Ninja Assassin: John's Take

                    Sub-Zero and Scorpion, Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello, and Raphael…needless to say after that listing that some of the coolest figures in pop culture over the last 20 years have been Ninja’s….so they must be overrunning the movie scene right? Wrong, up until the Wachowski’s and James McTiegue decided to tackle the subject we haven’t had a proper Ninja movie in a long time, and that’s only if you count some of the cheesier efforts in the late 80’s. In comes ‘Ninja Assassin’ starring Korean pop sensation, Rain. Ninja Assassin is the story of Raizo an orphan who was abducted from the streets and trained by the ancient Ozunu clan to become the deadliest of killer, a Ninja. During Raizo’s training he does something that is strictly forbidden by the clan, he develops not just feelings, but love for a rebellious life loving female ninja trainee. When she decides to escape the clan and is consequently captured and killed in front of Raizo he is changed forever, he develops a respect for life which causes him to betray the clan and live in hiding vowing revenge against the clan that stole his love. In comes Mika Correti an agent of Europol who believes she has found what most find to be the most preposterous thing, NINJAS! She believes she can trace money transfers for international assassinations back to the Ozunu clan which eventually puts her directly in their crosshairs and causes Raizo to come to her rescue. The race is then on for vengeance not to mention life and limb! So that sounds pretty damn cool, right? What did I like about it you ask? A lot! What didn’t I like, not too much but the little there was made a big difference in the movie. We’ll start with the good stuff.

                First and foremost Rain is awesome in this role. Granted it’s not an Oscar worthy performance but the shear physicality demanded by the role was commanded and owned by the pop star. There was no point that you did not believe that this guy could really do the things you were watching. That leads me into the Ninjas, who can be downright comical if they aren’t portrayed correctly. McTiegue did the right thing here, although he did use the almost supernatural version of a Ninja he did so correctly and made them almost melt into the shadows. I have to say that it was visually amazing the way he made them materialize out of the shadows, the best comparison I can make is to say they were like the Aliens in James Cameron’s ‘Aliens’ where in the walls began to move and you slowly realized that the walls were actually the aliens. They truly seemed to come from nothingness, in addition they also seemed to have a sixth sense when communicating with each other which is brought about it a very cool way onscreen. The weapons, something you can’t have a real ninja without, were top notch. While I would have preferred to see more of the actual ninja sword it was refreshing to see a variance in what they use since actual ninja used a plethora or weaponry to get the job done. Most of all was the weapon that Raizo himself used, a chain with a razor edged knife at the end. This was a jaw dropping and deadly weapon to say the least, I’m not sure how much was CGI but if any of the use of this weapon was real then I can’t wait to see the DVD featureettes where they teach Rain how to use this thing because the end result was just this side of amazing. Lastly was the gore, now I’m not a gore hound but this time around it both added and detracted from the film….more on the latter later hehe. The opening scene alone is enough to set the tone for the level of gore you will see the rest of the film, while some may say that McTiegue went overboard I disagree and think that he used the right amount, we are slashing people with razor sharp weapons here people. Now speaking of the gore brings me to my only real problem with the film.

                CGI BLOOD…why oh why, when the real thing is so easily done and for so cheap. It’s not like blowing up a building where it’s cheaper and easier to do so through the magic of computer animation, it’s just lazy and looks horrible. I swear there was actually a scene where there is a close up of someone putting ketchup on a hot dog and I SWEAR they used CGI ketchup…I don’t get it. The blood actually looked so bad that it took me out of the movie several times, I know it seems as if I’m nitpicking but for a movie this gory to use blood that looks so bad would be like Lord of the Rings using CGI grass. You see it too much to go cheap. Aside from this there really wasn’t too much that I could complain about, the story is somewhat shoddy, but that’s not why you’re coming to a movie like this anyway, right? That and there is a scene where Raizo gets his ass beat by one big Russian then goes one floor up and immediately kills roughly 30 ninja….how about a little bit of consistency, these are supposed to be the world’s deadliest killers.

                Would I see Ninja Assassin in theaters? Hell yeah I WOULD. Should you? Well that all depends, honestly if you’re a fan of the genre or just of action movies in general, you are going to have a great time with this flick. If you have any trouble with suspension of disbelief or need a certain level of realism in your films than this probably isn’t the one for you. Go see this flick, and have a good time….just don’t go online and order ninja weapons when you get home, because I assure you, you’ll want to!