Ninja Assassin (2009)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2009
	Director: James McTeigue (V for Vendetta)
	Actors: Rain, Rick Yune, Naomie Harris (Skyfall)
	Country: USA, D
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 01.02.2018, VOD, 40" TV screen
Synopsis: A stubborn Europol agent (Harris) is convinced of the existence of an ancient secret society of assassins.
Review: "Which of these doesn't belong: laptops, space shuttles, nanotechnology, ninjas?" asks her boss to the character of Naomie Harris dead-set on explaining unsolved assassination by the existence of the aforementioned Asian warriors. And that's the whole spirit of the movie! I find it to be the best 80's Action film released in the 2000's. A bit in the spirit of Transformers or G.I.Joe: The Rise of Cobra but without the Hasbro or Michael Bay humor. Instead, orphans that have become skilled assassins after years of harsh training (seen via over-abundant flashbacks) in body control and martial Arts. The training part is a mandatory exercise in any Martial Arts movie, like in The 36th Chamber of Shaolin to quote only one. The smooth incorporation of those - let's say the word - ninjas in modern times reminds of how natural the sword fights felt in Kill Bill. I love the ever-so-slight supra-natural touch in the movie, and how the ninjas blend into shadows. This fighting style is embodied by the main character played excellently by the rather unknown actor Rain seen in Park Chan-wook's I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK and heard in Speed Racer. He is just perfect in this role, accompanied by the no-less-perfect Shô Kosugi (could have been Taheshi Kitano but Kosugi has apparently a long history in the ninja movie sub-genre, I should see some more) and Naomie Harris that provides a fresh and disbelieving external eye to this whole tradition. The shock of cultures culminates with the extraordinary awesome (spoiler, highlight to read) attack of the temple by marines in SUVs and helicopters, and the final battle among fire. Those scenes are pure pleasure for fans of such movies, and reminded me of the generous extravaganza displayed in that other UFO Dragon Wars. Probably not for everybody, but for me an a pure pleasure.
Rating: 7 /10