THE HUNTED
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1995 James Berardinelli
RATING (0 TO 10): 4.1
U.S. Availability: wide release on 2/24/95 Running Length: 1:50 MPAA Classification: R (Violence, sex, nudity, language)
Starring: Christopher Lambert, John Lone, Yoshio Harada, Yoko Shimada,
Joan Chen
Director: J.F. Lawton
Producers: John Davis and Gary W. Goldstein
Screenplay: J.F. Lawton
Cinematography: Jack Conroy
Music: Motofumi Yamaguchi
Released by Universal Pictures
In English and Japanese with subtitles
Somewhere, sometime, someone is going to present an intelligent, suspenseful look into the role of the ninja in modern day Japan. However, if THE HUNTED is an indication, the filmmaker to do it won't be J. F. Lawton. This gratuitously gory tale of clashing ninja warlords is so poorly written that it makes another Lawton script, PRETTY WOMAN, seem like GREAT EXPECTATIONS in comparison.
I won't claim there's nothing worthwhile about THE HUNTED. This isn't one of those "so-bad-you-want-to-hide-your-face-as-you-emerge" motion pictures. Here and there, it's possible to distinguish a few good points. Unfortunately, it takes a less discriminating eye to pick out flaws. Not only are they more obvious, but they're in greater abundance.
First of all, you'd have to be almost brain-dead to miss the huge gaps in plot logic. When the nasty, totally ruthless, never-before-been- beaten Kinjo (John Lone) shows up to kill call girl Karina (Joan Chen), he pointedly instructs her that she's the only one ever to see his face. Then, who should walk in on the tableau but Paul Racine (Christopher Lambert), Karina's latest lover, who just happens to have left his keys behind in her rooms. The first thing he witnesses is Karina getting decapitated. Then he becomes the second person in one night to see Kinjo's face. Funny thing, though, is that he survives. Sure, he gets cut up a little, but none of the ninjas bother to finish him off.
Racine, a U.S. businessman on a trip to Japan, is played by the distinctly un-American sounding Christopher Lambert, who displays the same lack of ability in this role that he brought to Tarzan and the Highlander. After hooking up with another top-flight ninja master (Yoshio Harada), Racine gets to observe a couple of brutal massacres before finally getting to the inevitable duel-to-the-death with Kinjo. This grand finale is so absurd that it's laughable. Among other things, it asks the age-old question of how many times you can stick a man with a sword, collapse a building on top of him, and smash his head in with a stone before he finally stops trying to kill you.
Once, Joan Chen was a respected actress. However, after taking one too many "meal ticket"-type roles, her career got derailed, and now she seems relegated to thankless roles like the one here. John Lone, another slumming actor who has seen better roles, brings some gusto to his portrayal of Kinjo. He's not a great villain, but he's the best example of acting THE HUNTED offers.
As a travelogue of Japan, this film isn't half-bad. It depicts a variety of city and rural scenery, and is nicely photographed (including an artsy black-and-white dream sequence). The lively score (by Motofumi Yamaguchi) heightens the picture's visual merits. Curiously, however, considering the action-oriented audience the movie is aimed at, THE HUNTED comes complete with a heavy does of subtitles. For the most part, the Japanese characters in this film actually speak Japanese.
There are many degrees of "bad" movies, from the unwatchable to the almost-enjoyable. Dubious though its entertainment value may be, THE HUNTED nevertheless belongs in the latter category. It's far too energetic to be boring, and the endless bloodbaths and swordfights maintain a certain level of audience involvement. In many ways, it's like a finely-polished, glossy bauble--pleasant to look at, but only in a superficial way, because scratching the surface reveals the tarnish underneath.
- James Berardinelli (jberardinell@delphi.com)
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