Ninja Assassin (2009)

Stars: Rain and Sho Kosugi

Director: James McTeigue

Plugs: None

In the new film Ninja Assassin, Europol agent Mika Coretti tells her boss that she’s been investigating a string of high-profile international killings. The guilty party, she believes, are not drug lords nor mafia but a clan of ninjas—you know, those black-clad killers from feudal Japan who dispatch their victims with exotic razor-sharp weaponry. According to Mika, the killings were done by the mysterious Ozunu Clan, a secret society that for the past thousand years has supplied killers to any entity willing to pay a hundred pounds of gold—or whatever that is in Euros, minus taxes and bank conversion fees.

This all seems rather ridiculous to Mika’s boss (as it does to the audience), but sure enough it’s true, and that premise launches one of the best ninja martial arts films in years. It is also the only ninja martial arts film in years, but that’s beside the point.

Indeed, to demand much plausibility is to miss the point, especially when the clan’s deadliest assassin, Raizo (Rain) betrays his brothers and defects from the clan to protect Mika. You see, he’s had a rough childhood, as we can tell in flashbacks to his early years at the ninja training school monastery. These aren’t nuns with rulers, these are brutal bastards who mete out corporal punishment for violating rigid rules—though apparently the end result, having supernatural killing powers, is worth it. It’s made clear that nobody short of the X-Men’s Wolverine would stand a chance against a ninja, yet Raizo dispatches hordes of them with expertise, suffering only a few cuts in the process. Raizo and Mika spend a lot of time running and fighting before the big climax, which also involves running and fighting.

Ninja Assassin is not as good as, say, the 2001 French film Brotherhood of the Wolf, nor many Jackie Chan movies. But it is a wild, fun ride, filled with acrobatics and great stunt work. The filmmakers avoided a lot of special effects cheating, reserving them for sliced bodies and blood geysers instead of stunts.

Ninja Assassin is exactly what you would expect from a film called Ninja Assassin, and more. That is, the filmmakers know their audience and deliver the goods. People who don’t like bloody, special-effects laden martial arts films like this aren’t going to buy a ticket to see Ninja Assassin, but if this is your cup of green tea, you won’t be disappointed.