It’s getting close to the season of loving, and instead of doing something logical like a rom-com or something like that I’m doing what I do best - unrelated fun! Beating out rival choices, and even movies of a very similar design - tonight we head on over to Japan for some filthy western action. Tonight, we get to thank John Wick once again for causing so many fun genre spins as we say hello to Kate.

Being an assassin can be some rough work. Sometimes, you get asked to go against your grain when doing a job. In Kate’s case, that’s kill someone when a kid is around, an act that’s going to leave her with some trauma despite her being so good at her job and not killing the kid. Still, it has her rattled enough that some time later she’s ready to finish the one job and call it quits - something her handler isn’t super fond of and is convinced she won’t be gone for long after experiencing the boring normal life. Unfortunately for her, her next hit takes a twist when she starts experiencing some rather acute nausea that throws off her hit - and causes her to botch her escape plan. Turns out, someone’s poisoned her with some radioactive roofie action - that quick one night stand from earlier perhaps? Looks like someone is holding a grudge from years ago - the crime family whose brother she took out oh so far back then. There’s only one thing to do in this situation, obviously - revenge.

Simple plot right? Yeah, well, there’s turns all over the place in it as it tries to lead you around or increase the amount of perceived guilt our main has as she ends up having to team up with the very kid whose dad she killed. Well, team up is sort of misleading at their first meeting, given the kidnapping situation - but case in point it isn’t all super straight about it’s story - but it’s also not super surprising when it tries to deviate from that straight line either. Perhaps that bit comes more from me having seen so many movies necessarily then to fault this one in particular. So of course there’s going to be two main things people attracted to this movie are going to be wondering - hows the action, and hows the acting?

Well, acting is pretty good. I mean, it’s certainly a different twist from something like Wick - a lot more of a human angle being taken, with feelings and stuff like that, and an incredible penchant of showing the hero hurts at practically all times. If you want a movie you can feel, this bad girl will do the trick. Of all the actors, nobody is really bad - although you may find the kid annoying for a good part of it. I’m not saying she’s a bad character or anything - just that your tolerance for little punks and young attitudes will directly effect how much you care about the kiddo and her overall plight. As for the main, the fact it gives her moments to be human and show different emotions does a good deal towards letting the actress behind her shine - even though at first glance you wouldn’t peg her as some kind of super-brutal assassin type.

So the acting is good, that must mean the characters are great too right? Eh, a little less solid there. Our main gets to be human and all yes, but most the villains get to be the regular old faceless goons. We honestly don’t even know what’s so important about our Yakuza family that’s being targeted - at least for most the movie - so the characters kind of end up existing in this limbo of waiting for an action scene to happen outside of the big and little leads. Still, the chemistry between the main group is pretty fine - and by the end it does set up a lot of steps for the characters that aren’t just super expendable battle fodder.

The most important part, of course for most of us, will be those action scenes. These are done great - you’ll have a lot of fun here. There’s plenty of brutal hits, stabs, shots, breaks, and overall frantic action. Whereas some might do a lot of cutting and viewer confusing tactics to make it be cooler, this one trusts us to not be ADD about it and just enjoy the nicely laid out stuff as it plays out. The woman’s basically a terminator that actually feels pain, and it helps to influence the fights by the end when she’s visibly getting a bit slower and beat down. Things might not be consistently the most tactical, but it’s still darn nice to watch without totally hitting classic over the top Commando levels of action past. The effects end of things is great as well, with the hits looking great with perhaps only a few moments that aren’t as impressive as others.

The music is mixed. Some of it isn’t really my cup of tea - but at the same time it also has Band-Maid, whom I adore as being far more talented then I will ever be capable of being on pretty much every individual member-to-instrument scale. The audio balancing, on the other hand, is always spot on. Yes, unless you speak Japanese you won’t always understand the words - but it provides some nice hard-coded subtitles to queue you in on what they are saying. That said, the line deliveries all come out good, even if you can’t understand the language that they represent. Effects work is done well, with plenty of pop and squish as needed.

I fully enjoyed this movie. Heck, this isn’t even the first time I watched it. It’s put together well, and does a lot with even a simple plot and characters. The action is tight, the film is colorful, and the actors do a good job. You might get annoyed at the kid, or find the music to be less than stellar at parts - but mostly anything that might be reducing your fun has it’s moments where it can turn it around as well.

@IMDB

Kate (2021)