Review: Ninja Assassin

Take it from Shô Kosugi, no, really, that's Shô Kosugi

Even more bland of a title than Fight Club, Ninja Assassin fails to rise above but surely doesn't make any plans to, either. Hearkening back to the '80s and with the modern, stylistic flashes of the Wachowski's, Assassin is shameless B-action to the core, and core is really the right word seeing anything left hanging is cut out and off—for good and for the better.

Cute-faced, international superstar RAIN takes up the titular reigns as Raizo, an ultra-hardcore murdering machine and a man of a few words. A ninja from the cradle, Raizo searches out his tyrannical teacher and Ninjutsu master, marking the vailiant return of Shô Kosugi in Ozunu. Along the way, he finds a partner in strangely-American Interpol Agent Mika (Naomie Harris) as well as a rival in Takeshi (Rick Yune), all the while cutting and slicing everyone and everything in sight. Much like Punisher: War Zone, this over-reliance on ultraviolence eventually becomes numbing, flattening the action sequences to little more than some laughs for the few, actually-excessive moments of gore. But it's the meat of the material (that is, what's still on the body) which makes the movie work. From the opening sequence on, we are plunged headfirst into dangerously cheesy territory (the whole "special heart" running gag is beyond ridiculous), and, fortunately, we're never given a chance to come back up.

Dropping a non-martial artist into this kind of setup is almost appropriate—this is Americanized crap to the Nth degree, but in a very good way—so it is with this that Rain succeeds with flying colors (mostly consisting of a runny, shimmering red). The aforementioned Kosugi is right on the mark as the film's central villain, even having his own little Apocalypse Now-Colonel Kurtz moment in the end. Naomie Harris is great, mostly because how goddamn hot she is (which is even mentioned! Genius!) Action-baddie vet Rick Yune feels underused, though I doubt if that's actually a valid concern. The characters and their cast are a snug fit, showing just how much these simple premises are missed.

In the finale, a great 'Ninja holocaust' takes place, giving the title and the film an entirely new meaning. And, in a way, Ninja Assassin proves to be the swan song of the genre, a true throwback to the cookie-cutter scripts and plot templates that made the B material so much fun. The Wachowski's prove once again that they have something left in the tank, and that the Ninja genre—so lowly and ever-banished—isn't dead, either. Pirates go home.


*** out of ****

~ Patrick Fryberger