Runtime: 99 minutes
Directed by: James McTeigue
Starring: Rain, Naomie Harris, Rick Yune, Joon Lee, Sho Kosugi
From: Warner Bros./Legendary
The predictions of my time away from Letterboxd were greatly exaggerated... turns out, the jury duty I mentioned yesterday resulted in my not being selected for the grand jury. As interesting as it'd be to determine if someone would be charged with first degree murder, that's take up several mornings for the next 6 months so that saves me some long drives up there.
This movie is not part of my Hierarchy of Needs. If you want to know what in the heck I'm dithering about, a major supporting character here has the last name Maslow; that surname is so unusual I couldn't help but think of Abraham Maslow, the famed psychologist from the past. This was a movie I did see... once, theatrically. My memories were that it was fine although I never had any need to experience it again. Then messageboard chatter was seen by me, and a rental was eventually made.
It's a totally generic story focused on the titular ninja assassin—throughout, clips from his childhood are shown as he was literally raised in a clan since childhood to be a part of that order. As he grows tired of that life, some outsiders start investigating mysterious deaths... really, the most interesting twist was that because a German company was involved in production, this was set and filmed in Berlin rather than somewhere in America.*
The movie's biggest downfall? It is over the top graphic gore we see throughout which is fine as I have no problem with similar visceral moments in The Story of Riki-Oh or even one of the Lone Wolf and Cub movies. That duly noted, those movies do it practically where Ninja Assassin is full of CG which must not have looked that awful to me in late '09 but REALLY looks bad with my 2023 eyes-and the substandard effects are plentiful. It ruined the entire experience and made it not fun or engrossing. The way the action was shot (typically not so great) only compounded the matter.
As an actor, Rain wasn't too shabby, as long as he didn't have to do much in the way of acting. But I won't dog him for that. He's just someone who vanished from the West and any public attention here a long time ago. Honestly, he was born too early; with how popular K-Pop is now, fortunes would have been different for him. In fact, I'm sure that Hollywood has at least hoped for one of those teen idols (like, say, RM or Jisoo) to want a movie career... anyhow, Naomie Harris probably delivered the best performance although it's always nice to see the likes of Rick Yune, Sung Kang and especially Sho Kosugi.
Honestly, Kosugi's 80's ninja movies probably were all better than this; I can say that Pray for Death was, at least from the one time I saw it years before I joined Letterboxd. Never seeing this again may have been the better path for me.
* I'll go into detail sometime later in the month in another review but unlike previous years I won't unofficially participate in the site's March Around the World foreign film watching extravaganza. I watch plenty foreign cinema the other eleven months anyhow.
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