Kate - Violent Action Movie with Really Simple Story

This was another new action movie released by Netflix on a Friday. After seeing its interesting trailer few times earlier, I was obviously excited to give it a try. And let's find out more of this.

Brief Story Line

Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead - Gemini Man, A Good Day to Die Hard etc) was a female assassin working for an organization with her handler Varrick (Woody Harrelson - Solo: A Star Wars Story, Midway etc). When she somehow was poisoned and only had 24 hours to live, Kate decided to look for the culprit.

As she went rampage across Tokyo to find the persons responsible and get her revenge, Kate had to go through numerous dangerous Yakuza members including their advisor Renji (Tadanobu Asano - Mortal Kombat 2021, Battleship etc) the 2nd in command of Kijima (Jun Kunimura - Dream Raider TV series etc). Kate also encountered a teenaged girl named Ani (Miku Martineau) who she used as bait to get to her target.

So what would happen to Kate? Find them all in this intense action movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Now, this is an action movie with a very simple premise. Just a story about an assassin who wanted to find the person who poisoned her and fight against time to exact her revenge in 24 hours. Due to its nature and time sensitivity, the story became quite intense and did not have a lot of room to have any character development (which is fine by me because I was interested by the action anyway).

And the action was plenty to really satisfy me. It was truly violent with Mary Elizabeth Winstead providing some cool fight skills and the way she mercilessly did all those killings were just chilling. This movie was rated R for strong violence and obviously the gore and graphic scenes of those fights. Even I was surprised at the level of it (that particular scene in the Japanese restaurant was totally shocking). So it's definitely not for people who dislike the sight of so much blood. 

I already said that Mary did a great job in the action part. The director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan (previously worked as visual effects lead for few films and director of The Huntsman: Winter War) seemed capable of taking good shots on these fights. There was a car chase scene which looked a bit cartoonish but still fun to see. One thing that I really liked of this movie was the sound effects which was fantastic. It reminded me the feeling of watching action movie in the cinema with the sounds of bullet blazing, explosions and rest of them.

Aside from the names mentioned above, the film had few other support roles such as Michiel Huisman (The Flight Attendant TV series, The Age of Adaline etc) and Miyavi (Bleach, Unbroken etc). The newcomer Miku Martineau did a decent job portraying the teenager Ani, while Woody Harrelson performance was really standard. As the setting was all in Japan, obviously lots of Japanese were in this film mostly as Yakuza members. Btw, the Tokyo night sceneries were beautifully captured in here. Oh before I forgot, there was no mid or post end credit scene.

Overall this is a no nonsense action movie that did not take too long to get to the really interesting part. The plot was easy to understand and very predictable, so do not expect something sophisticated and just enjoy the ride. Those hard core R rated action movies fans would enjoy this, but it might not be appealing for audience who expect to have good story/script and brilliant performance. I myself liked this movie due to its simplicity and of course the action sequence. Now if you are looking for violent actions with female lead, then this should fit that category easily. However, if your preference is standard action with some romance, then this would not satisfy you.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars