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Peace­ful War­rior was both famil­iar and unfa­mil­iar at the same time. It was famil­iar in that it told the story of a tal­ented young per­son who with the help of an enig­matic trainer goes through painful growth phys­i­cally and spir­i­tu­ally to find out who he really is. The unfa­mil­iar part was that there was no one for the pro­tag­o­nist to beat in this film but him­self. There is no real vil­lain. In the begin­ning I thought I was going to be watch­ing some remake of Karate Kid but what I got was a movie that was inspir­ing and some­what thought pro­vok­ing. There were many times where I was look­ing for Nick Nolte, who played the trainer, to have some magic pow­ers but except for a few tricks and some dream sequences you begin to won­der if he really has any great abil­i­ties at all. In fact I’m not totally sure the char­ac­ter even existed except for in the mind of the protagonist.

The story is about a young and tal­ented gym­nast who is train­ing to be in the Olympics. He is hav­ing the time of his life but some­thing isn’t quite right for him. It starts in his dreams and leads him to a gas sta­tion atten­dant played by Nick Nolte who offers to teach him the way of the war­rior but in order for him to go to the next level, he has to leave some of him­self behind. The lead is played by a young actor named Scott Mechlow­icz who I’ve never seen before. He car­ries the part well and is believ­able in gym­nas­tic action even if it’s prob­a­bly not him in those parts. I enjoyed the whole movie and left it feel­ing inspired. I give this film a 4 out of 5 marks.