Ninja Assassins

This is a modern day ninja movie that takes place in Berlin of all places. Aside from the unusual setting, the movie explains why after thousands of years, people who look into what ninjas are doing end up dead. The film is made by the same people that did the Matrix, and it seemed pretty clear in the effects throughout this film. In fact, I described this movie to my friend as a combination of the Matrix, Ghost, and the 1980’s television series “The Master”. (Which is also appropriate since Sho Kosugi is one of the main characters in the film and was in the 1980’s television series.) Two Interpol agents begin looking into some mysterious deaths they think are paid assassinations. All signs point to a group of assassins who are infants stolen as children and put into ninja training. The ninjas try taking out the two people investigating them and come very close, if it weren’t for the meddling of one of their former students who is trying to help one of the Interpol agents. They never really say why he’s helping her, other than she has a “special heart”, which is absolutely asinine. But whatever. The film is action packed with lots of explosions, TONS of ninja stars, swords, and scorpion whips. There are some really awesome blood spurting scenes and most of the special effects are top-notch, especially the parts where limbs and whole bodies are being chopped in half. There were a couple of spots I (quietly) yelled bullshit in – the fact that the Interpol operatives managed to get a crap ton of Humvees up on a remote mountain ninja training camp without being heard even though there are no roads – this was where my friend TheDoctor yelled “AMURKA!!!” in the theater – it was classic. There were a couple of other ones aside from that, but that was the funniest one. I’m not a huge fan of modern day martial arts movies – I’m more of an old school guy, but I make exceptions. This film is good, but not great. I’m glad I saw it, but I really thought it would be better than it was. One thing this movie will do is make martial arts movies more accessible to the masses of people that loved the Matrix. So I guess it’s a good thing, after all. And yeah, I’ll probably add it to my vast collection of martial arts DVDs when it comes out.