Review of Ninja Assassin (2009) by George P — 02 Feb 2012

Reading through the reviews for this film it seems to get a lot of stick for the linear plot and the amount of violence on display. I'm guessing the people complaining have mainly only been exposed to martial arts fare like 'Crouching Tiger' and a few episodes of 'Kung Fu' and 'Monkey'? Anyone thinking blood and guts in these sort of films is anew thing should head on over to see 'Shogun Assassin' forthwith! What this film does is take the hyper-violent bone-crunching action of a traditional martial arts film and add a Hollywood sheen and over the top special effects.

The plot is admittedly pretty sparse - an investigator at Europol (which apparently does exist) uncovers the trail of a clan of old school ninjas who act as assassins for governments and anyone with a big bag of cash. They're none too pleased about her investigation and set out to off her as well. However a former clan member comes to her rescue but if the clan were annoyed at her they certainly don't see eye to eye with him! And of course to top it all every criminal investigation agency on the planet believes the two to be in cahoots with the ninjas so they have no one to turn to.

But the plot really is just there to hang to lengthy fight scenes off - all that really happens is that they keep getting chased, caught, escaping and caught again interspersed with some eye watering kung-fu. It's made by the same guys who did the original 'Matrix' and you can tell from the highly stylised fight scenes - all balletic action and slo-mo camera work amidst cool arty lighting and design. What they do add here is ramping up the gore to eleven and then some. Taking a cue from films like Rambo IV and Machette the screen is filled with flying severed limbs and there are fountains of blood which drench the entire cast. Some of the effects are jaw droppingly brutal but it all has the air of a comic book adventure.

Obviously it's not going to be to everyone's taste - it's certainly no date film (unless you go on very interesting dates) but if you like a few beheadings with your chop-socky fare then you can do a lot worse!