TheDenizen reviews Ninja Assassin

Well, holy crap.

I just got home from Ninja Assassin, and as I sit down to write this review I am consciously trying to keep the hyperbole in check...but fuck that noise, son, Ninja Assassin ROCKED and is quite possibly the best ninja movie ever. I've watched a lot of ninja flicks over the past couple of weeks in anticpiation of this one, so let's run down the standard checklist:

Ninja that melt effortlessly into the shadows? Check.

Insane ninja vs ninja battles? Check.

A modern day police force bleating on about "Ninjas in this day and age? Preposterous!" Check.

Multiple shuriken flurries? Check.

Brutal training sequences? Check.

Cheesy, over the top killings? CHECK.

If you don't like graphic beheadings and flying limbs and splashy buckets of bright red blood, stay far away from Ninja Assassin. Yes, the story is kinda trite, some of the dialog stinks and the acting is nothing special...but it's a goddamn ninja movie, not Shakespeare. A ninja movie only needs enough story to hang its fight scenes on, and Ninja Assassin succeeds at this in spades.

The fight scenes themselves are wonderful. Vicious, frantic, and gory as hell. I've read several reviews complaining of choppy choreography, rapid-fire editing and poor lighting during the action scenes. Those reviewers are retards. Listen: the days of classically trained martial arts actors performing long, uninterrupted takes of fighting are pretty much gone. Tony Jaa, Donnie Yen and a handful of indy film guys are all that's left of that tradition. The rapid cutting is here to stay, but Ninja Assassin does it very well. The movements are well choreographed and the action is relatively easy to follow. If you want to see examples of poorly edited fights where you can't tell what the fuck is going on, rent Batman Begins or the latest Bourne atrocity.

The fights in Ninja Assassin are very busy visually, with lots (and lots) of CGI blood and weapons and fire filling every frame, but you can always tell who is who and where they are in relation to each other. The actions performed before and after each edit actually match up to form a coherent looking move (Batman Begins utterly failed at this). Korean pop idol Rain trained like a mofo for the action scenes in this flick and it shows...he is ripped and totally believable as an action star. And yes, some of the fight scenes are shot in darkened rooms, but it's just to show off how badass the ninja look slipping in and out of shadows. It's pretty badass.

In short, peoples critiques of this movie are stupid. It's an incredibly over the top dopey ninja film with extreme violence and gore. It rules. Go see it.