05/02/97
MOVIE REVIEW: Warriors of Virtue
Kids get a kick out of Kung-Fu Kangaroos

**1/2 (out of five)
Starring Angus MacFadyen, Mario Yedidia, Marley Shelton, Jack Tate, Doug Jones, Don W. Lewis, J. Todd Adams and Adrienne Corcoran. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer release written by Michael Vickerman and Hugh Kelley, directed by Ronny Yu. Rated PG, contains violence. Running time: 103 minutes.

By MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal-Bulletin Arts Writer

We've had ninjas in black capes and teenagers in pastel jump suits and even teenage mutant ninja turtles doing martial arts.

So maybe it is time for a quintet of kung-fu kangaroos. But after seeing Warriors of Virtue, I'm still not convinced.

Although the martial artists inside the unwieldy looking 60-pound 'roo suits bring a surprising amount of grace and fluid motion to their characters, they still look a little silly. On the other hand, the children at a recent matinee seemed enchanted by the chop-socky kangaroos and their Alice in Wonderland adventures.

The 'roos are the brainchild of the four Law brothers who produced the film. Born and raised in Hong Kong, though now living in the United States, they shot the film's impressive fantasy sequennces at the Beijing Film Studios in China. The film's opening and closing sequences were filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Actually, I really liked that opening, which revolves around a bright boy named Ryan (Mario Yedidia) who feels he doesn't fit in with the other kids because of the brace he must wear on his leg. Cowed into attempting a daredevil stunt through which he hopes to gain acceptance by the in-crowd, Ryan falls into a whirlpool and wakes up in Tao, a magical land of rivers and tall trees and knights and a pretty young woman named Elysia (Marley Shelton) who floats in to greet him like Glinda the Good Witch of The Wizard of Oz.

Warriors shares a lot of similarities with Oz -- Ryan always wants to go home -- as well as to such other children's fables as Alice in Wonderland and The Neverending Story. The good guys in this movie live in tree trunks, not unlike the Ewoks of Return of the Jedi, and the sage old man who knows all is not unlike Obi-wan Kenobi of Star Wars. For its impressive sets alone, Warriors of Virtue would get an A+.

It's too bad that the plot soon devolves into one of those Evil Ruler things. This time everyone is after the Manuscript of Legend which allegedly holds the secrets of defeating the evil ruler, here called Komodo (Angus MacFadyen). Komodo, who rides in a cocoon-like contraption, has been draining Tao's rivers in search of a substance that will keep him eternally young. But the result is that Tao itself is in danger of collapsing without its "Lifesprings."

Alas, MacFadyen plays Komodo as a twit who has all the scare factor of a shorter Tiny Tim. The script doesn't allow the five kangaroos to develop much in the way of individual personality, either, except for the surprisingly introspective Yun (Jack Tate), who has lost his will to fight and is morose. The film's most interesting character -- Ryan -- doesn't have much to do once he gets to Tao, although he figures impressively in the finale.

But all that didn't seem to matter much to the youngsters in the audience, who perked up the minute the kangaroos started whirling through the air doing their high kicks. For them, the flash and the dash and a whip of a kangaroo's tail was enough.