3 out of 5

Directed by: Isaac Florentine

A pretty average martial arts flick, highlighted by some exuberant direction from Florentine and competent choreography that keeps an impressive amount of slaughter in frame.

The setup is one that’s been used in a myriad of movies in this genre (and others, of course): two students at a dojo, one good – ripped Casey (Scott Adkins) – and one bad – perpetually snarling Masazuka (Tsuyoshi Ihara) – get into a scuffle, causing the bad one to get kicked out and swear revenge.  Also, he gets a cool scar so we can recognize him later, when he’s an assassin suited up in ninja duds.

There’s some more vague stuff stuffed in here, with an evil corporation and the ancient gear Casey and crew are sent to America to protect, but you know it hardly matters: this is a movie designed to set up battles, and it does.  And to Ninja’s credit, its creative team seems aware of the audience’s awareness of this as well; Florentine and scripters Boaz Davidson and Michael Hurst don’t attempt to overdo the plot, and keep any potential subplots (like relationship nonsense) well out of the way.

The sets are pretty minimal, but do a convincing enough job of being New York.  What’s better is the way Florentine works realistically within the confines: sure, you’ve got the general super heroics of bullet dodging and whatnot, but I liked that the camera and choreography kept things tailored to the environments.

I’ve been reading good things about Florentine’s more current (as of 2015) projects, so I’m checking out some older stuff.  You can definitely see an energy here, but at this point, the overall quality is certainly middleground, nothing to really elevate it over something you’d catch on TV on a rainy day, flipping back and forth to to see when people are getting beaten up.  (…When will channel surfing references fully lose relevance, I wonder?)