Ninja Assassin

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S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r

directed by James McTeigue
USA 2009

When a Europol agent named Mika Coretti uncovers evidence that links government sanctioned assassinations to a ninja clan she quickly finds herself in harm's way when those behind the pre-arranged murders try to silence her. She narrowly escapes an attempt on her own life when a young man named Raizo, who has spent his life training as a assassin at one of the secret ninja clans which she is investigating, saves her life.

The film wastes no time getting to what it does best - wall to wall action sequences that are often gory. The most surprising aspect of this film is that is does a pretty good job of building the back story of the ninja assassin character named Raizo. Even though the plot deals with government cover ups and the Europol agent named Mika Coretti plays an integral part to the evolution of the story at hand. The real meat and potatoes of this film is Raizo's quest for revenge against his former mentor (a plot device that anyone familiar enough with martial arts can easily appreciate). Performance-wise the entire cast are more than adequate in their respective roles with the film's standout performance coming from Rain (I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK) in the role of Raizo and another performance of note Shô Kosugi (Revenge of the Ninja) in the role of his mentor.

Michael Den Boer

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Theatrical Release: September 29th, 2009

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DVD Review: Warner Home Video - Region 1 - NTSC

Big thanks to Michael Den Boer for the Review!

DVD Box Cover		CLICK to order from:
Distribution	Warner Home Video Region 1 - NTSC
Runtime	1:38:33
Video	2:40:1 Original Aspect Ratio 16X9 enhanced Average Bitrate: mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate
Audio	English Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles	English SDH, Spanish, French, none
Features	Release Information: Studio: Warner Home Video Aspect Ratio: Widescreen anamorphic - 2:40:1 Edition Details: • Deleted Scenes (16:9; 7:45) DVD Release Date: March 16th, 2010 Amaray Chapters 25

Comments

Ninja Assassins is given a solid looking progressive flagged that boasts a lucid color palette, healthy looking flesh tones and contrast that fares well throughout. So much of this film relies on lighting and thankfully the one area where this transfer excels the most is its black levels which provided just the right amount of detail during dimly lit sequences. There are no problems with compression and edge enhancements are non-existent.

This release comes with three audio options, English, French and Spanish. The English audio mix is in great shape as dialog is crystal clear and everything sounds well balanced. Being that this is an action film that relies heavily on disorienting ones senses the audio does a good job exploiting the more ambient sounds of the soundtrack and, conversely, when things need to sound robust, the audio gets the job done.

Besides some preview trailers for other Warner Brothers products which play when you load the disc the only extra related to the film is eight minutes of deleted scenes which play as one extended segment - not separately.

- Michael Den Boer

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