'Ninja' isn't a film to watch if you want ground-breaking, thought provoking cinema. However, if you're in the mood for a fast-paced action movie that features martial arts experts kicking the living daylights out of one another, look no further. It's very silly, very violent and at times comes across like a live-action version of a bloodthirsty anime, but it makes for an entertaining evening in front of the telly.
Originally released in 2009, it had the misfortune to come along around the same time as 'Ninja Assassin,' a similarly themed movie with a much bigger publicity budget. This may well have led people to dismiss 'Ninja' as a direct to video knock-off, but it's actually much better than that. This isn't a top level production by any means, but it is way more competent than the atrociously cheap movies that get churned out by Asylum Studios or the Sci-Fi channel. 'Ninja Assassin' is the superior film, but 'Ninja' is easy to recommend and well worth a watch.
The film focuses on Casey Bowman (played by the King of DTV action, Scott Adkins), a westerner raised in a Japanese Dojo. While on a trip to New York, Casey finds himself targeted by an evil secret society and a former rival turned Rogue Ninja. Soon he's fighting his way across the city, taking on gun-toting goons in order to safeguard a chest full of priceless heritage items. And it moves so quickly, there's no time to take a breath and notice how little sense the storyline makes. The secret society are trying to do something with the oil industry and the stock market, but it's not clear if they're a religious order, a cabal of financially motivated evil businessmen or just a band of heavily armed thugs with a taste for the theatrical. The script is hammy, the lead character gets surprisingly few lines and there's more than a faint whiff of cheese about the whole thing.
However, none of that really matters. The focus here is on the fight scenes and 'Ninja' delivers the goods. This is a movie where cars flip over and explode for no reason, limbs get severed and blood fountains from sword wounds in high arcs. Adkins is so adept at leaping into the air and kicking people in the head that the laws of gravity don't seem to apply and his climactic battle in the backstreets of New York is an adrenaline pumping finale.
So yes, it's daft popcorn munching fun. This is a B-movie flick that sets out to deliver an entertaining series of action set-pieces held together with a flimsy plot and it succeeds admirably. The few stabs at deeper mysticism are no more than the fast food equivalent of Eastern Philosophy, but if you want to see a man thrown out the window of a moving train and into the path of another train, 'Ninja' is your film.
