craze was but it is also easy to forget that the original TMNT movie was actually pretty decent. Most of it's sequels and copies were not.

Which brings us to this little gem...

It's a film so bad it's good. The fight scenes are sloe-mo with wind-blown leaves for no reason other than effect. The warriors of virtue are kangaroos with martial art skills, they personify the virtues eg patience....and it's fight to the death between good and evil. All told it's a great movie for kids that the adults can enjoy while pretending to be too old for it.

After I saw this film I had mixed feelings about it. The film has a good production design and some very well done fight scenes. On the other hand it has a lousy script. As soon as anybody opens his his mouth you start to cry and beg him/her to shut it immediately because it is really annoying to hear the same old cliches over and over again. It seems that the entire budget was invested in fight scenes etc. and the pitiful rest into the story and/or the actors. I give this film 5 out of 10.

Warriors of Virtue is a rather strange movie, but I find it a great bore. While the idea of martial art marsupials seems goofy and stupid, but at least it would be entertaining. This movie, however, seems to have a consistency of dragging dialogues, confusing setups, and poor delivery. It takes forever for the action to start up, and when it does, the cinematography is unnecessary and often hard to make out. The very idea of the movie may sound silly, it had promise to at least be ridiculously entertaining, but the slow route it takes and the basic "nothingness" it envelopes kind of makes it not so much a good movie. However, the one thing that always brought me back to this film was the villain. The acting in the villain's case is just so over-the-top and enjoyably hilarious that he makes the film worth watching. Give him props because he was starred in other movies like "Titus."

This movie was actually very good for what it was trying to do, which is give a summary (very simply) of the VERY esoteric chinese philosophy of Taoism. Those who know nothing of Taoism will definitely find that this movie does not make much sense in some places.

All of the characters are embodiments of the virtues and faults presented in the Taoist Philosophy. Yes, this makes for quite the challenge to present it in childrens movie no less.

The movie is fun if you dont take it to seriously. It would seem that some of the people posting here thought they were there to see Gone With the Wind or some other Epic or adult piece. Take it as lighthearted and as a possible education on a foreign way of thought, if you are into that new things. (Then again you could just read books on Taoism to get a somewhat clearer view)

3 out of 5 for production, 4 out 5 for accomplishment

Alright, I admit going in that I was predisposed to dislike this movie. I have studied Taoism for many years, and I guess I don't take kindly to it being reduced down to a 90 minute family friendly event. Although it came highly recommended to me, I was put off by it's kid friendly approach to something as complex as Eastern Philosophy.

Through out the film, I could not shake the vision I had of a Roos vs Turtles sequel.

Although not as bad as I feared, this film looks for all the world like it was edited by a Cuisinart. The over extended climatic fight scene had so many different editing styles present that it nearly gave me an epileptic fit. Either that, or my digital TV is on the blink.

I really cannot recommend this film to anybody except possible a few hard core gamers who would get off on the cartoon-like action sequences.

WOW -- this thing is so weird, so bad in many ways that it is a cheesefest for bad movie lovers. Now, Ronny Yu is a talented director - his magical fairy tale THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR is beautiful and wonderful. I also know many horror fans enjoy his FREDDY v.s. JASON (I haven't seen it) but this film - an odd attempt to mesh a kiddie film, an adventure, martial arts, evil villains, music video art direction AND KANGAROOS that can kick butt with karate and ninja moves - has to be seen to be believed. There is a mopey kid with a bad leg who longs to play football - he is teased by the jocks who convince him to try a physical dare and he falls into a sewer plant's whirlpool (you with me??) and sucked into a magical world where HIS LEG IS OKAY - and gosh, once you have a group of kung-fu kangaroos, life is sweet. The make-up or masks - whatever they did to make the kangaroos' faces - well, its just plain creepy. And the villain in the fantasy world is played by Angus MacFayden who has gone on to be good in Braveheart and as Orson Welles in Cradle Will Rock- but, um,,,Angus gives a performance that is so over the top it is jaw-dropping. Major ham and cheese sub job. It's funny how an actor will know he's in some trainwreck and many times will just sleepwalk through it (or drink through it) and just mumble their way through it dead-eyed BUT sometimes they figure, Aw - what the hell - I know the movie's crap but I'm gonna have fun! And he does - made up to look like the lead singer of The Cure, he screams and pouts like a fey King Lear. It's wild. The movie has so many strange things in it that I highly recommend it for fans of cinema oddities.

This movie was horrible! The story is that this kid falls into a whirlpool (which we now call the Giant Toilet) and ends up in "Kangaroo Land" pretty much. He has to help his "Kanga-friends" fight the evil master who sleeps in half a clam shell. I think I've blocked the ending out of my memory. The movie is full of bouncing kangaroo-people and an evil leader who's hair is way too long and the director takes advantage of that, making him spin around and showing it in slow motion. Its so dramatic!!! Ugh, if you have to choose between watching this movie, and watching Kazaam! watch Kazaam! (And Kazaam isn't such a good movie in itself, to say the least.)

Alright, let's get the joke out of the way first of all:

"Crouching Glam Guy, Hidden Wallaby", anyone?

Seriously, I rented this movie expecting your typical late-80's fantasy with cheesey dialogue and bad special effects and annoying child actors. Well, to that end I got my money's worth. However, while this is nowhere nearly as good as, say, "the Neverending Story" or "Labyrinth", it's not nearly as bad as I expected.

Curiously, this is one of the few movies I've seen that might have been a *lot* better animated. Kung-fu kangaroos isn't exactly a concept best realized in live action. However, the crappy effects belie the clever premis. Give it a look.

There are a lot of horrid, bad movies out there and there are a lot of unwatchable, boring movies out there. With this movie, we get the worst of both worlds.

1) The characters. The actual warriors have no real character; the movie has to list their personality traits! The kid himself is not interesting and the villain is just over-the-top goofy.

2) The visuals. The world of Tao (Actually pronounced "Dao") is nothing you haven't seen before and the puppetry is pitifully bad. Mouth movements by the warriors and others rarely match up with dialog. Fight scenes are simply unwatchable, with this weird frame-cutting technique.

3) The slug-like pace. If it wasn't for Mountain Dew, I would've fallen asleep numerous times.

At least with films like Battlefield Earth, we get entertainment, even at the expense of the movie. Here, we don't have such luck.

Kung fu fans and Fantasy film fan would like this film. After seeing a 4+ rating, I thought it's really bad. I guess it deserves a 7.0

My kids were acting like little monsters, so I was going to just have them sit down and watch Spykids, but are DVD player wasn't working, so I turned on the VCR and made them watch a video from my best friends VHS collection.

I never saw the movie before and neither did my kids it took about 20 mins before the kids realized how bad this movie truly was! I said, "fine don't watch", but then they were acting up again. So, I sat them on the couch and told them they are going to watch the whole movie, til dinner was ready.

Lets just say from now on, when I really want to punish them, I put them in the basement and make them watch the movie as punishment. My kids have never been so well behaved.

This movie is like the little girl with the curl - when it's good it's very very good, when it's bad it's horrid. The sets are great and there are some neat effects, but for some reason whoever produced this decided to use five Ninja KANGAROOS as the heroes. I can just see the production meeting: "Hedgehogs? Noo. How about beavers? Noo. Kangaroos? Yeah, kangaroos!!".

The guy who plays Komodo (the head baddie) seems to have some talent and presence, but the director has him alternately mumbling, whining and screaming in a random pattern. The rest of the actors are an odd mix of caricatures and straight acting.

The plot and "message" are good but have been done before many times. Mr. Miyagi, oops I mean Yoda, er Obi-wan Kenobi, no I mean Master Chung keeps cropping up to spew some platitudes and even comes back after death to encourage Luke Skywalker, oops I mean Ryan, the boy hero.

This movie is not all bad and there's worse ways to waste an evening. The viewer ends up wishing, however, that the producers would have shifted some of their money away from sets and special effects and into a script and direction.

Ryan Jeffers (Mario Yedidia) is a young boy with a disabled leg who dreams of being able to play football alongside the other kids. After Ryan accepts a dare to paint his name on a wall in a drainage basin, Ryan is washed away by a deluge of water. Ryan awakens in the magical but dying world of Tao (pronounced with a "t" in the movie rather than a "d"). Ryan stumbles across the last remnants of resistance in Tao at the lifespring who are in a losing war against sorcerer/warlord Komodo (Angus Macfadyen) who has ravaged all of Tao's other lifespirng's in pursuit of eternal life. Ryan is told by Tao elder Master Chung (Chao-Li Chi) that Ryan is the Newcomer who will bring the Manuscript of Tao back and give the kangaroo Warriors of Virtue the chance they need to reclaim Tao from Komodo.

Warriors of Virtue has a very odd production history. The film was a passion project for the four Hong Kong born American Law Brothers (Ronald, Dennis, Christopher, and Jeremy) based on characters they created and using their personal finances that their father had accrued in the toy manufacturing industry. None of the brothers had any prior experience or connection with filmmaking, and fronted the entirety of the film's $35-36 million dollar shooting budget themselves (though the brothers claim other investors contributed) while MGM/UA fronted another $20 million in distribution and advertising costs. The brothers using their finances procured talent from both eastern and western film industries with effects artist Tony Gardner (Darkman, Army of Darkness, Hocus Pocus, etc.), Oscar winning production designer Eugenio Zanetti, and respected character actor Angus Macfadyen. You can tell the brothers had a lot of passion for the movie....it's just a shame the movie isn't very good.

The movie seems like it should be interesting even if by accident, but the movie shoots itself in the foot by making the titular Warriors of Virtue secondary (bordering on tertiary) characters while the main focus is on our main character Ryan who just isn't all that interesting. Ryan has a disable leg and wants to play football.....that's it. He has a loving family, a small but loyal circle of friends, and lives in nice conditions but we're supposed to buy into his "woe is me, I can't play football" plot because.... I honestly don't know. Once we actually get to Tao after Ryan engages in an ill advised bet with the stock "Bully" characters the movie doesn't get much more interesting. The scenes where Ryan is first introduced are very dry and exposition heavy and we're told second hand about the titular Warriors of Virtue rather than allowing them to speak for themselves. For comparison Imagine if in the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie the entire movie was told from the point of view of Danny Pennington while April O'Neill got the 2nd most screen time, Splinter got the 3rd most, and we only ever had Splinter tell us about the turtles and their personalities rather than see them first hand. That's basically what they did in this movie and it makes for a frustrating viewing experience because all the potentially interesting characters are held at a distance. It's frustrating because it feels like a bait and switch from what was promised.

The world of Tao is well built, but unfortunately fails to standout because of its familiarity to so many of other films. You can definitely see traces of the Dagobah swamp and Ewok Village from Star Wars, the bandit hide out from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and the Lost Boys treehouse from Hook just to name a few. It's an ugly movie to look at because it's bathed in a mixture of shadows, brown, and purple and just isn't all that pleasant to look at. Komodo's fortress is slightly more visually appealing, but there's a flimsiness to the sets that keeps them from coming to life. The animatronic Kangaroos by Tony Gardener are okay and reasonably well designed, but the face unfortunately is a major misstep as they fall into the uncanny valley by an attempt to make the Roo heads look too human. Sorry to bring up Ninja Turtles again, but that movie knew to keep the comic/cartoon design and not try to "humanize" the turtles. I could see these designs being appealing, but they'd need to dial back the humanoid features to do so.

The fight sequences are at least reasonably well staged. While the nature of the Roo animatronics and costumes meant they had to be filmed at a lower shutter speed resulting in a more blurred appearance to the fights, there's at least a good sense of special geography and impact thanks to the experience of Hong Kong action director Ronny Yu. The action isn't the best that has come from those with a Hong Kong film pedigree, but it does have a good level of craft and style to it. Angus Macfadyen also gives a scenery chewing performance as villain Lord Komodo over annunciating, changing voice volume on a moment's notice, and making silly sounds and gestures that are unintentionally(?) funny. Objectively speaking it's a terrible performance, but it's the best kind of terrible performance.

Warriors of Virtue is a misguided but well intentioned failure. There are good elements in Warriors of Virtue, but a lack of a compelling story and misplaced focus on an uninteresting protagonist make Warriors of Virtue a slog to sit through. While there are some decent fight scenes and an entertaining performance from Angus Macfadyen, they're bogged down by scenes of long dry exposition and a meandering plot with too many ancillary elements. In terms of martial arts adventures for family audiences this is better than the likes of 3 Ninjas, Ninja Turtles III, or Surf Ninjas, but it's nowhere near the level of superior movies like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I or II.

I agree whole heartedly with Gene Siskel that this was just a cheap and mediocre hybrid of Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a failed attempt to ride on the coattails of both franchises.

Ryan Jeffers (Mario Yedidia) is a young, disabled boy named who, after being goaded by school bullies, winds up falling into a whirlpool that transports him to a fantasy world called Tao. There he meets the Warriors of Virtue led by Master Chung (Chao-Li Chi). Together, they must defeat the evil overlord Komodo (Angus Macfadyen) before he can conquer Tao, and then move on to Earth itself.

The story is slow-paced and sloppy. Ryan is largely useless and spends more time complaining and asking questions than contributing to the plot. The titular warriors aren't even fully fleshed out nor do they get much chance to shine, thanks to Ryan hogging the spotlight. The warrior costumes were cheesy and ugly with poor lip syncing and obviously fake prosthetic tails.

The stunts and martial arts moves were fairly impressive, but this was mitigated by choppy editing and excessive blurring in most of the fight scenes.

Admittingly, there was some nice scenery, such as the interior and exterior of Komodo's fortress and the lush, forested lifestream where the free people live. Plus, there were some pretty funny and over the top moments, such as when Ming used his flashy martial arts moves to prepare and deliver orders at the restaurant he works. Finally, Angus Macfadyen's hammy performance was better than the rest, and is by far the most enjoyable part of the movie.

Still, any kid who grew up in the 90s (such as myself) would have turned this down for TMNT or Power Rangers any day of the week.

So, take Ninja Turtles, add an A-Movie studio with Power Rangers B-actors, write a knockoff of The Neverending Story, give us a villain who's essentially Loki, and you get one of the most well-directed dorkfests of the 90's. Warriors of Virtue is a forgotten movie with a large amount of effort put into the production value, one with costumes almost as good as the ones from the earlier costume-driven film Nightbreed. But its story needs some work.

This movie is basically all about energy told through the spectacle of production. We see some expertly-directed scenes in this debut of Ronny Yu, later known for Fearless. I mean, only Yu would put so much passion into directed a montage of a martial arts master using his skills in the kitchen. The flashiness of these action sequences still has the general behavior of 80's and 90's martial arts cheese, but each scene is handled professionally, which means the spectacle here is lived up to the fullest potential that 90's family films would allow. On top of that, we get a careful balance of colors through some highly convincing set pieces, which is probably the best thing about the movie. Obviously, Ronny Yu did the absolute best that he could've done with what he was given.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems. First of all, our out-of-whack story really does need some fleshing out. While it's not a horrible story and there are some decent moments, the whole of story-world concept wasn't given the care that was needed. On top of that, while we have much better kangaroo costumes than Tank Girl, we also have some pretty cheap acting. The cast of the kangaroos were not given enough character development to work with, and our villain, who easily has the worst dialogue in the movie (do not think thoughts???) is basically a bad proto-Loki and Angus MacFadyen performance so poor it's often laugh-inducing.

So Warriors of Virtue is basically a movie strictly for a Power Rangers fan. It's got most of the ingredients necessary for Power Rangers, but with an impressive production level. Yu justified his existence in Hollywood with his direction, although we rarely heard much from the four Law brothers who created the characters, largely because these characters were as thrown together for the 90's anthro buzz the same way Street Sharks and Biker Mice from Mars was, only being more tolerable.

Obvious bad guy, good guy. It's not bad it's just not good unless you want a super obvious story that smacks you in the face with cliche.

This movie is a strange time capsule of the late 1990s, falling into the odd little subgenre of "kids' fantasy movie" that was quite popular in that decade, but seems to have faded away into obscurity. At a time when Power Rangers was arguably at the height of it's popularity, this strange mix of late twentieth century adolescent filmmaking and classical Chinese philosophy might leave the average viewer perplexed. Originally conceived by Chinese superstar producing team the Law Brothers (more movies than I can count) after the passing of their father, Warriors of Virtue follows Ryan (Mario Yedidia; the very definition of milquetoast), your average kid from the suburbs who is magically transported to the mystical realm of Tao (the pronunciation of which the mostly-American cast seems incapable of nailing down), joining forces with a team of anthropomorphic kangaroos who know wire-fu (don't ask) in the struggle against the fashion-challenged warlord Komodo (Angus Macfayden, more on him later) and his army of generic goons. Mixed in are a series of periodic pop-philosophical platitudes that don't really seem to tie in to the overall story and characters. For a film where the Taoist philosophy is made the main focus, it feels incredibly artificial and tacked-on, as if the screenwriter(s) didn't fully understand it. This is compounded by the simple fact that no one seems to pronounce the word properly. (For the record, it's pronounced with a hard 'D' sound, as in 'Dao') You would think that a movie made by a mostly-Chinese crew partially filmed in China would have gotten this fairly noticeable detail right. It gives the impression that the filmmakers simply weren't trying. The set design comes across as bland and uninspired. It's every 'magical' forest you've ever seen in a movie or TV show. The movie wastes a potential opportunity to showcase some truly inspired production design, considering China's rich artistic and architectural history. The cinematography by powerhouse Hong Kong DP Peter Pau (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) is equally disappointing, coming across as incredibly bland, flat, and lifeless, with an overuse of slow-motion and a strange blur effect that makes many of the action sequences difficult to watch. The acting ranges from unfathomably hammy (Komodo is simply a joy to watch every time he's on screen) to blandly competent (Ryan is every protagonist from every kids movie ever made). The suits used for the eponymous Warriors come across as more unsettling than memorable, though the legendary Doug Jones (as the warrior Yee) does make an admirable acting effort. The stunt-work, while skillfully handled, isn't anything we haven't seen before and fails to impress. Veteran director Ronny Yu (The Bride With White Hair, Freddy Vs Jason) makes an admirable effort, but fails to show off any of the same energy and talent that made his Hong Kong films stand out. The only aspect of the film that rises above average is the incredible score by Don Davis (The Matrix, House on Haunted Hill). If anything, it shows that even the most unremarkable of films can still have memorable music. And that's really what this film is, unremarkable. It's isn't particularly bad. The acting is fine overall, script moves a long at a swift pace, and the effects work is decent. But that's all it is. Decent. It's watchable, yes, but far from extraordinary. And for a film about Taoist Kangaroos who know martial arts, that is a sin greater than any other.

I read all the comments about this movie, and I started to watch this movie with low expectations, everyone was saying that this movie sucks. But then at half the movie, I realized that the suckers were the ones writting the reviews. Let me tell you that at the end of the movie I wished that it had not one but several sequels with the same quality in general. The producers really created something imaginative, the director just rocks with this movie, the acting is real good. This movie is way up there, and even better in some aspects, with Matrix and Blade, the story even though it is not truly original in itself, it delivers the goods. The action and martial arts, and the conveyance of the feelings and emotions, is for all ages not just for kids. Do not believe the fools that say this movie is awful. Please watch this movie if you want to see something spectacular and emotive. This movie deserves a double ten out of nine!!.

I absolutely adore this movie! It's a wonderful family film, it has a great storyline, and the fight sequences aren't all that bad. The only bad thing is when they slow the camera down slightly for effect (and that's not even terrible in itself). The characters are lovable, there are several quite funny parts, and it leaves you with a warm feeling in your heart. Warriors of Virtue is a masterpiece. PS - in case anyone didn't know, the poster at the top of the page is not the poster for this Warriors of Virtue movie. That's the poster for the other version, from either Japan or China (can't remember). The actual poster has Mario Yedidia on it. You can find it on Google :)

So many people are saying that this movie is not worth their time. I am a movie fanatic, and this movie is a perfect movie for people of all ages. It is similar to the Dark Crystal, and many others like it. But what makes this one different is that actual little kids or people with disabilities that have never fit in with the crowd can watch this movie and get some confidence from it. I sure that we all need something or other to show us that we're all right for who we are and maybe that the real message this movie was sending. Go on and think that this movie is horrible, but no matter what I'll show it to my kid and my grandkids, because I enjoyed this movie.