Warriors of Virtue: The Return to Tao

Warriors of Virtue: The Return to Tao
Directed byMichael Vickerman
Written byKentucky Robinson
Story byRex Piano
Dennis Law
Produced byBruce Gordon
Xiaowan Li
Tom Parkinson
Seth Willenson
Forrest Sloan Wright
StarringKevin Smith
Nathan Phillips
Nina Liu
Shedrack Anderson III
CinematographyZeng Nianping
Edited byCindy Clarkson
Production
company
Distributed byBuena Vista Home Entertainment
Release date
  • 22 October 2002 (2002-10-22) (United States)
Running time
93 minutes
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish

Warriors of Virtue: The Return to Tao (also known as simply Warriors of Virtue 2 or Warriors of Virtue 2: The Return to Tao) is a 2002 Australian fantasy martial arts film directed by Michael Vickerman and starring Kevin Smith, Nathan Phillips, Nina Liu, and Shedrack Anderson III. It is the straight-to-DVD sequel to the 1997 film Warriors of Virtue and was released by Buena Vista Home Entertainment under the Miramax Home Entertainment label.

Plot

Despite only a few years having passed in the real world, many decades have passed in Tao, the parallel universe from the first movie. The kangaroos have changed over the years, now appearing little different from normal humans, and a new villain, Dogon, seizes control of Tao from its young queen. Ryan Jeffers and his friend Chucky, now 16-year-old martial arts competitors in Beijing, find themselves unexpectedly transported to Tao where it is shown that they are to become Warriors of Virtue.

Cast

  • Nathan Phillips as Ryan Jeffers
  • Kevin Smith as Dogon
  • Nina Liu as Amythis
  • Shedrack Anderson III as Chucky
  • Shuntian Guan as Yun
  • Bao Cheng Li as Yee
  • Jiaolong Sun as Lai
  • Wei Wang as Chi / Yasbin
  • Ying Liang as Tsun
  • Brandon Lin as Quan
  • Wang Zhu as Remo
  • Fusen Chen as Matu
  • Marina as Keo
  • Weiguo Wang as Chieftain
  • Jeff Carrara as Coach

Production

Crawford Prods. produced the sequel with Lance Thompson of Film Brokers Intl. as co-producer. Dennis Law, Ron Law and Jeremy Law are exec producers on the project. The worldwide rights were picked up by International Film Group.[1] Miramax Films acquired domestic and Canadian rights, excluding French-speaking Canada, to the film from the International Film Group (IFG).[2] The Film was screened at the 2003 American Film Market.[3] Had the film been successful, it would've served as a backdoor pilot for a proposed TV series.[4]

Death of Kevin Tod Smith

The shooting was touched by misfortune when actor Kevin Smith died while visiting a film set in China. On February 6, 2002, while waiting for the car back to his motel, and after completing work on Warriors of Virtue 2, Smith decided to walk around the Central China Television film studio grounds, and climbed a flimsy prop tower in a set of another film, lost his footing and fell approximately three stories onto concrete. He was taken to a hospital, then transferred to Beijing. He lapsed into a coma and was on life support for 10 days, until it was ended. He died on February 15, 2002.

References

  1. ^ "IFG fights for 'Warriors' rights". 20 February 2002.
  2. ^ "Miramax takes 'Tao'". 2 October 2002.
  3. ^ "AFM Screenings". 19 February 2003.
  4. ^ "Everybody Wasn't Kung Fu Fighting". 6 April 2021.


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