SPOILERS SNEAKING UP ON YOU BELOW
NINJA ASSASSIN is the story of Rizo, a ninja exiled from his clan and seeking revenge. A Europol (I guess it's the budget version of Interpol) researcher named Mika thinks that ninjas are behind some of the recent political assassinations, but can't get anyone to believe her. Eventually, Rizo's former clan comes after Mika, and he must save her. The two team up to take down the clan.
The film, directed by James McTeigue, looks great. Ninjas come out of the shadows, there are several really cool shots, including a fight scene played out in shadows on a paper screen, and the action scenes are well-covered so you can actually tell what's going on.
What the story, from uber-writer J. Michael Straczynski and Matthew Sand is missing is good motivations for Rizo or Mika. Mika is a forensic researcher who thinks ninjas killed a former KBG agent, and she doggedly pursues it because... Well, we don't really know why. The script missed a great opportunity to personally stake her in the action. Perhaps ninjas killed her former partner or her boss. And nobody believes her ninja theory -- she's as seemingly crazy as Gary Busey in POINT BREAK. Similarly, the film stumbles over Rizo's motivation. He's in love with a female ninja trainee who tries to escape the clan; the clan kills her. Later on, after Rizo's first mission, he's asked to kill another female escapee. So he turns on his clan and flees. That's a very mediocre motivation.
What would have been better is if the film played up the rivalry between Rizo and his "brother" ninja. They both love the female ninja trainee. But she chooses Rizo. Rizo and his brother then fight over her; she's afraid Rizo will be killed. Brother is much stronger and faster; perhaps he's older. So she flees in order to spare him. Unfortunately, she's caught. And brother kills her out of spite. This would work better than the current version in the film, where brother kills her just to annoy Rizo. In the better version, after his love's death, Rizo flees the clan. Years later, when he and brother meet up again, they have real history between them -- they both loved the same woman.
There are also a number of smaller issues with the script, mostly logical ones. Ninjas are obviously highly secretive, managing to stay undercover for thousands of years. Yet there's a scene in the film where dozens of ninjas run down a major Berlin street, chasing both Mika's car and Rizo. In fact, Mika's car is studded with hundreds of throwing stars. That's not exactly low-profile.
The film also features a climactic showdown between Rizo and his adopted father, the ninja clan leader. Clan leader has a deadly ability -- he can basically teleport around, appearing and disappearing at will. An ability he uses to kick Rizo's ass. Until Rizo suddenly -- and out of nowhere -- learns how to do this and uses the trick to kill clan leader. An unearned and unsatisfying turn of events. Instead, the film should have gone back to something it set up earlier; clan leader forces Rizo to be without one of his senses for an entire year, starting with his sense of sight. Rizo learns to fight by sensing his opponent rather than seeing him. In the climactic battle, with his clan leader appearing and disappearing on him, Rizo should use that memory/lesson to wait and listen for the leader reapparing. If Rizo killed clan leader in that fashion, it would have been a great callback and a cool moment that paid off his years of training.
No comments:
Post a Comment