Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you have a loyal collection of James Horner's children's fantasy scores of the early 1990's and seek his regular orchestrator's extension of the same sound in an early solo venture. Avoid it... if you demand significant portions of the kind of instrumental and dissonant creativity that Don Davis would show later in his career. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Warriors of Virtue: (Don Davis) There have been countless attempts to combine the mysticism of Star Wars and Wizard of Oz through the years, and unfortunately most of them have proven to be lame. Production on Warriors of Virtue began not long after The Pagemaster essentially told the same story. A boy who is a social outcast is guided by nature and a wise man with a book into a fantasy world where the boy must help save the day. In Warriors of Virtue, Hong Kong director Ronnie Yu forces upon the audience the same presentation of good versus evil that requires fine execution to be successful when compared to its peers. Shoddy effects, obvious overacting, and characters (and worlds) that nobody really cares about all plagued Warriors of Virtue, but one of its redeeming factors was a large-scale orchestral score by composer and orchestrator Don Davis. Best known for his orchestration work for James Horner, Davis was branching out into his own composing career in the mid-1990's, and his involvement with the production of Warriors of Virtue began early. Introduced by the filmmakers to the concepts in 1994, Davis wrote a concert piece inspired by the film for the Breckenridge Music Festival in 1995. His continued involvement during pre-production and photography allowed him to become very familiar with the characters and concepts of the fantasy world in the story, and also allowed him to write his material at a leisurely pace. A 1996 album release of the score by the budding specialty label Prometheus (with Davis' usual creative track titles) preceded the wide 1997 opening of the film, which bombed after poor critical reviews. The album remained popular, however, because it was among the first releases of Davis' compositional work, and with his career launched by The Matrix, demand for the Warriors of Virtue score has outlived the film. The diversity of Davis' entire career spans a wide variety of different scoring styles. In the mid-90's, many listeners were only familiar with Davis' music of an electronic nature, and even when The Matrix rolled along at the end of the decade, few knew that Davis had a lushly romantic and harmonically heroic side. In the case of Warriors of Virtue, there is much pomp to be impressed by, with several rousing orchestral and choral themes. Many of the noble action sequences, though lacking the creative refinement of his later works, are extremely satisfying. The problem with this score --if you could even term it as such-- is that Davis' work as one of Horner's orchestrators betrays him throughout the score. This score easily belongs to the same family of Horner's fantasy/adventure music as The Pagemaster, The Rocketeer, and Krull. Because of these extremely close stylistic ties to Horner's work, it was difficult at its release to exactly pinpoint Davis' own unique style. At the same time, however, you can't point a finger at any particular overarching aspect of Warriors of Virtue and declare that it takes too much from any one other score. Its personality is derived from the purely ambiguous and adventurous fun that often accompanies Horner's music for the children's fantasy genre. Little snippets of counterpoint here and there are clearly references to Horner's work, and these moments of replication most often recall The Rocketeer. The balance between sweeping adventure themes, romantic interludes, and prancing kiddie rhythms for lighter moments of character interaction adheres to the Horner formula. One place where Davis does deviate, however, is in the strict coherence of his thematic development. There are several major ideas (among minor, recurring motifs) that grace Warriors of Virtue, but they aren't as neatly wrapped as those in the Horner equivalents. The score's first offerings are, unfortunately, its weakest; it takes a long time for Warriors of Virtue to get rolling on album, though the generous length of the product forgives the slow start with engaging material that begins in "The Vortex and the Dare" and continues thereafter. The score's themes are only provided in hints in the first seven cues, with introduction cues that seem surprisingly understated. But with "The Lifespring Rhapsody" and "Forces of Nature," Davis unleashes his themes as the opening volley of nearly an hour of symphonic and choral harmony. The title theme for Warriors of Virtue represents the fantasy world, and it receives full treatments at 1:40 into "The Lifespring Rhapsody" and, of course, at the outset of "Theme of Tao." Secondary themes are difficult to pinpoint to individual characters, though the score has a heroic theme often accompanied by choir that announces itself with elegance at the end of "Encounter of the Roo Kind" (and no, the theme doesn't seem to represent the Roo Warriors in any of their other cues). The princess Elysia and the evil Komodo both appear in cues that are surprisingly weak on volume and development. An action motif introduced in "Forces of Nature" is a grand compensation, though, with some swashbuckling spirit raising memories of The Pagemaster. During the score's most robust and harmonic material, concentrated in six cues between "The Lifestring Rhapsody" and "Encounter of the Roo Kind," Davis draws the best performances out of the Denver Symphony Orchestra and its chorus. The score loses cohesion thereafter, though early portions of "Planet of the Roo-Warriors" feature some of the dynamic dissonance that fans of The Matrix will appreciate. On the whole, Davis' music here is indeed derivative of James Horner's works for the same genre, but Warriors of Virtue is entertaining nevertheless. The song album for the film only includes four tracks of Davis' material, so score fans should only seek this Prometheus specialty release. **** Track Listings:
Total Time: 71:58
All artwork and sound clips from Warriors of Virtue are Copyright © 1997, Prometheus Records. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 9/16/99, updated 2/12/08. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 1999-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
