Any fan of the Golan-Globus era of Cannon action potboilers will be in their element here. If this had been made in the 80's, Chuck Norris or Michael Dudikoff would be the ass-kicking lead and the movie would eventually wind-up a mini-sensation on VHS. As it is, today in the here and now, we have the physically imposing but charisma-challenged Scott Adkins headlining and a film that is another example of straight to DVD/Blu-Ray cannon fodder (ahem!).
But let's not be too negative. NINJA 2 is actually a quite lovely spiritual re-imagining of the Cannon glory days that doesn't bother to re-imagine very much. And that's a good thing.
The plot preamble is done and dusted in the first ten minutes, which leaves the rest of the running time devoted to a plethora of exceptionally well choreographed fights, stunts, explosions and action sequences.
Casey (Adkins) is an American Ninja-type working in a dojo as a ninjitsu master and happily settled in conjugal bliss with his cute Japanese bride. After an altercation with two street thugs, Casey returns home to find his pregnant wife has been strangled and garroted to death with a barbed-wire whip contraption. She's quickly consigned to the grave and the film moves forward at breakneck speed into a ninja-revenge narrative which sees our hero punching, chopping, kicking, stabbing, slicing and dicing his way through Thailand and Burma (Myanmar) in pursuit of a villainous jungle drug lord. And that's it.
Adkins is physically imposing and visually impressive, but lacks the awe-inspiring on-screen presence of Chuck or Arnie or JCVD in their prime. That said, he let's his physicality do the talking for him and it easily makes up for the on-screen deficit resulting from his lack of acting ability and moribund persona. The fights are superb and furious, and the scene in which he takes out a dojo of martial arts hoodlums in one fluid go is a stunner.
The film is well shot, very economical but clean and sharp and ploughs a comfortably familiar furrow from beginning to end. You're never in any doubt as to the outcome, but it's so much fun getting there that doesn't matter in the least. There's a "twist" which isn't any sort of surprise as its massively signposted early on, and the violence on show falls into the medium-rare category without being overly explicit.
A word to the very hard-of-thinking. There are some subtitles – more than one might usually expect in a film of this type – but hopefully this will not alienate audiences who traditionally don't like to or can't read. If the subtitles weren't there, it would make little difference as it's strikingly obvious what's being said and what's going on. You'll get the gist without any unnecessary effort or strain, so don't panic.
Overall, NINJA 2 is resolutely undemanding action fare that wears its beating 80s Cannon-rendered heart on its Golan-Globus embroidered sleeve. A welcome reminder of a time when action-movies were marvellously mindless fun and VHS was the home-entertainment weapon of choice. More like this.
But let's not be too negative. NINJA 2 is actually a quite lovely spiritual re-imagining of the Cannon glory days that doesn't bother to re-imagine very much. And that's a good thing.
The plot preamble is done and dusted in the first ten minutes, which leaves the rest of the running time devoted to a plethora of exceptionally well choreographed fights, stunts, explosions and action sequences.
Casey (Adkins) is an American Ninja-type working in a dojo as a ninjitsu master and happily settled in conjugal bliss with his cute Japanese bride. After an altercation with two street thugs, Casey returns home to find his pregnant wife has been strangled and garroted to death with a barbed-wire whip contraption. She's quickly consigned to the grave and the film moves forward at breakneck speed into a ninja-revenge narrative which sees our hero punching, chopping, kicking, stabbing, slicing and dicing his way through Thailand and Burma (Myanmar) in pursuit of a villainous jungle drug lord. And that's it.
Adkins is physically imposing and visually impressive, but lacks the awe-inspiring on-screen presence of Chuck or Arnie or JCVD in their prime. That said, he let's his physicality do the talking for him and it easily makes up for the on-screen deficit resulting from his lack of acting ability and moribund persona. The fights are superb and furious, and the scene in which he takes out a dojo of martial arts hoodlums in one fluid go is a stunner.
The film is well shot, very economical but clean and sharp and ploughs a comfortably familiar furrow from beginning to end. You're never in any doubt as to the outcome, but it's so much fun getting there that doesn't matter in the least. There's a "twist" which isn't any sort of surprise as its massively signposted early on, and the violence on show falls into the medium-rare category without being overly explicit.
A word to the very hard-of-thinking. There are some subtitles – more than one might usually expect in a film of this type – but hopefully this will not alienate audiences who traditionally don't like to or can't read. If the subtitles weren't there, it would make little difference as it's strikingly obvious what's being said and what's going on. You'll get the gist without any unnecessary effort or strain, so don't panic.
Overall, NINJA 2 is resolutely undemanding action fare that wears its beating 80s Cannon-rendered heart on its Golan-Globus embroidered sleeve. A welcome reminder of a time when action-movies were marvellously mindless fun and VHS was the home-entertainment weapon of choice. More like this.