The story is set in 1375 and what we now call Korea is called Koryo. China has been under siege for generations by ravaging hordes that most of us would call Mongols and also trying to settle things from the change of leadership in the Ming Dynasty. As with any such grand event in history, some things fall through the cracks so in a sorted misunderstanding, the envoy made up of several diplomats and a small military attachment, is attacked by the Chinese government and forced into the wastelands of the desert as spies and enemies of the state. The group is attacked by Yuan warriors from the Mongol hordes and the Chinese captors are slain while the protagonists are freed to do whatever they want (but with no provisions or means to carry on). They argue about going back to their kingdom as failures or once again trying to establish diplomatic relations with the all powerful Chinese Emperor until fate deals them another option.

The Yuan have captured a Chinese princess and the band of Koryo warriors, having lost their diplomats to the tides of fate and battle, decide to rescue her in order to fulfill their original mission. One man in particular dominates the rescue attempt, a slave of one of the diplomats who in turn frees him on his deathbed. The Koryo general in charge ignores the freeing of the slave thanks in large part to a social caste system that he believes in (slaves will always be slaves just as the higher classes will always be in charge, regardless of merit) and after nearly killing him, they proceed with the Princess to bring her back to her people. The Yuan are not about to lose face, their leader in particular, who vows to retrieve his prize possession in the princess. With this, the remaining movie deals with the two groups fighting each other over the princess, with the Koryo relying heavily on the skill of their still captive slave (played by action star Woo Sung Jung) and the resolve of a group of peasants they pick up along the way. With the defending heroes relying on a small outpost, the remaining movie is much like a tale from the American past; the Alamo.

The movie itself was a lot of fun for those of us that enjoy the violent action of a martial art movie combined with the much higher than average budget this movie had. Most of the actors are well known in genre circles and played their roles well enough. This version was the edited 133 minute version, not the internationally recognized 155 minute version, and the result was a bit choppy at times where some of the context was removed, presumably for length. I haven't seen any of the previous uncut foreign versions, nor the extras that they so handsomely provided (I'd seen the far weaker Tai Seng version several years back but it was also cut, provided no real extras, and looked really bad compared to this one), but if you don't have access to one of those (I hear the R2 version is superior all around for extras while the R4 has the best English subtitled version), this might suffice until you can get to it. On the merits of the movie as a whole, I thought this one was worth a rating of Rent It since it was edited and had so few extras (when great extras abound in other versions (especially the R4 version!) it weighs heavily on a rating that provides so little by comparison). If you like Asian action flicks, this was a good one but suffered the loss of too much material to whole heartedly suggest as much as would otherwise be the case.

Picture: The Warrior was presented in anamorphic widescreen color with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, unlike previous versions of the movie on DVD and video. The fleshtones were accurate, the production values very well handled, and this version was superior to the region free zero released by Tai Seng back in 2001 in every way. There were few compression artifacts observed, and the richness in detail compared to most such movies from Asian was immediately noticeable to me although the epic scale of the battles sometimes weren't captured as nicely as one would expect from something coming out of Hollywood. Regardless, other than the stated edits the movie had, the show looked nice and the DVD transfer provided a better look than the previous copy I had watched.

Sound: The audio was presented with a choice of the original 2.0 Dolby Digital stereo Korean (and optional English subtitles) or a 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround English language dub. In general, the dub had significantly better music and separation with some use of the rear channels though not as much as expected given the high end budget it had. The dub voices sounded weaker in terms of conveying the dialogue than I had hoped but both sounded better than the previous version.

Extras: The only extras were some trailers and TV spots, even though extensive extras for the movie exist in other versions of the movie.

Final Thoughts: The Warrior was a great movie treated in a manner that it really didn't deserve. Why some regions get a premium release while others get the barebones (or even edited) treatment will always be a mystery to me, one I know the answers to yet profoundly disagree with. If you like ultra violent, chopping off the head type battles with lots of blood and gore; you'll probably fancy this one just fine but already knowing you can do better by going elsewhere makes this one a rental at best. Think of this as the watered down version of the movie and maybe it'll sit better with you but Sony can do such much better than this so I hesitate to tell you to go get this version of the flick.