Ninja Assassin Review

Ninja Assassin had a lot of potential to become the dream film of many fanboys. And until those fanboys see it, it may remain so. However, I found my dream slightly shattered after witnessing the film for myself. The first area in which this film fails, and the element that works entirely to its detriment, is in story. For a movie like this to work without exception we either need to believe in the ninja as a real being traveling the world unnoticed and assassinating people, or we need to not care that they aren't real…read more [Joblo] Ninja Assassin is a convincing, reasonably co-ordinated action movie. Nothing special, but lovers of the genre will enjoy the workouts, especially if they bring night-vision glasses. On the plus side, Harris is an intriguing damsel in distress. And our action hero moves well, although he's more Mist than Rain when delivering dialogue. Still, the question arises: Why is the film getting the VIP treatment, opening on the eve of the American Thanksgiving weekend? The answer lies in Ninja Assassin ‘s credits. The film is produced by Andy and Larry Wachowski, creators of the Matrix trilogy (1999-2003), a $1.6-billion (U.S.) global franchise…read more [The Globe And Mail] Ten minutes after you leave the movie, all the battles will have blended in your memory into a ceaseless muddle of sliced-off appendages, jets of blood splashing artfully on walls, gurgling screams and flashing swords. The only exception is a quick, dramatic mano a mano between Raizo and another ninja in Mika's darkened apartment, the two frightening creatures illuminated only by the agent's shaking flashlight. It's a rare moment of visual wit in a movie that provides plenty of jolts but precious little pleasure…read more [The Washington Post] If Ninja Assassin boasted sexual content equivalent to its level of violence, it would be rated NC-17 and repulse even the most dedicated perverts. However, the MPAA is much more accommodating when it comes to wall-to-wall bloodshed than consensual relations between loving adults. So while the ratings board might go into conniptions over an art film in which a woman receives oral sex, it has no problem with a protagonist who spends most of his time vivisecting enemies with a sharp chain that tears through flesh like a knife through butter. Ninja Assassin is ostensibly a vehicle for Korean pop star Rain, but the real star is the blood that gushes and spurts from the wounds of an army of interchangeable bad guys… [A.V. Club] Korean popstar Rain stars as Raizo, a ninja assassin in the Ozuno clan who was kidnapped at a young age and trained to become a skilled master of stealth and martial arts. When the woman he loves (a fellow ninja trainee named Kiriko) is killed after she tries to escape, however, Raizo turns against his master (Shô Kosugi) and wages war on his ninja brethren. For Europol agent Mika Coretti (Naomie Harris), it's a good thing that he has, because as soon as she begins investigating the secret world of ninja assassins (apparently, governments hire them to do their dirty work), she's marked for death. Now, the two must work together to take down Ozuno's shadow organization before they're killed in a hail of flying ninja stars…read more [Bullz-Eye] The performances do little to help matters. Korean pop star Rain doesn't display any of the magnetism that presumably made him a star in the first place, instead turning in a performance best described as Keanu-esque. Harris is equally flat, and Miles, while appearing to have a heartbeat, is given little to do. Kosugi, a ninja flick vet, makes for a competent villain, but can't be expected to carry the entire movie by himself…read more [FilmCritic] Of course, the key thing that is going to bring people into the theater to see this movie is the ninja fights. Director James McTeigue stages these fights with unrelenting over-the-top violence, punctuated by limbs flying and gallons of CGI blood. The fight scenes are constant and sometimes fall into an unfortunate tendency for quick cuts, but luckily that tendency is kept to a relative minimum. Of course, these being ninja they are fighting in the darkness, and there is one relatively brief fight in Mika's apartment between Raizo and another ninja that is almost frustrating in the poor lighting of it. Otherwise though, the fight scenes work very well, and are so blatantly gratuitous that one can't help but sit back and enjoy them. The “cool” factor is high on this one, featuring ninja killing trained Europol operatives and battles taking place through busy streets…read more [411mania.com] All of the back story in the world can't make us care about what made a ninja assassin just that, though, similar to how all of the whooshing sounds can't help us grasp just who is sparring with who when the chit-chat does subside, and all of those flying fluids can't disguise the fact that Ninja Assassin is a thoroughly bloodless experience. *That's right, it's not even Interpol. Hell, the film should just take place in Schmerlin…read more [Cinematical] Best of all everything is doused in wonderful excess: Blood sprays by the gallon. Shuriken hail down on victims like rainfall. Raizo's torso is more scar tissue than skin. A dozen ninjas? Why not a hundred? Throw in a bunch of army guys with machine guns while you're at it! This movie goes so far over the top it's orbiting Mars…read more [Mania] Ultimately, however, it's disappointing that by accident or design the film otherwise succumbs to this same action-exposition structure to which other Wachowski films fall prey; when Mika begins recapping what we've seen and what it all means about 45 minutes in, you're disappointed that the filmmakers either couldn't have worked that information into the previous sequences or just found a better way than a pure, straightforward monologue to reveal it. And further, that even if the goal was to do real justice to the ninja's dark arts, they might have simply opted for a day-for-night or Terminator-blue-style night in order to both conceal and showcase their physical dexterity…read more [Scifi.co.uk] Ninja Assassin Review Video: