“They’re gonna make hot dogs out of our wieners! Our wieners!”

Justin’s rating: But where’s the hop-scotch?

Justin’s review: You know what silly little thing genuinely impresses me? When a movie has an actual tailored logo. You really don’t see it a lot, but once in a while, some art guy in some publicity department whips one up, and it always pops out at me. And for whatever reason, this kids martial arts fantasy adventure action movie from 1997 sports a pretty wicked metallic kangaroo design:

I can respect that. I can also respect a movie owning the “kangaroo” thing, full well knowing that it’s going to be an uphill battle to get anyone to take this seriously. Then again, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles proved that anyone could take a random animal and make them an action icon, so why not the hippity hoppers from diggity Down Under?

Ryan’s a middle schooler with a bum leg that’s keeping him from greater things in life. Fortunately, he’s best buds with a kung fu cook at a Chinese restaurant who clues him into a mystical land called Tao. And wouldn’t you know it, that very night, Ryan accidentally is blasted into this fantasy realm — and discovers that his leg works just fine there.

What’s more, he joins up with the titular Warriors of Virtue, five humanoid kangaroo fighters who embody one of the classic Captain Planet elements. You know, chocolate cake, ennui, doomscrolling, 6-7, and silent-but-deadly farts.

So yeah, they’re totally the Turtles but look like those weird mutant kangaroo freaks from Tank Girl. Ryan also meets an ancient Chinese master and a flying princess. He then finds out that a manuscript that he’s carrying — given to him by kung fu cook — could tip the balance of power between the good guys and the army of evil (yet flamboyant) dudes and their telekinetic general.

Ryan becomes the wild card in this situation, befriending the Warriors and hoping to convince their lapsed leader to step back up and fight. Oh, and he also finds out that the princess is secretly working for the bad guy because she’s hooked on youth-giving juice.

Hong Kong director Ronny Yu crossed over into the west with this title, and as if martial arts ‘roos weren’t weird enough, he graduated from that to doing Bride of Chucky and Freddy vs. Jason. So he’s no hack at all, nor did he sleepwalk his way through a kids film. On the contrary, Yu poured an immense amount of work into creating a sweeping fantasy world with a lot of special effects, prosthetics, and fights.

This isn’t a cheap production is what I’m saying. Warriors of Virtue was given a $56 million budget — very decent for 1997 — and the studio (which was made of four Chinese physician brothers) clearly had an eye on making this the next big thing. Watching it, I was reminded of the look and feel of Hook and NeverEnding Story combined with Power Rangers’s simplistic stories and costumed actors gesticulating wildly. No matter what you think of this, you have to admit that everyone here is wholly swinging for the fences.

That said, this movie absolutely bombed, which is probably why you never heard of it. One critic reported that the movie made him actually vomit (which is a puzzling confession), and the studio only saw like $6M in box office receipts.

I don’t get the hate nor the bad performance of Warriors of Virtue. It’s too much of a kids movie to be satisfying for me, but I was genuinely impressed by the sets and costuming. I’ve seen far, far worse in this genre, and so I’m inclined to be kind to an ambitious film that never connected with an audience.

If I had to point to the biggest shortcoming, it’s that Ryan and company don’t really go on the type of journey that such a fantasy world would require. It’s a whole lot of standing and milling around the one — presumably expensive — forest set while training, sharing tragic backstories, figuring out what to do, dragging their feet on doing what they should do, and (I’m just guessing) kangaroo calisthenics.

Oh, and the ‘Roo voices are really hard to listen to, as they’re some dude growl-hissing them into a mic.

I will say that Warriors of Virtue is a distinct, unique entry into the ’90s pantheon of fantasy films. There’s nothing quite like it, and that could make it worth a look for the right temperament.

Intermission!

• This did get a sequel: Warriors of Virtue: The Return to Tao that came out in 2002. I’m not going to review it. YOU review it if you care this much.
• Many of the action scenes are filmed with “step printing,” which doubles frames to artificially slow down the action and make it look dreamy
• Acting legend Doug Jones — Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy — plays Yee here
• Oh no, he dropped his beads! All is lost! Or so the soundtrack tells me
• That is a poorly drawn comic book
• Dogs are great at delivering breakfast through windows
• KUNG FU COOKING!
• “No guns… no lasers… no morphing.” Aww, no morphing? But what about the power rangers OH I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE
• That football kid’s got really weird earrings but he can spin a bike around on a dime
• That looks like an insanely dangerous initiation
• Floating princess girl
• Let’s keep saying “Newcomer” like it’s a deeply impressive thing
• Time for an impromptu handshaking seminar
• That’s a Hellraiser amount of chains that popped out of nowhere
• This villain is way too childish and silly to be taken seriously as a threat