I think the title says it all, in regards to what this is about. It is about a ninja assassin, that really is all you need to know. Ninja films aren’t known for their fantastic plots, they have the good guys, the bad guys and ninja’s doing their thing. But if you must know what the basics are, Raizo (Rain) is a ninja and he leaves his clan, in return they track him down led by Takeshi (Rick Yune). While there is that, Europol agents are investigating a series of assassinations which leads them to believe the ninja’s were paid to do them. Agent Mika meets Raizo, as they team up against the ninja clan and those after them.
Make no mistake, this is not a film you are meant to take seriously. This film knows exactly what it is, it is over the top, full of crazy action and some awesome martial arts scenes. The main reason I really wanted to see this was because it was the return of ninja legend Sho Kosugi (Enter The Ninja, Revenge Of The Ninja). My excitement to see him in a new film paid off, I thought he was the best thing about this film, sure he has asked but he still is awesome. He really dominated the screen when he was on and he made for the perfect ‘father’ of the ninja clan. He really showed he still has got it, and it really was just so awesome to see him again.
Our lead Rain was quite awesome too, I enjoyed watching him on screen. He had a nice presence, and he moves so well. His scenes when fighting are fantastic, this man has a good look and decent acting abilities, I would like to see him in more films like this. Same goes for Rick Yune, he was great as Takeshi and he made for the perfect opponent/bad guy. All in all I had a good time with this film, being a fan of ninja films and over the top action films, it was right up my alley.
What I didn’t like, the pacing for this was a little off but mostly it flowed quite well. I found Naomie Harris to be extremely annoying and I could have done without her, the character she played was paper thin but she really didn’t bring anything to the table to improve that. The CGI blood was over used and very annoying, after the first few fights it got tired and they went really over the top with it. It wouldn’t have hurt to have actually used blood make up and toned it down just a little bit. Overall it is a fun film, just don’t expect anything serious and you should be fine.
The Super Network 