Maybe my confusion with the plotline of Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear emanates from somehow missing Ninja 1. Or maybe it’s more that the film lacks any form of coherent plot…
In any case Casey (Scott Adkins) doesn’t even get his ninja on until the last fifteen minutes, and even then he’s the kind of ninja in full view of everyone at all times, and furthermore the kind of ninja who eschews the normal ninja fare of nunchuks and throwing stars.
Saddened by the bloody death of his lovely and doting Japanese wife at the hands of awful dudes. Casey travels to other countries in search of the perpetrators of this heinous crime.
He goes to Burma, to Japan and then back to Burma. Or maybe it was vice versa. He goes to ninja school, though more to kick piss out of the students than to hone his skills. He chats to his friend who runs the school. He battles rage issues in poorly staged and lazily choreographed barfights that do little to utilise Scott Adkins’ amazing physical abilities. He worries that he is losing his touch, I mean he can’t even walk over hot rocks without feeling a burning sensation in his feet!
Look this is a ‘guy done wrong vengeance’ flick. It doesn’t need a plot. It could make the villain (here a drug dealer) wear a big arrow pointing at his head emblazoned with BAD GUY and I wouldn’t be disappointed. Let’s face it we’re here for the violence and the violence only. So when Scott Adkins gets misused it’s annoying.
All the annoying tics that casual viewers criticise are here; the large groups who line up and wait for their turn, the crisp and calculated rhythms, the sterile and predictable timing. Compared to the (currently incomparable) Iko Uwais, Scott Adkins fights seem like they never leave the drawing boards, they are timed so impeccably that he could be the bass player for a middling band. This is not a good thing.
Scott Adkins faces the same fate as Michael Jai White and Tony Jaa, all the ability but none of the material. That is, unless they lift their game quick or find the right filmmaker to highlight their skills.
You finish Ninja 2 knowing what you knew already (if you saw Universal Soldier 4 that is), that Scott Adkins is an athletic marvel, but with the wrong material this fact matters for naught. Ninja 2 is better than a lot of direct to DVD stuff, but wouldn’t crack Jean-Claude Van Damme’s top 10, and the bottom half of his top 10 fades quickly.
They are watchable but instantly forgettable flicks, flicks like Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear.
Final Rating – 6/ 10. Not bad for direct to DVD. But given you set expectations for such films low, that is faint praise.
