Dave Bautista Goes Full Dothraki in the First ‘Enter the Warriors Gate’ Trailer
It must be nice to be Luc Besson. The French filmmaker has been pretty successful by whipping together a half-baked story idea and giving someone else a little bit of money to turn it into a movie. Sometimes, these result in delightfully goofy pieces of pulp; lawsuit or no, I dare anyone to deny that Lockout is anything other than the perfect blend of camp and B-grade action. More often, though, Besson’s efforts are the cinematic equivalent of candy corn, something that always sounds good in theory but often makes you sick as you go along.
Besson’s latest trifle, Enter the Warriors Gate (via Blastr), has already come and gone in China, where the film opened to a meager $3.2 million back in November 2016. What few reviews do exist are something less than positive; The Hollywood Reporter, for example, noted that the film “owes a debt of gratitude to Zhang Yimou’s The Great Wall for casting a long, obfuscating shadow for it to hide beneath.” Ouch. That being said, the review does go on to praise its B-level competence and the delightful performance of Dave Bautista as the warlord king, so fans of either Besson’s campy set pieces or people just curious about what millennial wuxia looks like might find a movie worth seeing somewhere in all the mess.
Here’s the full plot synopsis for Enter the Warriors Gate:
Epic fantasy-adventure meets martial arts action in this thrilling film written by Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen. After a mysterious chest opens a gateway through time, teen gamer Jack is transported to an ancient empire terrorized by a cruel barbarian king. Jack will need all of his gaming skills as he battles to defeat the barbarian, protect a beautiful princess, and somehow find his way back home.
Enter the Warriors Gate stars Mark Chao, Uriah Shelton, Ni Ni, Dave Bautista, and Sienna Guillory. The film will be available both theatrically and On Demand come May 5.