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Ninja II: Shadow Of A Tear
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Ninja II: Shadow Of A Tear
Released by: Millennium Entertainment
Released on: December 31st, 2013.
Director: Isaac Florentine
Cast: Scott Adkins, Tim Man, Kane Kosugi, Mika Hijii, Vithaya Pansringarm
Year: 2013
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The Movie:
This sequel to Isaac Florentine's first Scott Adkins starring ninja movie, simply titled Ninja, catches up with our American hero, Casey Bowman (Scott Adkins), who since the events that took place in the first movie has settled down with his now pregnant wife Namiko's (Mika Hijii). After he buys her a pendent and beats up some thugs who try to take it from him, he heads home but before bed, he heads out to the store to get her some food. When he returns, she's been murdered.
Casey is understandably both upset and pissed off and to set things right he heads to Thailand to meet up with his old pal, Nakabara (Kane Kosugi). He's been tracing some clues that his wife's killer left behind, the most obvious being the wounds around the necks of his victim. After getting drunk in a bar and winning a fight, Casey realizes that there are those who would like to do away with him once and for all. All signs point to a drug dealer named Goro (Shun Sugata) as the man behind it all, so Casey tracks him down to get his revenge but soon finds that there's a lot more to this than just an irritated drug dealer and that the only way he'll get out of this alive is to use his skills in the dark art of the ninja.
Nobody's reinventing the wheel here but Ninja II delivers pretty much all you could want out of a modestly budgeted action picture, even if it falls short on black pajama suited shenanigans. Most of the movie's action scenes feature Adkins as Casey, not as his ninja persona, but of course, by the time that the end credits roll, his made the change. But with that minor complaint aside, this is a bad ass action movie in the Cannon Films tradition that should leave fans of eighties style brawl flicks impressed. There's virtually no CGI here, Florentine keeps the camera the right distance from the action and the editing avoids overusing close in cinematography and hyper kinetic editing which makes for a much more enjoyable viewing experience.
The cast all do fine work here, both in the fight scenes and the dramatic scenes. Adkins doesn't have the biggest range in the world but he's good here, he's likeable and heroic and fairly noble, we can easily get behind him in his quest. While not overly bloody, the fight scenes here hit hard and hit fast. The fight choreography employed is top notch and really lets Adkins show off his marital arts skills in a big way. He's not just punching and kicking here, he's leaping and twirling and contorting and flipping and just really going all out in the ass kicking department - it's impressive to watch. On top of that, we also get fine work from Kane Kosugi, who is every part Adkins equal when it comes to dishing it out. Vithaya Pansringarm, who was fantastic as the karaoke obsessed cop in Only God Forgives, also pops up here to the movie's benefit.
It's not deep, it's not all that original and the twist that it throws in towards the end is pretty obvious BUT it does do a pretty impressive job of recapturing the feel of what made so many similar movies made in the eighties action film heyday so much fun.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Ninja II arrives on Blu-ray in a very nice looking AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.78.1, just as you'd hope for with such a recent movie making the move to Blu-ray. Detail is always very strong as is texture and color reproduction, when not intentionally tweaked for artistic effect (you'll notice this in a couple of flashbacks), generally looks nice and realistic. Skin tones are nice and natural looking here, no obvious waxiness by way of noise reduction to complain about, while black levels are strong if not quite reference quality. There aren't any issues with compression artifacts or noticeable edge enhancement and all in all, the movie fares very well in high definition.
The primary mix here is an English language Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix, but optional subtitles are provided in English SDH and Spanish. Just as you'd expect from a recent action movie, this is a very aggressive track with some impressively enveloping moments. Rear channels are used very effectively to help build suspense with the score and to put you in the middle of the action by way of some great directional effects. Most of the dialogue comes out of the front of the mix, which makes sense, but it's always crystal clear and never hard to understand in the slightest. Bass response is strong, deep and powerful but only to the point where it accents things, never to the point where it buries them, and of course there are no issues with any hiss or distortion of any kind. It's hard to find fault with this mix, it's very, very impressive. An alternate Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track is also included, once again in English.
Extras kick off with a seven minute featurette made up of cast and crew interviews in which most of the principal players discuss their characters and their experiences working with one another on the picture. There's some welcome insight here into the fight choreography process and the weapons training that goes into staging a movie like this. Additionally, we get a separate thirteen minute collection of interviews with many of the same participants, the highlights of which are Kosugi and Adkins talking about the stunts and fight scenes being put together. An additional five minutes of fly-on-the-wall style behind the scenes footage is also found here and it shows off a few key scenes being filmed.
Aside from that we get previews for a few unrelated Millennium releases, menus and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
Ninja II definitely delivers some kick-ass action scenes and fantastic hand to hand combat. Is it rivetingly deep and original? Nope, but it doesn't try to be nor does it need to be. This is lean, mean and fast paced with a solid performance by Adkins and a nice supporting role from Kosugi, the very embodiment of a 'beer and pizza' movie. Millennium's Blu-ray release offers up a few extras and provides excellent audio and video quality. This is a lot of fun, action junkies should enjoy it.
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#1sukebanboySenior MemberFind all postsView Profile12-27-2013, 01:09 PMEditing a commentYou've pretty much echoed the majority of the other reviews I have read for this movie.this is a bad ass action movie in the Cannon Films tradition that should leave fans of eighties style brawl flicks impressed.
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