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1:01 a.m. - Monday, Nov. 30, 2009
Ninja Assassin Review 8/10
Man is it great to be over 18.

For all of you who remember, I said I was going to watch Ninja Assassin and do a review.....didn't I? Shoot, I don't even remember! Oh well. Anyway, I just went to see Ninja Assassin, starring you-know-who.....

you don't? RAIN OF COURSE!!! For all who don't know who Rain is, he is one of the hottest singers/musicians/entertainers in Korea. A lot of Koreans are HOT I'll have you know. Apparently that's not all Rain is good at. Those dance moves come in handy when in combat. And apparently, Rain CAN be a mass murderer. But good thing he's still on the good side and good-looking side! hehe!

So With this review I'm going to point out things about the story, cast&characters, special effects or graphics, and the future of this movie.

Story- Overall, it's pretty obvious what I thought of this movie. I EXTREMELY liked it. But I've got other opinions, which I won't keep from here. Some people said that the story was bad. But that was coming from girl's point of view....the same one that said Twilight was good....obviously, this is not a "chick flick" which I hate most chick flicks. I love action/adventure flicks.....Yeah, but the story was brief. I've even heard people say this isn't the best movie they've seen. But it was the best ninja movie I've seen. It beats Naruto by 1010 points! This was a real ninja movie. Basically, when the main character, Raizo, (played by Rain) was an orphan child, he was taken to a temple that trained ninja assassins. There are several ninja clans, but this clan was called Ozunu, where Lord Ozunu is leader. The training was intense. It was abusive, really. Throughout the movie as he slays other ninjas, more of the story is revealed. While at this temple, he meets a girl (of course, right? ok...here's the best part...)who is obviously not as aggressive as the other ninja assassins. She helps him heal his wounds and teaches him to listen to the sound of a beating heart, which he takes into his fighting style. Eventually, the girl is punished for not cutting (shank I call it lol) a man when she won a practice round. She was caged with no water, and nearly died. Afterward, she decides to run away. But she is caught. The punishment is to have her heart sliced out of her. And who gets the honor of doing so? Raizo's rival, Takeshi. Takeshi is ruthless and doesn't care about feelings. He's also older. But there is always ONE in the bunch who doesn't follow by the rules. So when Takeshi slays Raizo's girl, Raizo is so angry, that serious animosity grows on him more and more. Eventually, Raizo is so good at what he does, that he almost gets a serious honor, but when asked to slice a female's heart out, he, instead slices Lord Ozunu's face. Lord Ozunu is angry at the treason, and orders his men to kill him. But Raizo kills most of the ninjas on the roof, though he is knocked off the building and falls in a pool of water. After that, the whole Ozunu clan was after Raizo. But he had the upper hand every time. He had become so skilled in killing, that he was able to kill even the most skilled ninjas. Throughout the story he trained himself and prepared himself for the battles, which were intense.
Aside from him, the focus of the story also focused on Mika, a Europol agent who is researching recent deaths, which she has uncovered to be the result of ninja assassins. She did research on mysterious deaths, and got so involved that her life was in danger. It wasn't until she received an envelope full of sand (which means you are about to be killed by the Ozunu clan). But Raizo ends up saving her, which seemed to be the result of his weakness towards women because of his past. Well, it turns out this girl isn't completely helpless (like some girls cough*Bella from Twilight*cough). She gets him out of tied up situations often...in fact, it seemed like she was always untying him. And then after he is let lose....well, Hell begins....

Okay, I'm going to tell you right now that the story is not for intellectuals. It's not a super complicated and involved story. In fact, it's just blood and gore and action. By hey, you will never be bored, right? Every scene has it. Mostly, this movie is educating you on the ways of a ninja assassin, their intense training, and a lot of the sacrifices many ninjas have made. Great movie to me. I don't want to hear about "oh, my boyfriend left me and I'm sprung" or "oh I'm trapped in Trumpalump Land and I need to slay these dragons to free my soul...." Your typical movie now-a-days. But this one isn't so typical, especially for a ninja movie.

Cast and Characters-Actually, the acting was pretty good. I have to admit it to myself that the acting was pretty good. Raizo sounded pretty good to be someone from Korea. I enjoyed the characters overall. Interesting...Mostly, I was fascinated with Mika's interest in Raizo...But the other characters were okay. There weren't many main plot characters. Most of the people were murdered. And we didn't care to know their names anyway. Basically, there were six characters of focus, Very small cast. But good choices. The characters did lack in depth. All except for Raizo, which is all anyone cared about anyway...

Special Effects and Graphics- It was ver graphic I'll tell you that, but not too much for me to handle. At first, I was taken aback a little because I didn't expect it to jump into action so fast with all the gore...and they show everything, even scalped heads at times...so it was thrilling. There was also one point in the story where the weapon knife-chuck (derived from nunchucks, except with knives on the end) flung out toward the audience. It seemed like it should've been in 3-D but with the low budget, they had to release it in normal select theaters...The special effects were okay. Blood looked like blood, heads that cameoff really looked decapitated...reminds me of Twilight Zone (no relation to Twilight, Twilight lacks the same majesty...). So anyway it was pretty set up well. Though I have to admit the scenery was pretty boring and uninteresting. The scenes didn't have a lot of detail in the background. The set was a bit boring uncreative. They could've done better with that.

Future of this movie- This is my solid opinion. As much as I like it, I know the critics bashed it heavily, and there are also people who have called it a bad movie. But for some reasons, I think it's because deep down a lot of Americans look down on Asians and pin stereotypes on them. People just don't like fighting movies like they used to. Many people think they're cheesy. Others think the movies feed into stereotypes. I mean, why do all movies with Asians have to be a fighting movie in America? Though we have a rising fascination with their culture, a lot of Americans equate Asians with having horridly loud voices with heavy accents. With that being said, I don't think there will be a sequel. But hey, it doesn't mean I'M not going to watch it again.


~Over and Out~

 

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