Ninja Assassin

Great gushing gouts of gore!

Korean martial arts star Rain ("Speed Racer" and LOTS of TV) comes through with a long-promised Chop Socky hit. His director James McTeigue has been paying his dues as second unit director on things like the "Matrix" films and the aforementioned "Speed Racer," so he knows his way around slam-bang editing and non-stop action.

Of course, this being Asian martial arts, we were treated to throwing stars, swords, numchucks, daggers, amputations, beheadings and other gory macho stuff, but came out of there thinking that Rain just might have a future. He has a terrific body, moves extremely well and can deliver a comic line at least as well as Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Seagal, Van Damme, or Jackie Chan. Well, maybe not Chan....

There were few humorous moments but when they happened, our screening crowd clung to them; in fact I think maybe we overreacted just a tad. Of course most of the screening crowd fit the demographic of post-adolescent men who loved the fighting, the gore, the blowie uppie stuff and the suspense. Some of the rest of us got the giggles...sorry... When I saw arms being lopped off, I couldn't help but think, "It's only a flesh wound!" with due apology to Monty Python.