Movie Review: Ninja Assassin

Last night I got around to seeing 2009's Ninja Assassin, which was about what I expected it to be, with some major gore thrown in: a B-grade action flick.

Korean pop star Rain's character Raizo is abducted as a child and raised by a clan of ninja bad-asses, who can literally melt out of the shadows and heal themselves. Unlike fellow magical boarding school Hogwarts, Raizo's new home has a major downside in that the main teaching method is beating small children with sticks and killing those who try to run away. He eventually escapes and begins fighting against the clan.

We learn all this through a series of flashbacks set over the events of the modern day, where a plucky government forensic researcher tries to prove the existence of ninja clans to her boss and things start going downhill from there.

Lots of bad dialogue and action take place, the action primarily consisting of black-suited men in dark rooms hacking at what look like exploding blood packs on each other's bodies: messy, hard to follow, and save a couple of scenes not very coherent. The opening scene almost made me shut the movie off, as I don't mind purposeful gore when it's relevant, but I really don't need to see prolonged shots of a guy's head chopped off above the mouth.

Long story short, my friend and I are glad we only paid the rental fee. Don't bother with this one unless you're a Rain fan (he's certainly easy on the eyes, and his dancing background makes his ninja poise believable) or are looking for some mindless action fluff to pass the time with.