Review: Ninja Assassin

Grade: C

Ninja Assassin is about a secret clan that, starting at early childhood, trains people to be stealth ninja assassins. One young assassin, Raizo, falls in love with a girl during their training but the clan kills her for trying to escape the village. Raizo shortly after decides to defy the clan himself and wishes to seek revenge for her death. Also, a Europol investigator has stumbled across a secret, that many assassinations over the last couple centuries can be traced back to a possible secret ninja clan. This agent finds Razio and they team up together to destroy the ninja clan.

This movie was pretty fun and entertaining. The action was great and the fight scenes were very exciting. It is a very bloody and gory movie. However, the dialogue is pretty terrible and overall the movie is very cheesy. Pretty much every cliché thing you can think of in terms of ninjas is put into this movie. Also, when they are being surrounded by ninjas the ninjas would whisper a lot like "the others" in TV's Lost, pretty ridiculous and corny.

Korean popstar/actor Rain (Speed Racer, plays the main role of Raizo. Rain definitely has the look for the part (extremely fit) but he is not that great of an actor, very bland and monotone, granted that did kind of help at points for the character. Naomie Harris (Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3, Street Kings) plays the role of Europol investigator Mika. Harris' job with this role was alright, she seemed pretty naïve at times but again, it all kind of worked out.

If you want a mindless movie about ninja assassins fighting other ninja assassins than Ninja Assassin is just the movie for you. But if you are looking for substance and plot, don't go anywhere near this movie.