Although I know that Rain is a K-Pop artist, I’ve always known him better as an actor. Some of my earliest K-Dramas were The Fugitive: Plan B, whose ending pissed me off, and Full House, which seemingly went on forever. Another project of his that sticks with me is Ninja Assassin. I saw a heavily edited version of this movie on a cable network channel many moons ago. I’m not as crazy about ninja stuff as I am about samurai stuff—Naruto notwithstanding—but I loved it.
I had forgotten all about Ninja Assassin until someone mentioned it in passing on social media. I wanted to see it in its full, gory glory. Luckily the library had a copy available for request. I watched it twice in one night, once by myself and once with my parents. If you’re in the mood for fighting, blood, and guts, it’s the perfect feature.
Here’s the summary from the DVD case:
Korean pop star Rain (Speed Racer) stars as heroic, deadly Raizo. Trained from childhood in the way of the Ozunu Clan ninja, he is stalked by fellow warriors for breaking free of them and their iron-willed dojo patriarch (martial arts legend Sho Kosugi)…and is on the run with a Europol agent (Naomie Harris) who has proof the clan sells assassination services to governments.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
The Introduction
The movie begins in a yakuza hangout. An obnoxious guy (Sung Kang) who is the leader of the gang is being tattooed in the traditional tapping manner by an older gentleman (Randall Duk Kim) and giving him a hard time because he can’t take the pain.
Suddenly, a flunkie (Mina Ghousi) runs in with a letter addressed to the leader. When the flunkie opens the envelope on the leader’s orders, black sand pours out. The tattoo artist freaks out at the sight. He says that the sand is a sign that they are coming and he tells them about how he once witnessed an attack. To back up his story, he shows them the scar on his chest where they stabbed him. He only survived because his heart is on the wrong side thanks to a rare birth defect.
They, by the way, are ninja.
Honestly, I’m a little afraid to even write that word.
Everyone laughs at the tattoo artist, not believing his story for a second. It’s not funny anymore, however, when the lights go out and the shuriken start flying. The unseen attacker takes out the whole gang in mere minutes. The tattoo artist is the last man standing. Knowing that he’s a loose end twice over, he accepts his death gracefully.
I have three questions about this scene. First, what is its significance? Mostly, it sets the tone in terms of the excessive violence and foul language involved here. This is definitely an adult, R-rated movie. It also functions as a way to explain the movie’s ninja mythos. Even the tattoo artist’s backstory contains tidbits that will come in handy down the line.
Second question: why did the ninja kill this yakuza gang? As it turns out, the ninja are hired assassins. That means the leader likely pissed someone off enough for them to order the hit. The fact that he’s just getting his first tattoo suggests that he’s new to his position. Between his inexperience and his nasty attitude, it’s not hard to think up a million ways that he could have overstepped himself. Then there’s the moment when the tattoo artist says to him, “If there is a conflict between the needle and the skin…then perhaps the path you’ve chosen is not the path for which you’re suited.” He was clearly bad at his job.
Last question: is Raizo, the movie’s protagonist, the ninja who carries out the hit? I don’t think so. Not to jump ahead of things, but Raizo’s not a true ninja anymore. He wouldn’t have a reason to kill that gang when he’s on the run from the ninja himself. It was probably his rival Takeshi (more on him later).
The Investigation Begins
Next, we move to the Europol Headquarters in Berlin where we meet the forensic researcher Mika Coretti (Naomie Harris) and her field agent coworker Ryan Maslow (Ben Miles).
Mika firmly believes that ninja exist, even though everyone thinks she’s nuts. She knows they’re responsible for tons of crimes—including the “yakuza massacre”—because of the historical events, bank accounts, and trial records she’s examined. She wants to stop them. Maslow is skeptical at first, but the more she talks, the more he begins to see her points.
When they continue the conversation at lunch, Maslow announces that he’s done some research of his own and has leads for them to follow. Still, he’s reluctant to dig deeper into this because pretty much everyone who has ever attempted to go down this road has ended up dead or fired. He jokes that the only reason he’s in is because Mika is so beautiful.
Maslow’s comment instantly makes things weird. It sounds like something he’s said many times before, like he’s been not-so-subtly expressing his interest in Mika for a long time. For her part, Mika doesn’t return his romantic feelings. He’s just her friend. She seems flustered by the compliment, like she’s trying to figure out how to accept it without further encouraging his attention. Good luck with that, girl!
Enter Raizo
Elsewhere in Berlin, we meet the ninja Raizo (Rain). He’s looking for clues about his former clan. He’s washing his clothes at a public laundromat when a young Asian woman (Linh-Dan Pham) asks him to help her fold a sheet. As he obliges her, he directly asks her which clan she’s from (there are nine). She pretends like she doesn’t know what he’s talking about before abruptly attacking him. That sheet becomes a shared weapon in their brief fight. Needless to say, the laundromat attendant (Yu Fang) finds the woman’s dismembered body parts circling around in a washer. Ew.
Back in his apartment, Raizo reminisces about his early life as he goes about checking his weapons, eating, and training. It begins with Ozunu (Sho Kosugi), the head ninja of the clan, introducing a young Raizo (Sungwoong Yoon) to the other orphans/ninja disciples he’s collected. He calls them his sons and daughters, and tells them to welcome their new brother “Raizo.”
We never find out much about who Raizo was or where he came from. All Ozunu says is that Raizo’s parents abandoned him. I’m guessing Ozunu chose him because he survived alone on the streets at such a young age (around 7-10 years old). That’s exactly the kind of grit that makes for a good future ninja, after all.
This is where the whole idea of Ozunu as his “father” starts. What else is this child supposed to think? This powerful man takes him in, gives him a new name, takes care of him, and teaches him stuff? Isn’t that what a father is and what a father does? It makes total sense to him to follow everything Ozunu says without question. He doesn’t even question the abuse that goes along with the training. Everything is normal (not!).
One of the ninja disciples takes an immediate interest in Raizo, a girl named Kiriko (Kylie Liya Page). Although I know there were female ninja (“kunoichi”), something about seeing her and the few other girls in the camp is surprising. Ozunu seems like the kind of guy who would prefer male candidates, though I suppose a female assassin—like the one in the laundromat—could be more effective in certain situations too. What’s life like for those girls? We never see the boys harass or bully them. Since Ozunu has strict rules and harsh consequences for everything, maybe there’s a specific rule about the boys getting out of pocket in that regard. Wishful thinking?
Anyway, Raizo and Kiriko become friends of a sort. After one particularly bad training session, wherein Ozunu brutally slashes the soles of Raizo’s feet for failing to keep his steps light and quiet, Kiriko secretly soothes his pain with a homemade ointment so he can sleep. I don’t know why she’s drawn to him. Maybe she senses something in him that the others lack. She comes off as one of those people who appear in your life when you need them the most, almost like a living guardian angel.
We come back to the present, with adult Raizo lying in bed. The scars from that incident are prominently displayed on the soles of his bare feet. He is also staring at an expensive men’s watch that has a cracked face. The juxtaposition of showing something healed and something broken speaks volumes.
Routine Questions
Mika goes to speak to the widow (Eleonore Weisgerber) of a Russian Intelligence agent named Sabatin (Wladimir Tarasjanz). Sabatin wrote about the ninja and paid for it with his life. Mrs. Sabatin entrusts a box full of the documents and photos her husband had gathered to Mika because no one else has ever believed her husband’s story. When Mika examines the contents at home that night, the most interesting item is a VHS tape with security footage of an unmasked Raizo fighting ninja. She is both frightened and intrigued.
The next day, a government agent by the name of Zabranski (Thorston Manderlay) comes to Mika’s office at work. He interrogates her about Maslow, though he calls it a routine checkup. When he starts asking about their relationship and talking about Maslow’s mentally taxing caseload, Mika hears the underlying threat loud and clear: they’re being watched and one wrong move could be the end of them both. But they already knew that. Mika and Maslow decide to keep investigating.
This doesn’t mean that Mika isn’t still on edge when she gets home. She turns on every light in the place, though I’m not sure if that’s to deflect a ninja attack or to detect a waiting government assassin. She settles in to read more of Sabatin’s documents.
Kiriko’s Escape
Meanwhile, Raizo continues to sort through his memories. This time, he relives events from his early teens, like the time Ozunu put a hole in his gut to teach him how to conquer his pain and the year he spent blindfolded to hone his other senses. The training is brutal and violent. Ozunu is giving teen Raizo (Lee Joon) the tools he needs to survive their profession. Even though Raizo excels under these harsh conditions, he’s still basically a kid. Ozunu is a real piece of work. He’s a piece of something else too.
The main focus of Raizo’s memories is his romance with Kiriko (Anna Sawai), though. She teaches him that, despite Ozunu’s teachings, he’s still a person. Raizo, however, realizes that Kiriko isn’t cut out to be a ninja. During a practice battle, she refuses to cut her defeated opponent, which is their custom. For her insubordination, Ozunu cuts her across her cheek—a blow to her feminine vanity that negates the idea that women are truly equal since he never once cuts Raizo’s face—and puts her in The Box, a cage where Ozunu imprisons rulebreakers without food or drink. Raizo repays her for her foot ointment by bringing her a single drop of water (the most he can risk).
The next thing you know, Raizo catches Kiriko fleeing the camp one night. Obviously, she knows she’s not cut out for this ninja life either. Raizo refuses to escape with her, even though she begs him to come. He’s either too brainwashed to leave (he “belongs” there), too scared of what will happen if they get caught (their hearts will be cut out), or afraid of change (he only knows how to be a ninja). They share a goodbye kiss and Kiriko climbs the wall to freedom.
Mika’s Rescue
Present day. Mika’s anxiety is at a fever pitch because there’s a sudden blackout. Ninja operate in the shadows, remember? That can’t be a coincidence. As she walks through her parking garage to her car—likely heading to the Europol building that still has power—Maslow suddenly jumps out and grabs her arm, scaring the crap outta her. He’s there to tell her that every major government agency is currently combing through the files in his office because of their ninja investigation. He gives her a gun and advises her to take off. Yeah, it’s serious serious.
She goes back upstairs to her apartment to pack. When she passes her desk, she notices one of the ninja’s trademark letters lying on her briefcase. That definitely wasn’t there before. Her hands are shaking as she opens the envelope and black sand pours out. Just as she turns to run, a knife comes at her face…but it stops short when another ninja uses his kusarigama (a curved blade attached to a chain) to pull it back.
There are now two ninja fighting in Mika’s house. Are they trying to decide who gets to kill her? She doesn’t know. They’re fighting so fast that she can barely follow their movements with her flashlight, let alone hit either one of them when she fires off some shots from Maslow’s gun. Eventually, one ninja prevails when he slams the blade end of the kusarigama into the top of the other guy’s head.
Surprisingly, the surviving ninja makes no threatening moves towards Mika. Instead, he tells her that she’s not safe and offers to help her. Mika agrees. The ninja then removes his mask and she immediately recognizes him as the guy from the video tape.
Raizo, of course, recognizes her because he was given her name and address by a source. He’s surprised that she recognizes him, though. Before they can explore this further, the two are forced to rush off because the other ninja, who want revenge for their fallen comrade, are arriving.
Kiriko’s Capture
Leading the ninja charge is Takeshi (Rick Yune), Ozunu’s top dog. We’ve actually seen the younger version of him (Kai Fung Rieck) several times in Raizo’s flashbacks, most notably in a scene where Raizo humiliates him in a practice battle. Takeshi hates Raizo. He’s jealous that Raizo was (and still is) Ozunu’s favorite disciple and heir. Even though Raizo’s no longer in the clan, Takeshi still feels some kind of way about being second best.
After Mika and Raizo take off, Takeshi queues up his own memories of Kiriko’s escape. He and the trainees, on Ozunu’s orders, chase Kiriko through the woods. It doesn’t take long for them to catch her. They’re highly attuned to smells and sounds, which explains why Kiriko tried to use the rain and thunder to cover her tracks. Raizo later calls them wolves.
When they bring Kiriko back to the camp, Ozunu lets Takeshi kill Kiriko as a reward for his quick work. Like the huge jerk he is, Takeshi looks Raizo dead in the face as he drives a sword into her heart. Raizo’s glare promises bloody revenge.
There’s no evidence that Takeshi has beef with or romantic feelings for Kiriko. We never see the two interact with each other until that moment. Takeshi only cares about her as a means to hurt Raizo. He might even hold a grudge against her because she chose Raizo. It’s another example of him coming in second place against his rival.
Hiding Out
While driving to wherever, Mika makes conversation with Raizo by sharing what she thinks she knows about the situation and peppering him with follow-up questions. Her biggest question is, “Why did you save me?” This triggers yet another flashback.
Raizo, now an older teen, goes on his first assassination mission. Ozunu gives him a little pep talk on the limo ride over and tells him to bring back the target’s gold watch. Raizo finds the guy (Stephen Marcus) in the hotel bathroom and stabs him in the neck. Even with blood spurting everywhere, this 300-pound guy tosses Raizo around like a rag doll. Raizo stabs him in every vital artery he can reach until he loses his knife, and then he fights with his fists. The guy gives as good as he gets. It’s almost too much for Raizo to handle. Finally, the blood loss catches up with the guy, and he begins to slow down. Raizo wins by repeatedly slamming his head into the lip of a urinal, which drives his nose into his brain.
His white uniform soaked in blood, Raizo meets Ozunu on the hotel’s rooftop. He looks haunted. He just stares at the gold watch whose face was cracked during the fight. Some of his shock is probably related to having killed someone for the first time like that or from how close he came to dying himself, but he’s mostly coming to terms with the true nature of his position. They take money to kill people, and that money goes straight into Ozunu’s pocket. That’s it. They’re not a bunch of noble Robin Hoods trying to save the world.
Did Raizo not fully understand what was expected of him, or did the wrongness of what he was doing not register until he made that kill? It’s a little of both. I think Raizo spent so much time training to be a ninja that he forgot what he was training for. On top of that, the conditions of the kill were different. I’m sure he had killed other ninja in the ring before. That’s not a big deal. That just means that he was better than the other person. It’s honorable. Walking up to some random dude and killing him because Ozunu told him to, however, isn’t honorable. It’s impersonal and cold. Did the guy even deserve his death? He doesn’t know.
Ozunu, on the other hand, is pleased as punch. He ignores Raizo’s obvious distress and praises him for completing his assignment. He allows Raizo to keep the watch as a reward, saying, “It will remind you that every moment of your life is a gift I have given you.” The fact that the “gift” is broken lines up with the dawning realization that Raizo’s whole life up until this point has been broken as well. How could he have ever seen the assassination business as normal?
Then he gives Raizo a final task: kill a female candidate who tried to escape. All Raizo sees is Kiriko. In fact, Ozunu is probably testing Raizo for that very reason. He wants to see if Raizo is really over that incident. If he can go through with this kill, then Ozunu’s brainwashing and training were truly successful.
This is the final straw for Raizo. He whips his kusarigama across Ozunu’s face, duplicating the cut that Ozunu gave Kiriko on her cheek and taking out an eye. Ozunu orders the other ninja to kill Raizo, so he ends up having to fight everybody. He’s good, but nobody outside of John Wick is that good. They overwhelm Raizo when they throw too many shuriken at him at once. He falls off the edge of the skyscraper and plunges into the water below.
That’s the end of Raizo’s time in the clan. There are no more flashbacks after this. We don’t get to see exactly what he does after that or how he survives such a crazy fall. Even given his overall health, relatively young age, and his healing ability, he would have been very messed up. All we know for sure is that he spent his time after that fighting his fellow ninja.
In the present, Raizo answers Mika’s question. He says that he saved her because she can help him get to Ozunu. That’s true. He can use the ninja who come after her to find his former boss. Moreover, Mika wants to end the Nine Clans just as much as he does and she has a lot of knowledge on the subject, meaning their interests are aligned.
But the real reason he feels compelled to save Mika is because he failed to save Kiriko. Mika is no more suited to this world than Kiriko was.
Busted!
Mika and Raizo finally stop at a cheap motel somewhere. Raizo tells her to take a shower without soap to make it harder for the ninja to track her scent. They also have to throw out her clothes and other belongings that have her scent on them.
They have a funny exchange when Mika complains that the new jeans Raizo bought her are too small. When he first went to buy the clothes, Mika got upset because the size he quoted her was a size bigger than she said she wore. She acted like Raizo was calling her fat instead of simply stating a fact. Now that she insists that German sizes run smaller, he gets his “I-told-you-so” moment. It’s awkward yet oddly intimate, almost like they’re a bickering old couple. And who would have expected the hardcore ninja to have a sense of humor?
The funny doesn’t last long because Mika then makes a huge mistake: she calls Maslow from a payphone to tell him what’s going on and asks him to meet them at their usual spot. Of course, it turns out to be a trap. The minute they get out of the car, a bunch of soldiers take Raizo into custody while Maslow holds Mika back.
Even though Maslow is supposedly putting on a show of being the dutiful soldier for the higher ups, I think he partly turns on Mika because of jealousy. That green-eyed demon keeps rearing its ugly head, doesn’t it? Maslow hears the way Mika talks about Raizo and sees how passionately she argues for Raizo’s release. It doesn’t help that Raizo is H-O-T-T! One of the soldiers even comments that he looks like a boy band member. Throw in the whole motel situation, and you know that Maslow’s worrying that something has happened or will happen between them.
Despite his surly attitude, Maslow still gives Mika a device that she can use to transmit her location if she gets into trouble. He knows that Mika will eventually free Raizo and go on the run from the ninja again. At least this way she’ll be able to call for help and not depend solely on Raizo. It also allows him to maintain his cover with his bosses because I bet they could hack the device to track her if they want to.
They allow Mika to visit Raizo in his cell. His wrists, ankles, and neck are chained to the wall. She brings him a bottle of water, which she has to feed him (a call back to when he did the same for Kiriko?), and apologizes for his predicament. Raizo assures her that he knows she’s innocent because he can tell when she’s lying from her heartbeat (another trick he picked up from Kiriko). He jokes that the only time she’s lied to him thus far was about her jean size. LOL! Still cracking jokes. Love this guy.
While they’re talking, Raizo picks up the sound of the ninja breaking into the supposedly secret and secure compound. The soldiers don’t believe it, but they assure Raizo that they can beat them if they do show up (in very racist terms). Mika continues to demand that they release Raizo so he can defend himself.
Predictably, the ninja lay waste to the soldiers in no time flat. Mika grabs a dead soldier’s keys and gets to work on Raizo’s chains. As she struggles to find the right one, Raizo keeps watch and hilariously urges her to speed things up. He’s still partially restrained when the first set of ninja come through the door, but he’s still able to kill them all. Raizo knows that they both won’t make it to the car, so he tells Mika to go ahead while he stays behind to fight.
The Battle
What follows is one of the biggest bloodbaths I’ve seen on film. We’re talking Kill Bill levels of gore. I can’t even begin to count how many ninja are in that building. Raizo spends the next five minutes or so fighting ninja after ninja. Heads and limbs are flying everywhere as Raizo performs a hectic trapeze act, jumping and swinging from floor to floor. It’s so cool.
Then Raizo comes face-to-face with Takeshi, who mockingly calls him “little brother.” Takeshi claims that he’s angry that Raizo abandoned the clan. Whatever you need to tell yourself, dude. We all know you’re jealous. They make it outside the compound, with Takeshi and a couple of other ninja pursuing the heavily injured Raizo through actual traffic. They jump over and across cars during the chase until they magically run into Mika, who circled back after having to drive off to stop ninja from attacking her vehicle. She hits Takeshi straight on with the car’s tail end. He bounces off into the distance, not dead but definitely worse for wear.
Raizo gets into the car, cutely telling Mika that he knew she would find him again. Then he pulls a shuriken out of his horrible stomach wound and begins to heal himself with the technique he learned from Ozunu before passing out.
Mika takes Raizo to another cheap motel, tucks him into bed, and takes another soapless shower. She then assesses their (lack of) options using the unconscious Raizo as her sounding board. They can’t stay there. The ninja will find them no matter where they go. She can’t defend herself, let alone protect Raizo, from them. If she goes back to the government people, they will take Raizo back into custody and the ninja will kill him and massacre even more soldiers.
The only option left is to activate Maslow’s tracker and surrender Raizo to the ninja. She ends the “conversation” with an apology and a kiss on the cheek. By the time Maslow’s crew shows up, she’s chilling in a chair and the ninja have already picked up Raizo.
I didn’t understand why Mika chooses this route until the ninja show up. Even though most of them want to kill Raizo on the spot, Takeshi decides to take him back to the compound to face Ozunu. He wants Raizo to have the full humiliation and painful death experience. They lock him in a box and we hear them travel across the countries via different conveyances. Raizo awakes early in the journey and spends the time healing himself.
And there’s the reason—it buys time. Mika knew that they wouldn’t kill Raizo straight out. This way, he’ll be in better shape when he gets to Ozunu and Mika will have more time to devise a rescue. It’s the best plan they have.
Home Sweet Home
At the camp, the ninja drag a bound Raizo through the compound’s halls to Ozunu’s room. Ozunu tries to shame Raizo about his actions. In his mind, he made Raizo and Raizo threw all of that away. Even worse, he turned on his own people. He also uses a lot of eye references during his speech, like he wants to draw attention to Raizo’s other sin. Does he expect an apology? In any case, Raizo has nothing but sass for him. Ozunu gets so enraged that he tells the guards to get that “thing” out of his sight. See? Another eye reference.
The next time we see Raizo, he’s tied to a pillar (shirtless! dripping in water!) in the courtyard. You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the same pillar that Kiriko died on. Ozunu puts on the whole punishment show, preaching to the other ninja in attendance about traitors and all that mess. Raizo keeps mouthing off, which causes Ozunu to shove his hand deeper and deeper into Raizo’s stomach like he did when he was growing up.
Before they get to the killing portion of the program, a grenade drops out of the sky. The government soldiers have arrived. This time, however, they are packing the heavy artillery: tanks, high-powered rifles, missile launchers, etc. The ninja are literally outgunned as the soldiers blow up everything in sight.
Mika runs straight to Raizo and frees him for the second time. As has become their flirty pattern, Raizo jokingly accepts Mika’s apology for betraying him again and confirms that he could hear everything she said when he was unconscious. Then Raizo goes off to take care of his unfinished business, i.e. Takeshi and Ozunu.
The Final Showdowns
Raizo meets Takeshi in a burning room. Takeshi tries to wear Raizo out by making him fight his flunkies first—a typical loser movie villain tactic. Raizo takes them out easily. Takeshi does well on his own until he stupidly taunts Raizo about Kiriko. In response, Raizo wraps his kusarigama’s chain around Takeshi’s neck while the dagger part embeds in Takeshi’s palm. Raizo slowly tightens the chain as Takeshi tries (and ultimately fails) to stop the dagger’s descent into his throat. It reminds me of how he took his time killing Kiriko, the way he hovered the sword over her heart before he killed her. It’s sweet revenge.
Then Raizo makes his way to Ozunu’s room. Just seeing the trick floor and remembering the abuse his feet suffered because of it pisses him off. He rips a vicious strip out of the floor, destroying it. Another piece of his traumatic past settled. Raizo finds Ozunu sitting at his desk, waiting for him as the rest of the building is ablaze.
If you thought Ozunu would be an easy opponent because of his advanced age, you’d be very wrong. I mean, a dude doesn’t stay in charge of that many young and skilled ninja for this long through brainwashing alone. He has an edge since he knows all of Raizo’s moves. Plus, he’s faster than Raizo since he employs a special technique that makes it seem like he’s disappearing into thin air. Raizo can’t keep up. Ozunu slices and dices him without breaking a sweat.
Just as Ozunu’s poised to land the killing blow, Mika runs in and fires off a few shots. It’s an echo of the fight where she and Raizo first met, only she saves him this time. Ozunu does not like being shot at. He poofs out and reappears behind Mika, stabbing her in the heart. She falls to the ground as Raizo yells out.
This is the second time Ozunu has killed a woman that Raizo cares about. It’s deliberate. Ozunu wants Raizo to be free of anything that makes him vulnerable and to separate from anyone who influences the way Raizo thinks or acts. I think that’s the real reason why he killed Kiriko. Ozunu wants to be the only one in control of Raizo’s life. Yet, every time Ozunu looks, there’s a woman in Raizo’s life threatening his careful training. Can’t have that.
If Raizo was angry before, he’s royally pissed now. His rage somehow pushes him to a new power level. He gains Ozunu’s poofing ability and starts slashing the older man all over with his sword. Ozunu can no longer keep up. The killing blow comes when Raizo plunges his sword into Ozunu’s shoulder and cuts down his entire back. There’s no putting Humpty Dumpty back together again after that.
After the fight, Raizo hears a wonderful sound: Mika’s heartbeat! He carries her out of the burning building and lays her on the ground. Maslow and the medic are fretting over the wound until Raizo explains that Mika’s heart is special. Just like the tattoo artist from the beginning of the movie, her heart is on the wrong side of her chest. Ozunu’s sword didn’t puncture it. Raizo heals her before gently brushing his fingers down her cheek. The gesture mirrors when Mika kissed his cheek when he was unconscious and is loaded with just as much emotion. He steps aside so the medic can further tend to her.
Much later, we find Raizo hanging out at the still-smoking compound. He has the broken watch, which he drops to the ground, and a bonsai tree, which he snips the same way Kiriko once did. I think this symbolizes that Raizo is throwing away the “life” that Ozunu forced on him and embracing the one that Kiriko wanted for him.
Thinking of Kiriko, he climbs to the top of the wall and stares out at the beautiful scenery before him. He finally gets to see the gorgeous view that Kiriko once saw.
He’s free.
Conclusion
I love Ninja Assassin. The plot is interesting, the action is eye-catching, and the characters are fresh. Plus, there are so many creative callbacks to earlier details that seemed pointless at the time.
Most importantly, it’s way deeper than just the blood and guts. It’s about reclaiming one’s sense of self. Raizo thought he was supposed to be a ninja because that’s all he knew. One day, he realized that it wasn’t the life that he actually wanted, at least not in the form that it was presented to him. So, he fought to become who he wanted to be. Even though this is about ninja, I think everyone can appreciate a successful life pivot story.
Rain is great as Raizo. Raizo isn’t the one-dimensional character that he could have been. Rain does his share of serious ninja brooding, but he also slips in several moments of humor. Moreover, he looks amazing. He’s always been known for his striking looks and six-pack, but he looks even insane here. He has a glowing tan and his body is absolutely ripped from arms to abs. I cannot imagine how much work he put into achieving that toned form, as well as learning all of the ninja weapons and the fight choreography.
Meanwhile, Naomie Harris kills it as Mika. She’s a fantastic actress who does not get her due. Like Rain with Raizo, Harris makes Mika better than the typical damsel in distress. Even though she’s constantly under attack, Mika doesn’t sit around wait for Raizo to save her. She does her best to provide whatever backup and support she can under these abnormal circumstances too. She’s a badass librarian!
I applaud the diverse casting. The downside to those choices, however, is that the budding romance between Raizo and Mika never gets to bloom. What a missed opportunity! Those two had mad chemistry. We should have gotten a kiss at the very least. But if there’s one thing I learned from Jet Li and Aaliyah’s characters in Romeo Must Die, it’s that there will always be a million reasons why the Asian man and the Black woman have to remain best buddies. It’s the only thing that I hate about this otherwise awesome movie.
*Ninja Assassin DVD cover and summary © Warner Bros., Legendary Pictures, Dark Castle Entertainment, Silver Pictures*