You knew it was only a matter of time. After boat and plane weeks in previous months, this is Do Not Get on That Train week. The Hunted starring Christopher Lambert is currently available on instant Netflix.
WATCH: The Hunted (1995) – Rated R.
“New York executive Paul Racine (Christopher Lambert) is on a business trip in Tokyo, where he meets a mysterious woman and witnesses a grisly assassination by a ruthless ninja cult. Now, on the run for his life, his only hope is to become a master of swordplay and team with some samurai to stop the merciless band of killers. John Lone, Yoshio Harada and Joan Chen co-star in this action-packed martial arts spectacular.”
“How much blood do I have to bathe in to get clean?”
First up on Train week is the cheese-tastic Christopher Lambert. Christopher is somewhat relegated to the B-movie market. He has enough charisma to carry a film but not enough to be a breakout star (plus the accent hurts him a bit). He acts well enough to show up background players but mostly just mugs his way through movies. His style is definitely an acquired taste but he can be quite fun.
This is not his most famous part – Highlander is easily his signature role. Having said that The Hunted is probably his best film. This is in part because, while Lambert is the star of the film and the main character, the focus of the story falls on three strong parts, all played by stronger actors.
Kirina is the catalyst for all of the events that occur in the film. She is played, albeit briefly, by the radiant Joan Chen. Kirina is amazingly sexy and a very powerful female role. In her scenes with Lambert, you will not even notice him. Joan Chen is perhaps best known as Jocelyn Packard in the Twin Peaks series and was recently in Lust, Caution. I really like that her spirit haunts not only our hero, Racine (Lambert) but our villain as well.
Speaking of which our chief villain Kinjo is played by John Lone. While he is quite ruthless, it is clear that he is tortured by the spirit of Kirina. This sets up an intriguing segue where he confronts the man who hired him to kill her. John Lone does a good job and turns in a thankfully nuanced performance as the head of the ninjas. The only drawback is the old cliche that this was to be his last job.
Our third actor to upstage is Yoshio Harada. While he hardly speaks a word of English in the film, he is riveting as Takeda Sensei, a martial arts instructor and descendant of samurai. I love the way he nonchalantly walks away after killing the first ninja. Yoshio Harada has had a long and distinguished acting career and has won many awards in Japan.
Although their characters are not as good as Kirina, there are two other strong female roles in the film. Yoko Shimada plays Mieko Takeda and Mari Natsuki plays Junko. While they are on opposite sides, both ladies are heavily involved in the action and neither is a shrinking violet.
J.F. Lawton not only directed but also wrote this film. He does an incredible job with both roles here. His writing integrates an age-old samurai vs. ninja conflict with a modern action story in a way that works far better than the more recent Ninja Assassin. His direction gets good performances from all of his actors as well as featuring several wonderful action set pieces.
I have to say that I would recommend this film on the basis of a single scene alone. There is an amazing fight that takes place on the Japanese Bullet Train as the ninjas move from car to car eliminating everyone. It is definitely one of my all-time favorite martial arts scenes.
A lot of the credit for the action sequences has to be given to the marvelous Taiko (drum) score used in the film. Kodo is listed as the composer here as well as for original music.
I highly recommend this very fun action film, particularly if you like sword-fights or ninjas.
For those of you with set top boxes, this movie is presented in gorgeous HD. For some reason Netflix has this film listed as Hunted instead of The Hunted, perhaps so as not to confuse it with the later The Hunted with Tommy Lee Jones.
People Watch: James Saito plays (boss) Nemura here. He is better known to American audiences as Dr. Frank Chen on Eli Stone.
