Kate
published by Netflix
2021
Kate is a stylish film about the last day of an American assassin’s life in Japan. It is also one of the few films that properly shows the lead character looking like hell while their health collapses, which is strangely refreshing!
(Note that this is one of those films with nearly all American lead characters set in Japan, in a some combination of cultural fan service and backdrop-exploitation. I like it as fan service, of course. I also like the good guy and bad guy cross-cultural collaboration as an attempt at better cultural engagement to ground the story. (There is a speech within the film that suggests disdain for exploitative foreigners, which implies…. self-awareness, even though the context is different.))
Kate is a skilled assassin living in Japan, working for an American handler at jobs that the local assassins can’t or won’t do for local political reasons. She displays (minimal) ethics by wanting to reschedule an assassination that would happen in front of a child, to let us know that she is a good person. Shortly after telling her boss she wants to get out of the assassination business, Kate suffers a medical incident, learns she has been poisoned, and only has hours to live. How will she spend that time? Identifying her assassin and avenging herself, of course!
This film is tight: the pacing is good, the scenes are stylishly composed, the roving fight scenes are extremely satisfying (room to room, bathhouse to alley, street to restaurant), exposition is limited (guns and swords do the talking), and Mary Elizabeth Winstead is an understated heroine. While the preview has a local ally/frenemy talking Kate up as a badass, there is very little swagger – Kate fights like she means it, not like she wants others to be impressed.
I believe I’ve watched this four times. I would buy this if it were for sale. I’ll watch it again. It’s a well-executed action film.