If you were unfortunate enough to have paid to see the Speed Racer movie, you might have noticed a character in the film called Taejo Togokahn, played by singer Jeong Ji-hoon or Rain. His fight scenes were quite impressive, and caught the attention of the Wachowski brothers and Joel Silver. Which has led to Ninja Assassin.
The movie trailer is interesting. Though a bit retro-80’s to an extent, it is an action martial arts film. It has everything you would expect – a bit of traditional homage, modern day settings, lots of fights, explosions, and more than a few guns I bet. This is a movie that is presenting itself as a face paced kick-ass fest.
Now I compare Rain to Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. He is neither of the 2, and I think we will have a long way to go to see another of either. But he does his action scenes himself, and they work. So I think we can expect to see more of him in the future.
As for the rest of the cast, well there isn’t much to say yet. Honestly I expect very little from them as that is all that is needed. There is a female lead, Naomie Harris, who has the job of just moving the story forward to the next fight. There is the old master, Sho Kosugi (great to see him in a film again), giving us a context for the overall battle. And there is Rick Yune who must chase down Rain. (As a side note, Jet Li and Collin Chou were both originally expected to play roles in the film, but it didn’t work out.)
The settings look decent as does the camera work. The special effects are obviously where the bulk of the money was spent on this film and they seem to have been worth what was paid for. The sound is a question that we won’t know until the film comes out, but I expect it to be at least average.
This is not a hard film to figure out. It is formulatic, at least from what the trailer and synopsis presents. It is likely filled with a few plot holes the size of a black hole. And the acting will almost assuredly not win an Oscar or Golden Globe. Seriously, there is nothing more you can expect from a script that was made in 53 hours.
But none of that is important. If the job is done right this will be a popcorn munching brawl that will distract the viewer from the world for 90 minutes. And from the movie trailers that I have seen, it looks like they came to shoot that target loaded for bear.
This will be out in November. Which upsets me as this is something I would want to see now rather than wait for. And considering the lackluster, boring, overly gimmicked movies we have this summer Ninja Assassin would likely do huge business now. Still November is not that long to go, and it will give us time to see a few more trailers before it comes out.
Ninja Assassin does not look like it will be a martial arts movie classic, but it does look like it will be a solid action movie that will be worth the cost of going to a theater for the experience.
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