From the makers of NINJA: THE LITTLE NINJA, a popular animated martial arts web series comes KARMAKULA: MYSTIC WARRIOR, a new live-action martial arts series produced for the web that combines Spaghetti Western, chambara and graphic novel or manga motifs with a unique fantasy setting. Two episodes have already been released and a third is coming May 8th.

Based on my viewing of the first two episodes, KARMAKULA is very high on style, presentation and atmosphere. It features exotic wilderness locales, well thought out cinematography, a slick soundtrack, and elaborate fight sequences that juggle a variety of familiar physical and thematic elements perhaps most heavily drawn from Japanese pop culture.

The series is unusually reflective and paced slowly despite the energetic action that takes place. It’s also light on dramatic or character substance at this point but given the short running time of each episode and the attention span of the average internet user, that’s probably an advantage. It’s not going to floor veteran genre film fans but for a web original serial series it’s worth a look.

KARMAKULA is hosted by IGN where visitors can watch the first two episodes and sign up for updates.

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