Ninja Assassin

Posted May 24, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

As of his childhood Raizo was trained to become a ninja assassin for the Ozunu clan but when he gets ordered to kill his girlfriend, he decides to turn his back them, making himself a mark.

Europol forensic researcher Mika Coretti is investigating a series of murders and finds out that there are a lot of similarities between them. This makes her believe that for ages already a secret society of assassins is killing people for money. Despite warnings from her superior that she’s entering dangerous territory, Mika continues her investigation, something that brings her on the Ozunu clan’s radar. However, also Raizo has noticed her and decides to protect her from his former clan.

Sound and Vision:
This Blu-ray truly looks great with tons of detail, gushing CGI blood and good contrast. Colors are neutral with some primaries taking over at times and skin tones are realistic although a bit glossy at times. The depth of the image is also worth mentioning and at times you really feel like you’re almost watching a 3D movie.

Similarly, the technical quality of the soundtrack is also beyond criticism. Shurikens and bullets flying around your head, dialogues well-positioned at the front, environment sounds coming from the right directions and plenty of bass to support the whole. A truly immersive track!

Extras:
– The Myth and Legend of Ninjas
– The Extreme Sport of a Ninja
– Training Rain
– Additional Scenes
– Digital Copy

A couple of short but interesting extras

Conclusion:
Back in the 80s and up to the mid 90s, Ninja movies were quite popular with titles like American Ninja and Enter the Ninja doing extremely well at the local video rental store. They had bad acting, stereotypical characters and a story as deep as a puddle of water after a short rainfall during a hot summer day. Still, the combination of great martial arts action with cheesy dialogues made them a treat for the lover of the genre.

Matrix producers Andy and Larry Wachowski went along with director James McTeigue to bring new life to the genre with Ninja Assassin and brought in J. Michael Straczynski to rewrite the original script for the movie from Matthew Sands. And he did. In three days. The result is a cheesy movie with bad acting, cardboard characters, and a story as deep as a puddle of water after a short rainfall during a hot summer day. Unfortunately the cheezyness isn’t enough these days to make us fall in love again. The action isn’t good enough to give us a “wow” feeling, the cast is plain irritating at times and the storyline too inconsistent to be bothered with.

If you love gushing CGI blood (with great accompanying splattersound!), tons of violence and want to see martial arts legend Sho Kosugi once again without needing anything more, then this may very well be the movie for you, especially as the Blu-ray has excellent technical quality and some nice extras. The rest of you should stay away from this though.

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