This hyper-violent action comedy has a fun cast – including Karen Gillan, Angela Bassett, and Michelle Yeoh – and features stylish sets, great lighting, playful colors, and VIOLENCE.
An assassin (who was abandoned by her own assassin mother) rescues a child, and assassin-wars ensue.
This stylish fantasy checks all of the American set boxes – the lovely colors of the bowling alley fight scene, the pastels of the diner, the gentleness of the “librarians” around small children before they begin shooting massive weapons – and looks like it was fun for the actors to be over-the-top killers.
It delivers what the preview shows! Please note that this is a comedy AND an action film, so the deadpan commentary by the actors is not self-seriousness EVER. Please adjust your expectations accordingly.
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.
This is a fun action film about a group of near-immortals who work as soldiers for hire in the modern world. Charlize Theron shines as Andi, the leader of this group that has come together over centuries after finding each other (often through dreams) and fighting side by side. If practice makes perfect, this army of five is very close to perfect – and almost impossible to kill.
As they take on ethical-yet-violent jobs, they come to the attention of an evil biotech bro who wants to turn what they’ve got into profit – and he isn’t going to wait for them to agree to his invasive study plan.
The backstory flashbacks across time are well done; the settings are good; the fight scenes are well choreographed; the logistics of supporting oneself over centuries are addressed in bite-sized realism; the camaraderie between the near-immortals is adorable. I’ve watched this at least three times, and recommended it strongly when it first came out, to ensure my circle had a chance to see it.
It’s well done American-style action. I’d buy this if it were for sale. I’d watch sequels.
