3 out of 5

Created by: Dave Boyle (developed by)

House of Ninjas’ initial masterful balance of mood is entrancing: the balletic nature of a Crouching Tiger-era martial arts flick; the mumblecore dramedy of an indie flick; the quirk of post-Oceans 11 heist / action movies – these combine for a very out-of-time and yet modern vibe, perhaps over-simplifyingly represented by the culture syncing of American Dave Boyle’s development and co-direction of show star and Japanese actor Kento Kaku’s story idea, with Kaku also co-directing. There are notes of American and Japanese humor in the family drama; John Wick’s blending of similar disciplines in the action sequences; and even the music finds clipping.’s Jonathan Snipes mixing classic kung fu notes with Daniel Pemberton trills – once more drawing a line between eras, genres, and cultures.

It’s so easy – and quite delightful – to get swept up in this mix, as a family of Shinobis tries to go about their post-Shinobi life to varying degrees of un-success, only to get wrapped up by some happenstance and some hidden machinations in a complex and bizarre web of kidnapping and cults, this plot thread continuing to wander around that thin line between quirk and weightiness, with latter landing especially well thanks to the meted juxtaposition of the former.

The show makes it about halfway through before this juggling act proves to be too difficult.

I had to pass through House of Ninjas twice, as I neared the end of a first viewing wondering if I had skipped several beats: story points felt like they had jumped ahead without much establishment, and the tone began leaning more heavily on the serious stuff without an equal sense of stakes to continue to give it weight. Meanwhile, there’s a topdown style still being applied which suggests the initial balance, making it still easy to watch and go along, and maybe not notice that the show is missing some heart – especially since it concludes pretty strongly, paying off on some dormant themes and threads. On the second viewing, I confirmed the lackings, though: whether due to translation or perhaps cultural differences in story-telling emphases, we hop, skip and jump from 0 to 100 with the cult aspect, and various levers that are initially being pulled to detail out the Shinobis personal lives necessarily stop being pulled to focus on this, hence the lack of heart: the characters become vessels to move the story along, whereas the story had been strong because of those characters.

It’s essentially two shows in that sense: the first four episodes are about the Tawara family, whose patriarch has tried to put a halt to their discipline as Shinobis due to the tragedy of a lost son – while everyone still has to live under the lifelong code of the Shinobis, such as not eating meat, and not dating – and the last four episodes are about feuding ninja clans. Both stories are good! But neither one feels complete, even if you can stand on the sidelines and understand the throughlines between the two that surely looked good on paper.

Every actor playing the core Tawara clan – Kento Kaku, Yōsuke Eguchi, Tae Kimura, Aju Makita – are a delight, and truly nail the Noah Baumbach-y discomfort of the ongoing (often humorous) struggle of being human, and skewing that through this ninja lens is quite brilliant. Furthermore, drawing the forced retirees back into things is an equally smart way to examine how different personality types deal with that struggle, but then the writers got really interested in all the secret twisty-turny bad guy plans, and that takes over. Somewhere in there, you’ll spot how the action scenes take a hit at some points; just as we start with such a smart blend of vibes, when the blend is off, so goes other expressive aspects of the show as well.

House of Ninjas sets a high bar for itself from the start, and truly effects an impressive vibe that, in less skilled hands and with a less skilled crew, would probably be too indulgent or cringey. Even when the show starts falling below that bar, the skill pretty readily carries things, such that we can circle back around to leave the audience with good memories, and wishing for more.