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I imagine that if you’re considering renting a movie simply titled Ninja, you’re probably not looking for anything sweeping in scope or meaning. As the title would suggest, it’s a movie about ninjas, good and bad, and the various forms of skullduggery and ass-kicking that they get up to.
Ninjas are just inherently cool to most action fans—and mildly ridiculous to everybody else. If you went to see G. I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra last year and found yourself wishing they had just made a movie about the rival ninjas in that cheese-fest (which I freely admit I kinda dug), then Ninja is definitely worth a rental or a Saturday afternoon cable viewing.
A token amount of plot: after having been orphaned at a young age, American Casey (Scott Adkins) has been raised in a school for ninjas in Japan. Over time, he’s become the aging head instructor’s favorite student, earning both the resentment of his chief rival, Masazuka (Tsuyoshi Ihara), and the affection of the instructor’s daughter, Namiko (Mika Hijii). A practice duel gone wrong results in Masazuka’s banishment from the school and Casey’s elevation to the instructor’s chosen successor, which will grant him possession of the Yoroi Bitsu—ancient armor and weaponry used by the school’s founder.
Of course, Masazuka’s not at all cool with that idea, and, in between carrying out assassinations for a corrupt American businessman who runs a weird ninja cult/gang out of New York, he begins stalking Namiko and Casey to recover the Yoroi Bitsu. Cue the fighting—lots and lots of fighting.
As is usually the case with these low-budget action fests, there’s little to be had in terms of character or thematic development. Casey and Namiko spend most of the film on the run, while Masazuka shows off his impressive high-tech ninja suit, complete with night vision goggles, semiautomatic pistols, and retractable katana. Since ninjas are historically the worst kind of cheaters, it makes sense to me to upgrade the gear this way—and, you know, it looks pretty cool, too.
The action is pretty well choreographed, and Adkins definitely shows a flair for the stunt work he’s given. Unfortunately, the camera work is fairly weak, and many of the fights are punctuated by awkward angles, unnecessary sweeps, and other visual tics that detract from the stunt work. The best fight occurs about two-thirds through the film, as Masazuka and Casey duke it out on a police station rooftop. It’s a little disappointing that the film’s climax, featuring Casey in the ancient armor versus Masuke in his high-tech ninja suit, doesn’t quite live up to that preview.
Then there’s the whole subplot involving the American businessman, which never really goes anywhere and provides the movie’s most laugh-out-loud stupid moments. Between cult ceremonies and gang enforcers who wear matching leather jackets and red suspenders (how’s that for gang colors?), every time this subplot weaves into the main plot, everything lurches into low-budget camp.
It’s not that I didn’t enjoy Ninja—or that it’s even a bad movie. It’s less polished than last year’s Wachowski Brothers-produced Ninja Assassin, but it’s a solid effort, done on a fraction of that movie’s budget. There are some cool fights, a couple of neat costumes, and about an hour and a half worth of entertaining diversion to be found here. And, oh, yeah…it’s about ninjas.
