Jadesoturi (Antti-Jussi Annila, 2006)

Jade Warrior has the distinction of being in a genre on its own, and this will remain so.Who would have known the world needed a cross-over between the Finnish Kalevala and Chinese Wuxia epics, with wire-work and demons thrown in?
The drunken premise is basically a warrior-monk being reincarnated as a depressed smith in modern-day Finland, having to face up to his true identity to save mankind from his eternal foe. It's far too derivative to serve as anything other than a daft curio: the Pandora's Box the smith is suckered into forging is straight out of Hellraiser, The Fifth Element, or any number of other sources, the chopsocky inferior to the full-blown havoc of fully Chinese films, and the hero a muddled doofus who spends a great deal of time swooning over the revelations he keeps on getting hit with. Finnish cinema will some day get round to producing a border-crossing blockbuster instead of just black comedies or grim war films, but this isn't it.

4/10