Kate is a tonal mess, switching from gory dismemberment to J-Pop music to Kate coming to terms with her life ending and scenes of bonding and redemption, to wanna be Japanese crime drama to total schlock again. The outrageous scenes happened naturally within the context of the story. John Wick or Crank never tried to trick the audience into thinking they're watching something edgy. They play it straight when they shouldn't, and wink at the audience in a completely self-oblivious manner, as in "haha, aren't we outrageous?". While John Wick's humor was found mostly in its timing or interactions, and Crank was just an all out cartoon, these new movies don't seem to understand their own genre. Another aspect these John Wick and Crank ripoff movies lack is fun. They would need someone like Gina Carano or some MMA fighter to pull this off convincingly. MEW has the acting chops, but isn't a fighter. The photography was unexpectedly dull, the use of music often didn't work, and worse, a lot of the kicks and punches lacked precision and speed. Woody Harrelson does his bit and is reliable as ever, even if he doesn't have much to work with. A lot of the Japanese actors sleepwalk through their roles, except for the big boss and the effeminate one. Mary Elizabeth Winstead does a fine job as the lead, but shares no chemistry with the kid she's saddled with. Yet it's another letdown, just like Jolt, Atomic Blonde, The Protégé and so many others. Based on the trailer I had somewhat high hopes for this one, daring to believe it would deliver some classic John Woo style heroic bloodshed. The second female John Wick rip off in just a month. Overall I'd definitely recommend this to fans of the genre. The Tokyo setting is great I'm glad they had Japanese characters talking in subtitled Japanese rather than having them speak English as would probably have been the case had it been made a few years ago. Woody Harrelson is solid as her mentor, even though he gets less screen time than one might hope for and Miku Martineau is likable as Ani, the daughter of the man she kills in the opening scene and later gets caught up in Kate's revenge operation. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is really impressive as Kate making the action seem believable. The story is fairly predictable with twists that anybody familiar with this sort of film will see a mile off that didn't matter for me though as the action doesn't let up long enough to give you time to worry about such things. The action is pretty violent with plenty of blood being spilt and some fairly unpleasant injuries shown. The action is suitably varied as people are shot, stabbed and in once case decapitated with a samurai sword! This is all impressively choreographed. original no but highly entertaining if you like that sort of thing. It is fair to say this film is fairly derivative the central premise comes from the classic film noir 'DOA' but by having our lead an assassin out for a revenge, rather than an ordinary person, we get treated to lots of 'John Wick' style action as she works her way to her target. There is no chance of survival she has about twenty four hours to find the person responsible and get her revenge. In hospital she learns that she had been poisoned before the job got underway. She chases the target but crashes her car. This doesn't go to plan and she lets the target live. Of course she will have to undertake one final mission. Ten months later she is in Tokyo and still bothered about the girl witnessing the killing and wants to quit. In the opening scenes we see her take out a member of the Yakuza in Osaka in front of his brother and daughter. Ridiculous body count which could have, with small changes to the plot, be significantly reduced and the time gained spent on storytelling.įrom childhood Kate has been trained to be the perfect assassin. Bottom line: a predictable story from start to finish, but made well and acted well. Kudos also to Jun Kunimura, who can, with a slight adjustment of body posture and a couple of facial expressions, tell an entire story in a second. In fact, every other actor is an extra in the plot anyway, so she either made this film work or not. What shines trough the bland plot is the acting of Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who singlehandedly carries the film through. Of course, the main character is female now, but you've seen this film before, a few times perhaps, and everything is pretty standard. Stylish, with Japanese neo-noir design, involving the Yakuza and greedy Westerners, it is a return to the 90s stories, where lone gunmen (people?) were dealing their own brand of justice in a corrupt and decadent world full of greed and inequality. Kate is a story of a perfect assassin, betrayed and raising hell in the name of vengeance as poison is slowly killing her. The world works in a kind of spiral, where everything 30 years ago becomes popular again, with small alterations.
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