Ninja   Starring: Scott Adkins, Nikolai Sotirov, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Mika Hijii and Todd Jensen Lions Gate Home Entertainment RRP: £12.99 LGD94196 Certificate: 18 Available 15 March 2010

Casey is the child of a forces father who ends up growing up and learning martial arts in Japan. He is sent back to his homeland, by his Sensei, to protect the Yoroi Bitsu from another former pupil. This treasure holds the weapons of the last Koga Ninja, weapons of great power...

Ninja (2009 - 1 hr, 22 min, 44 sec) is a martial arts film directed by Isaac Florentine and staring Scott Adkins.

Right off you have to declare that this is the sort of genre film which was popular in the eighties and if you liked them then you will love this. The plot isn’t anything deep and meaningful, just enough to keep the action going, as this film is all about its action. The acting is passable most of the time, but Adkins range appears to be restricted to scowling or angry scowling; anything else is a little less convincing. It doesn’t help that he is out acted by the villain Masazuka (Tsuyoshi Ihara) in ever scene that they share. Still the martial arts genre isn’t particularly renowned for having a plethora of fine actors, apart for a notable few, their range tends to be limited, which is very much the case here.

On the plus side, live action fight choreography has seen a move away from the ludicrously overused wire work back to a more realistic and believable form of fighting, which quite frankly is more impressive than someone sailing around on wires. The action sequences for the film have been co-ordinated by Fumio Demura.

Not only are Casey and Masazuka jockeying for position in the school, they are also both in love with Namiko (Mika Hijii), whose only role in the film is to be in peril, a real throwback female character. To add a little spice to the whole proceedings, once the action transfers to New York, Casey is pursued and disbelieved by Detective Traxler (Todd Jensen), who wants him for murder, which is suspiciously too close to one of the elements of Highlander.

In fact little about this film strikes you as novel or innovative, apart from the action sequences. Ultimately it’s not terrible as a film, but then it’s not that great either - one for fans of the genre only.

The disc comes with only a single extra in the form of Way of the Warrior (18 min, 19 sec) which is a particularly lightweight piece, but may be of some interest to fans of the film.

Whatever the faults of the film, its presentation is pretty good with a faultless 2:40:1 anamorphic print. The DVD gets a very reasonable Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound mix.

5

Charles Packer