THE PLOT THUS FAR

WHAT WE THOUGHT

Ninja's Creed comes to us in the form of a great deal of narration from Adam Arthavan, a warrior from an Asian dynasty under siege from the Skunji Empire. Dispatched to protect the last of the royal bloodline - an ordinary girl living in America with no knowledge of her true heritage - from a deadly assassin, Adam is all that stands in the way of his kingdom's ultimate ruin. The problem is that when your opening reel marries dynastic Asian politics and all its rituals with - through the dodgiest of dodgy CGI, it becomes increasingly more difficult to disguise the ultimate destination.

Writer/director Babar Ahmed, who made waves with his 2003 debut Genius, has ideas that are necessarily above his station, but they certainly are above his budget. Far more concerned with style than story, Ahmed undermines every sequence with intrusive jump cuts, heavy-handed mood lighting, and a tendency to let scenes drift off into nowhere long after the necessary beats have been exhausted. For what is supposedly a chase thriller, Ninja's Creed has all the momentum of a hibernating tortoise, driven by a script in which characters speak only in exposition as they move from one dimly lit interior to the next. That being said...how is it different than other DTV flick? Well, it isn't. It's another half-hearted recut martial arts film that only caters to hardcore cult film lovers.