Ninja Assassin
Directed by James McTeigue
Warner Bros Pictures, 2009
By Caesar Martini
I was excited to see Ninja Assassin because the title promised me two things: ninjas, and/or assassins. And I’m pro-both of those things, even if the term “ninja assassin” is a bit of a redundancy. I mean, assassinating is pretty much all ninjas do. There are no ninja chefs or ninja pet groomers. Wait, are there ninja chefs? Trained in the mysterious art of culinary murder, the secret ingredient to all his dishes would be… death! And probably shurikens.
Anyway, Ninja Assassin does indeed have a healthy amount of ninjas assassinating people, yet I can’t really recommend this movie. Unless you’re a huge fan of Korean pop music and want to see pop phenomenon Rain cover himself in a thick layer of fake blood and run around shirtless for half an hour; in that case, this is definitely the film for you.
Obviously, the story for a movie like this is derivative and unoriginal, but frankly, fuck you if you want a compelling story in a movie about ninjas. This is no Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon over here. And the acting is basically what you’d expect from a movie with a title like this one — that is, somewhere between Sylvester Stallone and Orlando Bloom, but that’s okay because none of the performances ever get near Steven Seagal territory. No, these elements are just about as serviceable as they need to be for a film such as this.
What fails to pass muster is the directing. Oh, the directing. I’m slightly puzzled by this, as McTeigue directed V For Vendetta, which despite being a brutal raping of the source material, was not a poorly directed film per se. I’m not sure what happened between V and Ninja, but apparently this time around McTeigue decided on an all-epileptic camera crew and locked his film editors in a room with a bucket of amphetamines, because the action scenes are jerky, fast, and difficult to follow.
There’s one scene in particular where our hero Rain is running down a crowded street whilst being pursued by armed ninjas, dodging throwing stars and flipping over cars and what not, and the entire scene looks like it probably took a lot of effort to properly choreograph and orchestrate, but it ends up being a waste of time for everyone involved. The action is too hectic, the camera is too close and far too shaky, and to top it all off it’s shot really dark. Furthermore, I got the sense they were trying to build up a rivalry between Rain and one particular ninja, but since all his enemies were dressed the same, in black, in the dark, it was quite impossible to tell who was who most of the time.
There are several scenes that involve ninjas fighting soldiers, and these too are partially ruined by poor lighting and poorer camera work, though once the soldiers realize that a ninja’s two main weaknesses are spotlights and rocket launchers, it becomes more watchable.
At first, the assassination scenes worked fairly well; lots of violent gore-spewing death that elicits good shock value. But soon you become desensitized to it, as you realize that every single time a person sustains so much as a severe papercut, you will see a torrent of CGI created blood gush forth, as if all 9 pints of blood in the human body were released at once. Frankly, it gets a little silly.
If you’re a die-hard ninja/Rain/horrific gory death fan, you might have a decent time at this film, but if you’re none of those things, don’t bother. However, if there’s still some lingering curiosity niggling the back of your head, do the following: obtain a copy of Kill Bill Part 1, find the part where Uma Thurman fights 88 guys, turn the brightness of your screen way down, then watch the scene whilst bouncing on a trampoline and imagining much less compelling actors.
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[...] and it’s only fair to them that I review it. And, as with most things, my take on it is different than Caesar’s. And since he and I have been having some enjoyable, passionate debates on some MONDOcomics reviews [...]