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Ninja Assassin is a movie whose previews drew me in with how impressively generic they were. I mean, just look at that title. Ninja Assassin. We're clearly just going to have a lot of random sword fighting and romanticizing of Japan here. Starting off pretty promising too. Wise old tattoo artist is giving young punk a tattoo and sage advise. Suddenly, an envelope arrives full of black sand. Geezer gets all horrified and starts telling this story about how a ninja stabbed him in the chest and he only survived by virtue of being a freak with his heart on the wrong side. The punks laugh, then suddenly people start getting hacked to bits by an unseen ninja. I don't mean they aren't looking when he swoops in either. I mean, it's like the invisible man is cutting people into bits. There's also a hail of throwing stars coming out at way too absurd a pace for anyone to be throwing them. We are just going out of our way to make darn sure there is ZERO believability here and being a ninja means having magical superpowers. Awesome.
Now here in America, we have a couple people throwing out a bunch of exposition. I'm assuming this is some reporter trying to convince her editor to let her break this big ninja story. It's the sort of ultra generic dialog I can't actually pay attention to. Now moving along to what I assume is our main character doing his laundry, some girl asks him to help him fold a sheet. "What clan are you from?" he asks, shortly before a knife comes flying out of the sheet and a fight scene breaks out. We cut away to the confused owner of the laundromat, who comes in to see a dryer full of swirling chunky blood. So yeah. Our main character is apparently an ex-ninja trying to put that life of violence behind him. And as movies always teach us, secret groups of assassins REALLY hate when people try to quit! Also, I can't quite convey it but this movie is wonderful. It's like, they're trying to be as hilariously over the top and generic as possible while keeping a straight face, and they're doing a great job of it. It's seriously like this movie comes from an alternate dimension where America's views from Japan are still where they were in the early 80s. A whole country full of magical weirdos with swords, you know? For instance, here's someone doing vertical pushups on a bed of nails. It's... it's the sort of thing I really just can't explain to anyone who didn't grow up looking at examples. The best I could do is say to find a first edition copy of Palladium's Ninjas and Superspies RPG and try to wrap your head around it seeming fully believable. Because that's where this movie is coming from.
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Now we're back to the boring reporter, talking to some old Russian lady talking about all the elaborate security systems he installed to not be killed by ninjas. Just, flood lights and cameras everywhere. This failed. Then she turns over his box of Ninja Evidence. This reveals the identity of the main character, because I guess he went to give Russian Guy one last warning before invisibly killing him. Now we're back to him keeping up with his crazy ninja training, and flashing back to his way crazier ninja training from when he was 10 or so. Here, sword fight in this room full of hundreds of flaming spheres hanging from the ceiling! Walk across this floor with spikes concealed under the mats! Now do it after I whip your feet bloody! Oh and back in the boring plot advancing part of the movie, here's a creepy German FBI guy coming to ask Reporter about her... OK. Yeah, Reporter is actually an FBI investigator, and German Guy is here to try and convince her and her partner to quit digging into this ninja business. Here's more mystical magical flashbacks.
Here's a sappy flashback for a change. Dig this dialog: "I believe the heart of a tree tells it which way to go." "Trees don't have hearts." "Everything has a heart." "I don't." "Let me see." OK? It's that sort of movie. Now here's more present training. Here's blindfolded, trowing handfuls of 4 throwing stars at a time, all of them deeply embedding themselves in wooden beams scattered about the room. And oh! It's a crazy katana with a sliding hilt so it can either be really long or have a blade on both ends! And yes, we ARE implying that this is worth using for reasons beyond surprising someone once. Also, this movie really loves flashbacks. It's like, 2 minutes of now, 5 minutes of flashback, 5 minutes of different flashback, repeat. And one scene out of every 9 is something that isn't showing how awesome and magical and disciplined ninja are. Here, flashback girlfriend refused to give the main character a disfiguring scar for not being her in a sword fight while blindfolded, so she's given a disfiguring scar and forced to spend a few days standing up in a claustrophobic bamboo cage. I have to say though, this romance subplot isn't really doing it for me. Let's get back to the implausible weapons and the literally being invisible while hacking people to bits. This is still stupid and generic, but it isn't really funny. I mean, besides that tree heart exchange. Eventually though, flashback girlfriend fled the ninja training monastery.
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Also? NotReporter's partner is clearly British... are they actually Interpol or something? Is this movie from Belgium or something? There really aren't a whole heck of a lot of exterior shots to establish where things are, only one scene (the opening in Okinawa) had a label on it, and seriously, I think every character seen so far has had a different accent. Oh hey! Finally! A fight scene! Someone sent a ninja to kill NotReporter, but at literally the last possible instant the katana about to slice through her head is stopped by the chain sickle of ANOTHER ninja, presumably the main character (yup) who was already hiding in the shadows of the apartment. Counterninja: Counter targeted ninja. Silly ninja fight! Also, there are SERIOUSLY shots in this movie of ninja turning into shadow wraiths and flying around real briefly. It's amazing how far this movie is willing to go. I'm just waiting for someone to throw down a smoke bomb and suddenly there's 3 of him at this point. Oh and flashback girl was caught and executed.
NotReporter is giving more unlistenably bland exposition now. Oh hey, now here's some big beefy british bruiser being assassinated by a waiter with a knife. He stabs him right in the neck, but he completely shrugs it off and goes "That kinda tickled." Like, 20 stabs later he stops being the ridiculous bruiser with 2000 HP and dies though. Oh, apparently this is a flashback to the main character's first kill. Now he's being asked to kill flashback girlfriend again.. uh... movie? Can we have our constant flashbacks in a less confusing order? I mean, this whole backstory is really obvious to begin with... or maybe that was just some other girl being put to death for leaving before. Also, one thing really bugs me in this movie. It is FULL of bad CGI blood. It looks really lame, and costs WAY more than practical effects blood. What's with movies using it all the time?
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Anyway, making a brief stop in the present here, main character is buying new clothes for NotReporter, and waving a cigarette around them so that the evil ninja can't hunt her by scent. Seriously. They go to meet her partner though, who's obviously a jerk, so suddenly a bunch of SWAT types come out and nab the main character. I'm STILL trying to figure out where this movie is made/set. It's really starting to bug me. So yeah, he's all chained up in the secret government spook cave, we have parallels to a flashback going on, he's mainly just bummed by how everyone holding him captive is going to get totally mowed down when they come for him. And... out go the lights. So yeah. Slicesliceslicesliceslice. And here's some machine gun speed throwing stars. NotReporter of course survives long enough to run down and free him... do I even need to mention these plot details at this point? It's intentionally super generic. Nothing is going to deviate from expectations.
And now the bad animated blood ruins what would otherwise be a perfectly serviceable scene of the main character using his crazy chain sickle to kill like 50 ninja. Also, the throwing star barrages never stop being funny. They seriously use like, minigun sound effects for them. And... this here is actually a pretty poorly shot big epic fight scene. Or maybe I'm just spoiled by Kick Ass. I got into a discussion with someone earlier and seriously, I can't name a movie with better fight scenes than that. The modern trend is the whole shakeycam thing that doesn't let you see anything. Before that the trend was for these seriously over-choreographed things where it just looked like you were watching a big well rehearsed dance number, and then if you jump way back you get to those honest 70s kung fu movies where you have a bunch of stuntmen having a pretty darn real looking fight, but it really isn't all that interesting. Kick Ass got it right though. Everyone else is a properly panicky flailing mortal, but then there's this little girl with complete artistic control of the whole scene... but still manages to take a hit now and then.
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Oh and I totally rambled through that kinda boring fight scene running out into the middle of traffic. So... you've got all these ninja dodging and diving through oncoming cars trying to catch the main character. That's kinda memorable. And... uh wow. The main character is using his magical ninja powers to regenerate. I am dead serious. Eventually he was captured and stuffed in a crate to be shipped back to ninja HQ. And while he was in there, he started breathing meditatively and doing crazy hand things, and all of his big slicing wounds magically healed. Wow. Even the shadow wraith business we could say is supposed to be jumping with special effects added for the sake of drama, but no, that there was 100% ninja magic right there. Also, I believe the ninja leader just yanked out the contents of his stomach with his Secret Ninja Punch. Said contents being a government tracking device. Suddenly, the army invades the Hidden Ninja Village (sadly, not of Brazille). It's all machine guns and bazookas, and apparently those beat ninja magic. Until they go inside, then main antagonist ninja kills a bunch, and then main character fights him. Once again, I hate this blood. Ooh, and we have the silly reversible sword coming out again! Fun! Also, I love how outside, we're really suggesting that rocket launchers and machine guns vs. throwing stars are pretty evenly matched.
Now we have to go kill master too though, in his room on the other side of the trap floor. Main character just goes screw it, and slashes through the floor so he can just see where the spikes are and not have to tip-toe. I guess he's in a hurry. So now we've got the whole thing where he's attacking shadows through the wall but it turns out here's not really there, he's behind you. And now we've got a fighting on the other side of the wall with firelight and blood splashing on it, where, again, the blood ruins it. Anyway, they charge from across the room and mid-charge... leader just disappears. I'm serious, ninja in this movie can flat out turn invisible. It's not even blending into the shadows. ÊHe pins the main character, is about to cut HIS head off, and... poof. OK, maybe it's actually teleportation... or Flash style super speed. Eventually though, main character wins. Because that's how it goes. Incidentally, I don't recall ANYONE using the main character's name in this. Or, really, anyone else. It's all father this and little brother that. Anyway, the next day, he reinacts how his flashback girlfriend fled, becaause you know, symbolic freedom. And that's the movie. And the end credits are full of Matrix effects because the actual movie didn't really go for'em and THERE IS A LAW SIR! Weird music choice for these credits too. It's very... upbeat 80s. Which ties back into my crazy parallel universe notion. I really hate living in the dark alternate future where it stopped being the 80s. It's nice that we occasionally get to import stuff like this from the proper timeline.
