Hollywood has had an exceedingly hard time making a good ninja movie. Most of them wind up in the bin collecting dust at your local Target or Walmart. Ninja Assassin is a legitimate attempt to make a ninja movie for a mass audience with a decent budget and a fair amount of craft and skill. It delivers exactly what is promised by a movie titled Ninja Assassin, no more and no less. The amount of gore in the movie often feels unnecessary and once you see the 100th guy chopped into pieces, the gore loses most of its impact.

Ninja Assassin has a simple but often convoluted plot that is basically a revenge flick. Raizo (bland and charisma-free Korean pop star Rain) is one of the deadliest assassins in the world. He’s taken from the streets as a child by an evil clan (is there any other kind) and taught to be a killer by the Ozunu Clan, a secret society thought to be a myth. Raizo breaks free from the clan after witnessing their more brutal methods (torturing kids and women has that effect on the guy I guess) and plots his revenge. His old clan master sends the Clan after him while a Europol agent named Mika (an effective Naomie Harris) is investigating the existence of the Clan and finds an unlikely ally in Raizo. The movie is packed with wall to wall action and cg blood spurting out of every orifice known to man. A few of the fights are too dark and CGI-intensive, but for the most part the action is effective and often rousing. The story gets tangled up in a few unnecessary plot threads, but retains interest overall. Finally, the acting isn’t awful, but Rain is more of a physical presence than an acting one. He looks terrific onscreen and is convincing doing his ninja action scenes, but he remains kind of bland and unable to emote during the more dramatic scenes. He’s not helped by lame dialogue either.

The widescreen transfer looks terrific and the stereo surround sound is on point, but the DVD only has only some deleted scenes as the sole extra. As per the norm now, the blu-ray disc has many more features and that is the version fans should pick up. Ninja Assassin is a sick, fun ride. A no-brainer guilty pleasure for action fans who like blood everywhere and a story that takes a backseat to the action. Ninja Assassin ranks as a mild recommendation and is occasionally a bloody good time.

Grade: B-

• Tweet