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Ninja Assassin

A sub-par action flick that could’ve been so much better.

Structure/Plot

- For the first 30 minutes or so it sure seemed like the main character, Raizo (played by Rain), was the assassin. It was stupid of the movie to create this impression and confusion…showing Raizo immediately after a ninja attack and then in the security camera footage. Why would I care about a character I believed slaughters people for money?

- When Raizo saved the girl and they drove away in the car, he explained why he did that, finally explained that he turned his back on the ninjas. Problem is, this was passive and weak to show the character’s main objective in a flashback.

Character

The above was also stupid because young Raizo did nothing to try and save the rebellious girl he liked. Only later, upon being at the cusp of formally entering the fraternity, did he try to save that other girl from being executed and that led to the battle between him and the ninjas. While it was a surprise that he did not attempt to prevent the first girl’s death, this was the kind of story that should have kept it simple: save the first girl, she flees, the ninjas vow to kill him, at the end he somehow re-connects with her.

The movie borrowed heavily from Batman Begins and should have followed that path more carefully.

Little thing / Logic

The action was unnecessarily grotesque. The buckets of blood and guts were a distraction, not a cool style. It didn’t even make sense for the ninjas to act that way; if they were a secret society of assassins, then how could similar massacres around the world and over the years go unnoticed?

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