ENTERTAINMENT: It’s Rain-ing Ninjas!

2009/11/26

Tengku Elena Tengku Mahamad

OPENS TODAY

NINJA ASSASSIN

Directed by James McTeigue
Starring Rain, Rick Yune, Naomie Harris, Ben Miles HOW many of you were fooled into thinking that the recent Ninja movie was the one starring Korean pop star Rain? I was. And from reading comments online, it seems that I was not the only one.

While the previous movie on ninjas looked like a low budget movie, this time, James McTeigue presents his latest direction, Ninja Assassin, that is unlike Isaac Florentine’s Ninja.

The movie kicks off with Raizo (Rain) who was raised as a child by a clan called Ozunu. When Raizo’s girlfriend is executed by the clan for running away, Raizo goes into hiding. He later re-emerges in Berlin seeking revenge against the clan. Meanwhile, Mika Coretti (Naomie Harris), a Europol agent, investigates several murders to discover that they are linked to the Ozunu. The clan, upon finding out about the investigation, attempts to assassinate her but she is rescued by Raizo. They then decide to team up to find a way to take down the clan.

In terms of acting, despite it being Rain’s first Hollywood leading role, his experience in Korean television serials such as Full House (2004), A Love to Kill (2005) as well as a supporting role in the American live-action film Speed Racer (2008) as Taejo Togokahn has paid off as he does a fantastic job as a ninja compared with Scott Adkins (as Casey) in Ninja.

The fight choreography is superbly executed and very realistic, thanks to his martial arts training prior to the movie.

But Naomie Harris and her on-screen investigation partner Ben Miles (as Ryan Moslow) both act poorly. Their boring dialogues don’t help. Their investigation scenes are too short for impact and you feel like you are being spoonfed explanations about their findings.

What I also find annoying are the frequent flashbacks (when Raizo had to go through ninja training with the Ozunu) which interrupt the main story of revenge against the clan. There is also a rather illogical scene when Raizo, who is portrayed as a slick and undefeatable ninja, is suddenly rendered helpless because of a little mistake.

Nevertheless, what’s good about Ninja Assassin compared with Ninja is that Raizo uses the martial art weapons such as the throwing stars and the katana sword to defeat the bad guys, instead of machine guns.

While the movie is generally realistic, the CGI effects of blood splattering during the fighting is not.

This movie seems catered more for female Rain fans as much of the movie involves him showing off his muscular body. But men would go for Ninja Assassin as well — it’s ranked as one of this year’s top 50 movies by Britain’s The Times online and San Francisco’s Examiner’s top 10 movies.

Note: See more movie reviews on Pages 10 and 11.