Literally any wushu movie has better swordfights. Kill Bill has better Katana fights. This was a depressingly lame Keanu Reeves circlejerk with that's gone to embarrassingly suspension-of-disbelief-wrecking lengths to explain why a White guy is starring in a samurai movie and why he's banging the female lead. They were a bunch of badasses that settled an old score, none of this woowoo fake spiritual shit. Why were they dancing around on the fucking stage anyway!? Don't black clothes mean you're not supposed to fucking look at them!? What the fuck's the point of dancing!? Why are there Shaolin Monks in this movie!? Why are they trying to shove Chinese martial arts into a movie about Japanese badassery!? There's a time and place for Shaolin, and it's not as the teachers of the protagonist badass!
And can somebody please explain to me why the FUCK the tattoo pirate is doing on the cover!? He has no place on the fucking cover! He has no fight scenes, no relevance, and two fucking lines in the whole movie. What the fuck is wrong with the people in charge of that shit!? Did you just put him there because "HURR, LUKS KOOL"!? Because that'd sure explain why the fuck everything else is in this movie. Why is the dude aided by a dragon-witch? Why are there fucking pirates and Shaolin "Tengu"!? Because "HURR, LUKS KOOL"! That's why! It's shit. And it's an embarrassment to every culture involved. Yeah, the portrayal of folklore characters is kinda cool, but it's fucking disgusting because it just feels like a bunch of 60-year-old boardroom members looked at the internet, saw a bunch of neckbeards praising katanas to high heaven, and then said, "Whelp... Looks like a katana movie'll make money. Quick! What else is in Japan!? Dragons, samurai, castles, bamboo, and theatre. Alright! Wait, we can't make a movie with just this! Fuck it, throw some Chinese shit in there. And pirates, because goddammit, who gives a flying shit at this point!?" It's true that there were Shaolin in Japan, and warrior monks who were markedly different, but this is a samurai movie, goddammit! A SAMURAI MOVIE! This is not a Kung-Fu movie, nor should it be! It's also true that there were European sailors in Japan during the 1700s, and Keanu should've been one of those! It' would've been a fun and interesting take on the buddy-cop relationship if Keanu were a wily piratey bastard and the other leader guy was a more by-the-book samurai. Hey, that'd probably even effectively justify why he bangs/wants to bang the princess girl.
If you want to watch a movie that tells the tale of folk legend badasses that defined a nation, watch "Hero" with Jet Li instead. It's less depressingly bad.
