Dir. James McTeigue, US/Ger, 2009, 99mins
Cast: Rain, Naomie Harris, Ben Miles, Yuki Iwamoto, Sung Kang
Review by Matthew Rodgers
Director James McTeigue's last gig was to act as an emergency director on the lamentably bad Nicole Kidman dud, The Invasion . Prior to that he had shown some promising visual panache in the commendably flawed adaptation of Alan Moore's V For Vendetta . Now he completes the natural progression to creative sterility with this ludicrous computer game manifestation that's simply put “a load of old Shi…….nobi.”
Raizo (Rain) is a lethal ninja, taken from the streets as a child he is trained by a mysterious clan that exist beneath a veil of myth and denial. When his young friend is brutally assassinated for refusing to adhere to the strict code of the ninja, he abandons them and vanishes, awaiting the day when he can exact his revenge.
Elsewhere, Europol agent Mika (Naomie Harris) is investigating a money trail that will lead her to literally cross swords with Raizo and his now European blood splattered vendetta. Why this isn't in contention for Best Screenplay this awards season is anyone's guess?
That is perhaps a little unfair; this does do what it says on the tin. It's about a “Ninja” that “Assassinates” a lot of people, so you are going to get plenty of choreographed fights and a bucket load of 300 style blood that would make Sissy Spacek balk.
The tone is set from the opening scene, so if you are offended by gratuitous violence – heads splitting open into a ridiculous crimson mess - and two-dimensional acting that's more wooden than a field of bamboo, then about five minutes of this is going to be enough. An example of one of a litany of clunking dialogue exchanges is highlighted below:-
Raizo: Trees don't have hearts
Love interest: Everything has a heart
Raizo: I don't
There is no doubting that such blatant cinematic snobbery is over-looking the key demographic of joypad twiddling action junkies. But with genre films as inventively kinetic as Ong-Bak fresh in the memory, it would be worrying to think that they could be duped into thinking this is anything more than clichéd Kung-Fu.
So, when the main protagonist is of little rounded interest then it's down to Naomie Harris's intrepid investigator to provide a dramatic thread on which to cling. It's a shame then that she is lumbered with such exposition heavy dialogue of ancient rites and mystical clans, the type that makes the Dan Brown adaptations seem breezy by comparison.
Ninja Assassin is one for the die-hards only; Saturated with tiresomely gimmicky blood letting and flashback dominant in its structure, if only it had gone back far enough for some of the classic 70's Kung-Fu flicks to influence its lame shenanigans.
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