Kate

It's the fingers that will make you grimace first. An assassin has our heroine's hair grabbed in his fist and to escape she reaches back with her knife and cuts both her hair and his digits off and then before you even choke out a startled profanity she slits his throat and then rams the knife up into the soft underside of his chin until the blade bursts out of his nose. It's here you'll pause the film, look at the age rating and realise 15 cert films have gotten brutally violent these days. 

Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is goosed. She's an American woman who's been working as an assassin for a Japanese Yakuza syndicate since she was a child. As an orphan she was trained for her bloody future by an American handler called Varrick (Woody Harrelson) and years later after carrying out a hit that goes against her personal code of ethics she decides she wants out and she's told she'll gain her freedom after one final job. Ahh the final job, always a disaster. As soon as she tries to carry it out she realises she's been poisoned and now she must find out who's responsible before the sins of her past come to take a fatal bite out of her future.

John Wick crossed with D.O.A. That's Kate in a nutshell. It's never good when you can describe a film as a simple combination of others. That's how derivative Kate is. It hasn't an original idea in it's head and it's twists are ones you'll see coming even if you're looking at your phone (don't be that person btw, those people are dicks). All it's missing is a child for Kate to loo......oh no, that old cliche gets rocked out too when she finds herself saddled with Ani, a teenage girl who's life has intertwined with Kate's in a rather unpleasant fashion. With her along for the ride will Kate find a new found reason to live?? Yeah, those aul tropes just keep coming don't they.

But now, here's the thing. Despite all of that Kate's an entertaining watch because of Kate herself. She knows she's fucked so she doesn't give a fuck anymore. With no fear of dying there's no need to worry about being killed. She blitzes through roomfuls of yakuza like a warm knife through room temperature butter. Japanese paper walls are soaked through with gallons of blood in sequences that will have you laughing in disbelief at their viciousness and just when you think the optics of a white American murdering dozens of Japanese men might be a bit iffy in pops Jun Kunimura, a very familiar face in Japanese cinema as head crime boss Kijimato to add a whole dose of cool and make things a bit less lopsided. His time to shine in the climax comes in the form of a swordfight so expertly carried out it would make Zatoichi himself turn to the screen and give us a thumbs up.

But it's Winstead in full on, invincible, Jane Wick (Yes I know, I hate myself for typing that too) mode that powers us along, putting in an intensely physical and believable turn. There's no quick cutaways or murky camerawork here, she's in the middle of every neck stabbing, head pulverising scrap. One slo-mo snippet of her on the way to make her destiny is guaranteed to be GIF material for years to come. She's so enjoyable in the titular part that it goes a long way to help cover up the films deficiencies, one of whom is Harrelson surprisingly. Usually a reliable face in a film, here it feels like he's in it for a quick payday, getting all of 5 minutes screentime and roboting his way through them.  As Ani Miku Martineau will have you wanting her to get in the way of a stray bullet seconds after Kate meets her but to her credit, she will start growing on you, especially she she figures out the improper use of a meat tenderiser. 

Director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan has an eye for cool visuals, and is obviously capable to creating some great, well lit, easy to follow action. Hopefully his next outing will have a script to match his skills.

Kate is out now on Netflix.