NINJA ASSASSIN.

For any of you who know me well enough, or any of you who just listen to the LAMBcast, you'll know I've been relatively excited about Ninja Assassin. Therefore, it's no surprise that I went and saw the first showing available this morning. Was it what I expected? Yes and No. The movie is about Raizo (Rain), a former ninja who decided to leave his clan and fight the ninja themselves (like an assassin of ninja... hence the non-redundant title, Ninja Assassin). We also have two Europol agents, Ryan (Ben Miles) and Mika (Naomie Harris), who stumble upon a scandal involving political assassinations that seem to have been committed by a ninja clan. Of course, everybody thinks they're crazy, at least until Mika starts being hunted down for knowing too much. But Raizo steps in to protect her, and they have to work together to stay alive while trying to bring down the clan.

The first thing that I noticed about this movie that I didn't expect was the amount of blood and gore. Good God, there's a lot of it. From the start, when a guy's head gets sliced (horizontally) in half and fake CGI blood splatters everywhere, you know you're in for something. I actually wasn't bothered by the amount of blood in the movie as much as I was bothered by the amount of CGI blood in the movie. It's in Tarantino amounts here, but instead of gushing from hoses strapped into fake stumps or whatever, it's just gushes and gushes of technically nothing. It isn't anything that bothered me enough to dislike the movie, however. And it isn't all CGI... in fact, when you get real fake blood instead of fake fake blood, it's all the more welcome.

The second thing I noticed was that the acting wasn't nearly as bad as I had read in early reviews. Sure, it's nowhere close to Oscar-worthy, but it's also nowhere close to, say, The Legend of Chun-Li from earlier this year. And I bring up this particular movie because the Naomie Harris/Ben Miles scenes reminded me a lot of the Chris Klein/Moon Bloodgood scenes from said movie. Fortunately, though, they weren't nearly as poorly written nor as horribly acted. And I have to say, Naomie Harris is a freakin' chameleon. Raise your hand if you've actually realized that this is the same woman who was Selena in 28 Days Later... and Tia Dalma (AKA the weird Bayou woman) from the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels. And then we have Rain, who I've had my eye on since his brilliant (and award-winning) performance in I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK. Also, for those of you who don't know, he's also a South Korean pop star (which is what makes a certain "boy band" joke in the movie funny, but which will be lost to the majority of the film's American audience).

The third thing I noticed was that the action was really freakin' cool (not to mention it's all actual stunt men and little-to-no wire work, which I think adds to the cool-factor)... but it's not the whole movie. In fact, the first half of the movie is backstory interspersed with action scenes. It flips back and forth between three main occurrences: 1) Raizo's childhood being raised as a ninja, 2) Mika and Ryan trying to figure out the ninja conspiracy while not being killed, and 3) action scenes. It's mostly when Raizo's story and Mika's story converge that the action really picks up. Everything up until that point is really good, but everything after that point is awesome (and almost non-stop). In fact, had there not been any action throughout the whole movie except for the climax scene up through the final fight between Raizo and his old master, I would have just dubbed it a slow burn film and been content. Because seriously, that final fight is epic in both the choreography and in the filming style (anything from filming through a burning wall to just the silhouettes behind a lit sliding door... and more). OK, maybe not wholly content (it is a violent ninja movie, after all), but it was still an awesome climax nevertheless.

Story-wise, one thing I wanted to point out was that it could have used a bit more building up of the relationship between Raizo and his "rival" (the guy who always calls him "brother"). I suppose you see them competing against each other growing up, and he's involved in a very important moment in Raizo's life, but outside that, there wasn't really anything that made their bond strong. Because of this, their big fight scene near the end had less of an impact... or at least not as big as the one between Raizo and his old master.

Anyway, on the one hand, I expected it to be a cheesy action movie about ninjas. But what I got was an awesome action movie (with some strong horror elements, especially toward the end) about ninjas with a couple cheesy moments tossed in here and there. So I guess it met my expectations and then some. I was thoroughly entertained, albeit a bit thrown off at first by all the backstory in the first half of the film. I guess I wasn't expecting, what's the word... character depth (:P)? But it's there. And the movie is great fun.



A Keanu 'Whoa'

LKMYNTS: I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK.

So I’ve wanted to see this movie for a very long time, and I finally got around to doing so. Though this movie is incredibly hard to come by (even outside the US), so finding a way to watch it was that much more difficult. But it was written and directed by Chan-wook Park, the same guy who did one of my favorite movies, Oldboy. However, it couldn’t be any more different (including the fact that Oldboy was an action/drama, and this is a comedy… for the most part, anyway).

I could attempt to give you a plot summary here, like I usually would, but that’s incredibly difficult for one major reason: there’s really no plot. The best I can describe it is thus: Young-goon (Su-jeong Lim) is a young woman who loses touch with reality after her schizophrenic grandmother is taken away (basically leaving her in the care of her overprotective mother). Young-goon, highly affected by her grandmother's fate, also seems to gain schizophrenia and suddenly believes she’s a cyborg, and she makes a promise to her mother not to tell anybody about it (so they couldn’t keep her locked up). Well, they put her in an insane asylum wherein she talks to electronics and meets a young man by the name of Il-soon (Rain), who is a thief that wears different masks in order to take people’s souls (and, in essence, their mental disabilities). But when Young-goon refuses to eat any food in fear of breaking down, Il-soon takes it upon himself to try and get her to eat before she starves to death.

But with a movie that is just shy of two hours long, that miniscule plot really doesn’t stretch itself over the whole time frame. No, what the movie really banks on is its cast of characters. The whole movie is more of a character study than a plot-driven tale. All of the other asylum inmates each have their own mental issues (obviously), most of which get their own moments to shine. And it’s really the attention to detail that this movie really pulls through. The camera can be just steadily going down a hallway or through a courtyard, and in the background you see each character doing their own thing and staying perfectly in character, even if they’re not even remotely close to being the focus of the scene.

But of course the two main characters are those of Young-goon and Il-soon, who form the almost heartbreaking romance (heartbreaking because of the circumstances) of the film. To me, Rain stole the show as Il-soon. Whether he was hopping around like a rabbit (and digging out his wedgies immediately after), stealing other people’s ‘souls’ and taking over their character traits, fidgeting with his masks, or earnestly trying to help Young-goon stay alive, he was really the most interesting character of the entire movie. And what I really loved about both the characters is that there were a lot of hints as to what happened to both of them in their pasts to bring them to this point, but it’s never just spelled out for you. And there’s always that hint of sadness linked in with the comedy. And that’s really the genius of Chan-wook Park, because if you’ve seen Oldboy, you know that his movies are very psychological and never only one layer deep.

Though this really brings me to one of my only issues with the movie: sometimes it tried a bit too hard to give another metaphor (because truly, the movie was nothing but metaphors and symbolisms). You know that everything is fake and all the fantasy elements are just happening in their heads, but there were moments I felt didn’t need to be in the movie and could have been trimmed down a bit. They were few and far between, but they were there. Because a movie with so little plot—as well as the fact that the first half of the film and the second half of the film don’t really match up in what’s been focused on (the other patients all but disappear in the last third of the movie)—doesn’t need to be almost two hours long. Other than that, the movie was golden.

At first I also really disliked the ending. It ends, and I’m staring at the screen like “what the hell?” But after a couple minutes to digest it and think about it, the more brilliant it became to me (and this was before I read about a part I actually didn’t catch, which just adds to its brilliance). It’s a lot like Oldboy’s epilogue, to me. I didn’t much care for that at first, either. But both endings are very open-ended, leaving you up to so many different interpretations. And I really don’t want to spoil anything (so if you’ve seen the movie, leave a comment so we can discuss it).

I also wanted to talk about the visuals and cinematography of the film, which were just beautiful. There’s a lot of use of color pallets all around. The movie is just very bright and colorful and really gorgeous to watch. The only iffy visuals were the CGI moments during the cyborg fantasy with the guns. Otherwise, it looked really good. And the camera work was great, as well. There were a lot of interesting shots with mirrors, and there were some good long-shots down hallways and such (nothing as epic as the side-scrolling battle in Oldboy, though).

Really, my last notes about this film are that you can’t go into it expecting your brain to function properly. Most people who have disliked the movie have straight-up said they disliked it because it didn’t make any sense. Well, after the brilliant opening 10 minutes (confusing at first, brilliant in hindsight) that basically foreshadow the fact that nothing can be taken logically or at face value, you should know what you’re getting yourself into. It’s a movie about crazy people, and you’re going to be submersed into their world fully. The best I can describe it is that it’s like at the end of that Robin Williams movie, What Dreams May Come: the guy says not to stay in the house too long or he’ll start to lose his mind and go crazy, too. Well, the longer you stay with the movie, the crazier you have to think in order to keep up with the utter randomness and chaos of the film. But in the end, the movie is really beautiful and touching… if you can understand it.

A Keanu 'Whoa'