It seems like they tried to revive the ninja craze from the eighties where ninja's were very deadly and super awesome. Actually they have never stopped being awesome. But apparently Hollywood doesn't think so. Luckily for the fans there are independent studios like Nu Image that give us what we crave. Or at least some of it. Ninja is one of those productions.
So is Ninja any good? It definitely delivers on the martial arts goodness and action. Decent throughout and exceptional in the last twenty minutes. It's very obvious that the whole production is a low budget affair so not all the action looks spectacular. Biggest flaws are the fact that the ninja's (or at least the students) basically are canon fodder. They are so easily dispatched while the villain Masazuka (Tsuyoshi Ihara) , Casey (Scott Adkins) and Namiko Takeda manage to remain unharmed. I personally would have liked to see that each and every student was deadly in their own way and that they at least would put up a good fight before they got eliminated. You know like in the Ninja Gaiden games. The ninja's also are less mystical and secretive. And only Scott Adkins and Tsuyoshi Ihare are seen to be wearing the trademark black suits. Or kind of. They look more like protective armours the military police wears.
The addition of a secret cult like clan (The Ring) that for some reason are under the employ of Masazuka doesn't make much sense. He doesn't really need them and yet tasks them with getting the legendary Yoroi Bitsu, an armored chest that contains the weapons of the last Koga Ninja. If he hadn't acted so stupidly in the first place he would have been able to take it without people noticing. In any case these cult members or criminals are just there to get dispatched off which is good of course. But other than that serve very little purpose.
Overall Ninja is decent enough and gets real fun in the last twenty minutes. But to be honest it could have been much better.
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