DVD Review: Ninja Assassin

James McTeigue’s Ninja Assassin is pure B-movie fun. A bloodfest from start to finish, this martial arts movie was produced by Joel Silver and the Wachowski brothers and features Korean superstar Rain as the deadly hero. Ninja Assassin has all of the ingredients required to make a rollicking, gory, mindless Saturday afternoon flick destined to air about 7,000 times on Spike TV and it delivers the goods in just about every department necessary.

The Wachowskis have been the producers of choice for over-the-top actioners, so it stands to reason that they’d try to move into the shadows with this resurrection of the ninja movie. Many of the same tricks used in The Matrix films and in V for Vendetta are present in Ninja Assassin, but this film packs a bit more of a violent wallop and is significantly thinner on the plot elements.

Rain stars as Raizo, one of the deadliest assassins in the world. He was raised by the Ozunu Clan to be a deadly killer, but a love interest eventually forces him to start reconsidering his path in life. When tragedy strikes, Raizo seeks his own freedom and turns against the Clan. Led by his destructive father, Lord Ozunu (Sho Kosugi), the Ozunu Clan seeks out their revenge on Raizo for his presumed betrayal.

Soon we are introduced to Mika Coretti (Naomie Harris), a Europol agent investigating political assassinations. She discovers a clan of ninjas that seem to be behind a considerable amount of the deaths and seeks more information. This, of course, leads her into the path of Raizo and the Ozunu Clan. A series of fight sequences and chases lead the way to the usual standoffs, while Mika discovers something about herself that is most unusual.

Ninja Assassin is a gory, effective cult film that does its part to bring the ninja movie back. Whether the world is ready for ninja movies again is questionable, however, but much of McTeigue’s picture flies in the face of the clunky, motorized giant robot science fiction stories many action fans are used to. This is vintage stuff, thank goodness, and Ninja Assassin feels like a gruesome homage to those great action pictures of the '90s in which the heroes always won and the baddies always died fabulously grisly deaths.

Article Author: Jordan Richardson

Jordan Richardson is a Canadian freelance writer and ne'er-do-well. He writes stuff here and here.

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