I love Warriors of Virtue. Is it a good movie? Not by any traditional sense. But it’s one of the strangest, most ambitious experiments the 90s ever produced.

Here’s the setup: four Chinese-American brothers who were practicing doctors decided they wanted to make a blockbuster. Their father—Joseph Law, a Hong Kong toy mogul—bankrolled the whole thing. They poured around $56 million (90s dollars) into a movie about kung-fu kangaroos. The animatronic suits weren’t Henson castoffs or recycled Tank Girl Rippers, but custom-built creations with advanced mouth mechanics to mimic human phonemes. Imagine pitching that in a Hollywood boardroom.

The ambition wasn’t just in the concept. This was the one serious attempt to smuggle wuxia into American multiplexes years before Crouching Tiger cracked the market. Wuxia—martial arts fantasy steeped in Taoist elements and cultivation arcs—was paired with kangaroo warriors embodying virtues like Benevolence and Righteousness. They shot it largely in Beijing with the China Film Co-Production Corporation, gave the reins to Ronny Yu (Freddy vs. Jason), hired Peter Pau (who would win an Oscar for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) as cinematographer, and brought in Don Davis (The Matrix) for the score. On paper, this should’ve been monumental.

But then there’s the execution. Angus Macfadyen plays Komodo, the villain, and delivers one of the most gloriously hammy performances of the decade. He doesn’t just chew scenery—he devours it like he’s starring in a Nic Cage tribute act. And yet, weirdly, it fits the film’s surreal tone. NFL Hall-of-Famer Warren Moon randomly shows up as a football coach. Michael J. Anderson from Twin Peaks plays a trickster named Mudlap. Even Doug Jones—yes, the future Shape of Water fish-man—was inside one of the kangaroo suits. Everything about this movie is just slightly off-kilter.

And maybe that’s why it bombed. American audiences weren’t primed for wuxia in 1997, and watching martial-arts kangaroos preach Taoist virtues probably felt more baffling than inspiring. It opened on over 2,000 screens, but pulled in just $6 million. The world just wasn’t ready.

But here’s the thing: this was meant for kids. I sat down and watched it with my daughter—and she loved it. For her, it wasn’t strange at all. It was magical: a fantasy world with heroes, monsters, and values she could latch onto. Watching through her eyes, I saw what the Laws were aiming for.

So no, Warriors of Virtue isn’t “good.” It’s too messy, too eccentric, too alien to mainstream 90s America. But it’s also one of the most unique cinematic swings of the decade—a movie that dared to blend wuxia philosophy, Hollywood spectacle, and kangaroo puppetry. And even though it collapsed at the box office, I’m glad someone tried. Because nothing else like it exists.