From the man who brought us “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers…THE MOVIE!!!” comes a wholly different kettle of fish.
Having made his name with such kids action fare, Isaac Florentine has really shown what he is capable of since and “ninja” is a fine addition to his canon. An American kid, Casey, an orphan is raised by Ninjas and when he grows up with all the skills you would expect from such extreme surrogate parents, can be liable to go a bit out of control. He does so and is banished from the Ninja community, finding a career working for an evil organisation, as a killer. No doubt there will be a journey and redemption to be found somewhere along the line.
Casey is saddled with a supposedly inferior fighter, a woman, who despite such apparent inferiority, manages to run rings around him every time, which hardly inspires confidence in his abilities. Despite this, she is also stupid enough to get herself captured several takes and so much of the film revolves around Casey getting her out of trouble. An odd relationship that one and one that is not played with any real conviction by the actors although Casey comes off well enough overall, as he has a certain amount of self deprecating humour.
In tone and look, it feels like a flashback to the 80s king fu movies and is none the worse for that in many ways as it seems to be giving a knowing look to the camera as it does so. The action is extremely well choreographed and intense with a lot of the requisite fast moving shots and split second editing, although the addition of CGI blood is a little over the top in places and doesn’t really work in what are other wise reasonably realistic fight scenes. The plot itself is as choppy as the fighting but then if you are going to see a movie for the power of its storyline, maybe you should look elsewhere. This is a fairly cheap, fairly cheerful slice of ninja based action and is sure to keep action junkies interested.