Rain pours it on in bloody martial arts thriller
NINJA ASSASSIN (James McTeigue, 2009)
Opens Wednesday, November 25
www.ninja-assassin-movie.warnerbros.com
South Korean singing sensation Rain goes all Black Mamba in this action-packed revenge thriller chock-full of highly stylized beheadings, beautifully sliced-off limbs, and extreme bloodlettings, courtesy of director James McTeigue (V FOR VENDETTA) and MATRIX producers Joel Silver and the Wachowski brothers. When Mika Coretti (Naomie Harris), a Europol agent based in Berlin, thinks she has found a connection between a series of assassinations and murderous ninja clans long believed to be the stuff of legend and rumor, her career – and life – are soon in jeopardy. Even her boss, Ryan Maslow (Ben Miles), seems to give up on her as he is ordered by powerful higher-ups to drop the case, but she is already in too deep, on the run with mysterious ninja Raizo (Rain). The confusing plot mixes a BATMAN BEGINS-like origin story with KILL BILL-type violence as McTeigue cuts between Raizo’s brutal life as an orphan training to be a cold-blooded killer in the Ozunu clan (run by Japanese martial arts master and ENTER THE NINJA star Sho Kosugi) and his modern-day struggle to survive, being hunted by the clan he betrayed. Rain takes quite a beating in the film, reminiscent of what Jim Caviezel went through in THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, but Raizo is not so set on turning the other cheek. A lot of NINJA ASSASSIN makes no sense, and the ninjas move so fast during some of the fight scenes that you can’t really tell just what the hell is going on, but, hey, it’s a ninja movie. What did you expect?