Ninja Assassin

I was psyched to see this movie from the first tv spot I saw.  The sound of the shurikens whizzing by sounded so cool, I was hooked.  So, opening day, first showing, you know I was there.  Now, to be fair to anyone reading this, I went into this movie with a few expectations.  I wanted to see cool martial arts fight scenes, severed limbs, spurting blood (to go along with the severed limbs.  You'd think this would be a given, but not always.  Prime example, X-Men Origins: Wolverine.), and a decent enough plot to string it all together.  As Mark, whom I went to the theater with, said: "Anybody that goes to see a movie titled Ninja Assassin expecting an Oscar winning movie deserves to be disappointed."   What I didn't want to see was some hokey movie where people with no fighting skills or training stay alive throughout the entire movie and somehow kills the ninja clan leader at the end.  Nor did I want some crappy special ninja powers that allow them to do things that make absolutely no sense. 

So, was I disappointed?  Hell no!  Ninja Assassin had everything I was hoping for, and a nice climatic ending that I should have been expecting, but wasn't.  The plot of the story isn't really all that important, but it is plausible and gives cohesion to the action scenes.  A forensic researcher for Europol named Mika finds a link between political assassinations and connects it to her belief that ninja clans exist.  As she digs deeper she finds herself the target of assassination by ninjas to keep their existence buried from the regular world.  To her defense comes a renegade ninja named Raizo who has turned his back on his clan.  Wanting vengeance and redemption for his past, Raizo protects Mika and uses her to draw his former brothers into his path. 

The focus and the point of the story is to see cool ninja action, and that's just what you get.  Raizo has very few speaking lines, and the depth of his character is told through flashbacks.  The flashbacks show us the brutal training that he endured to become a master assassin.  Training sequences are crucial in all martial arts movies, but this one goes a step further.  It doesn't just show constant fighting, but also the conflict that existed within Raizo.  But, I'm straying from what really makes the movie, the ninjas.  The fight scenes are handled beautifully.  The movements of the ninjas show them as true stealthy creatures of the night.  They don't step out of the shadows, they melt out of them as if they were a part of them.  For all I know, they might just be.  One fight scene in Mika's apartment has two fighting ninjas disappear from sight and reappear in another part of the room, still fighting.  To me, it helped illustrate that their movements were too fast and skilled to be tracked by the untrained eye.  Another great aspect of the movie is that Raizo isn't invincible.  He gets hurt, a lot, and he sheds a fair amount of blood with every fight.  He isn't a one man army.  He's just a man on a mission.    

There is some ninja magic in the movie, but nothing that you wouldn't expect.  No shape shifting, or elemental control, or anything stupid like that.  

Now, I am purposefully being vague about the movie.  Not because I'm afraid of giving away some monumental plot twist, but because the fight scenes need to be seen with no advanced knowledge of what's coming.  Trust me when I say that everything you want to see in a ninja movie is there.  There is a very nice scene of a dozen or so ninjas clinging to the walls above some unsuspecting people, ready to pounce, that just makes you smile. 

My only criticism with the movie is the CGI blood.  It was obvious, and in abundance.  Blood didn't spurt, or spray, it poured.  I've rationalized this by basing it on the MPAA ratings system, and comparing the movie to Kill Bill.  Ninja Assassin has more deaths and dismemberments than Kill Bill (I think), and I believe that had they used fake blood and make up the realism would have pushed the rating to NC-17.  Just a guess on my part. 

The movie is pure balls out action.  I'll definitely buy this on DVD when it comes out.  To quote Vincent Vega: "Go, baby.  You'll dig it the most."