From the Rental Vault (2006): The Jade Warrior

The Jade Warrior has an odd pedigree -- it mixes a Chinese wuxia or martial arts film with the mythology of the Finnish Kalevala. The Kalevala tells the story of the ancient gods of the Finnish people, the way the stories of Asgard tells of the ancient Norse gods and the Olympian myths do the same for ancient Greece. According to The Jade Warrior, some of the Kalevala and the story of a demon in China around 2000 BC are two parts of the same myth. That's because the hero Sintai, a warrior monk, was born of a Chinese father and a mother from "a far-off land," or Finland. The movie was released in 2006 under the Finnish title Jadestouri. It was also the first Finnish movie ever released theatrically in China (being co-produced by a Chinese company), under the title Yù zhànshì.

Sintai is destined to battle the Last Son of the Noctris, a demonic spirit that desires to bring Hell to Earth by using the Sampo machine. But the demon can't activate the machine by himself, since its maker designed it so that only his own descendants could use it. Sintai is one such descendant, so the demon seeks out the combat as well. Sintai is promised Nirvana if he defeats the demon, leaving behind his endless earthly existence. So he wants one day of life as a normal person before this happens, and he takes that "day off" in the village of his friend Cho. There he meets Pin Yen, with whom he falls in love and for whom he will take risks that may have tragic consequences.

Our modern track shows us the less-than-adept smith Kai, who lives near a major city of Finland. He and his girlfriend Rorja have broken up, and when she moves out of town, she takes some leftover junk from their old apartment to an anthropologist who runs an antique business on the side. The anthropologist has recently discovered a well-preserved corpse, along with a mysterious container, and he finds that container and Kai are somehow connected.

The movie switches back and forth between the stories in a way that can at first be a little confusing but it sorts out readily enough. The fight choreography is fascinating and uses CGI to enhance rather than replace some of the actual human moves. Sintai and Pin Yen realize their feelings for one another as they spar (well, it is a movie), and the fight itself moves more like a dance than combat. Director Antti-Jussi Annila stages this scene in the midst of the village but has the other villagers continue about their normal tasks, all of them but one unaware of the fight in their midst. Other visual touches -- large and small -- during different confrontations are equally stunning.

Markku Peltola as the antique dealer/anthropologist and Zhang Jingchu as Pin Yen are both very good, but Tommi Eronen is more than a little wooden in his dual roles as Sintai and Kai. That works when he is the stalwart but inexperienced Sintai, but it hampers his portrayal of the lost seeker Kai. Krista Kosonen looks pretty as Rorja, but that's apparently about all she's supposed to do.

I found The Jade Warrior worth a look -- but even if you disagree I can guarantee it will be the best movie mixing ancient Chinese and Finnish mythology you will see this year.