“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” At face value, this appears to be the moral of Ninja’s Creed. And if it were, this film would have been a rather straightforward, predictable “accept your destiny” story. As is, this movie is much more—at least, it tries to be—and whether or not it reaches that level depends on your reaction to the last third of the movie. Me? I appreciate the effort, but it doesn’t excuse the shoddy execution. After all, a finger painting that aspires to be on the level of a Van Gogh work doesn’t get full credit just for the attempt.
The Uncle Ben-esque quote listed above is largely meant to motivate and possibly foreshadow the journey of the young girl at the center of this movie. This girl is Jan, played by the singularly-named LaLaine, who you might recognize as Miranda from Lizzie McGuire (don’t deny it, you definitely recognize her). Jan is the last remaining heir to a Himalayan empire, unbeknownst to her, of course. The evil Skanji Empire looks to take control by killing the princess, sending an assassin (Gail Kim) to do the job.
Now, the juxtaposition of the modern day and the ancient Asian empire is jarring at first, not helped by the shoddy editing at the very beginning of the film. The flashing visuals and cheesy voiceovers are meant to serve the massive amounts of exposition, and end up making the film look like a History Channel reenactment. The editing gets a bit better later on, and the effects are as laughable as you would expect from a film as low budget as this one. The thing that stands out the most, though, is the sound editing. Often, bits of exposition are cryptically whispered over and over, as if to pound an idea into the viewer’s head. Even worse, the male lead, a soldier named Adam sent to protect the princess, speaks almost exclusively in audio that’s obviously been recorded in the ADR stage (automated dialogue replacement) of post-production. It gives the film the feel of a dubbed-over kung fu movie, which is something I have the feeling the filmmakers weren’t going for.