by John P. Meyer

Does it make the cut? (You'd better believe it.)

V for Vendetta director James McTeigue's entry into the Thanksgiving weekend movie release fray comes by way of the bloody, Oriental-themed actioner Ninja Assassin. For those with a high threshold for violence -- and a fondness for pseudo-mystical kung fu tomfoolery -- this may well be the go-to film of the season.

Ex boy-bander Rain stars as Raizo, a hunky ex-ninja trying to fly low under the seemingly all-seeing radar of the assassin clan he used to belong to. When he goes to the laundromat, pretty ninja girls make passes at him -- with their deadly edged weapons. When he leaves, their heads are spinning. (In the dryer.)

Flashbacks to Raizo's childhood introduce us to the clan members who are currently out to get him in Berlin. There, he's struggling to protect a lovely Interpol agent named Mika (Naomie Harris) who has stumbled upon a ninja-scented trail connecting a series of high-profile assassinations. Chief among the characters who shaped Raizo's past is a ruthless sensei named Ozunu (martial arts movie veteran Shô Kosugi). Clan leader Ozunu's gig involves taking orphans and indoctrinating them into the ninja lifestyle, which basically makes them indomitable in a sword fight and invulnerable to detection by ordinary humans (at least until the last reel of this film). As an unfortunate side effect of their rigorous training, they will be beaten to bloody pulps and end up with lots of scar tissue.

(Remember that old chestnut about not bringing a knife to a gunfight? In the case of these ninja chaps, you can throw it out the window. Along with your severed gun hand, which -- in any case -- is just sitting there staining the carpet.)

In terms of staging the fight scenes (which come one right after another, genre fans should be pleased to hear), McTeigue has the plot working in his favor, because as we all know ninjas are all about stealth -- which means they skulk around and attack out of the shadows. Which means we don't really expect to see all their moves in vivid, well-lit detail. Which also means that the filmmakers and visual effects crews need not be as literal or comprehensive in their depiction of the action, since much of the movements take place in utter darkness.

I don't mean to imply that the action sequences suffer from this approach -- in fact, there's a certain amount of thrill derived from the fact that we often don't know from whence the next cut is coming until the torso cleaving actually occurs. I'm merely pointing out that this heavily edited and digitally manipulated kind of action is of a different sort than the kind of realistic, artfully choreographed fights we see, for instance, in Ong Bak 2.

If Harris seems a bit adrift in her role as the harried heroine, we'll give her the benefit of the doubt by saying she doesn't really have a meaty part to work with here. For their parts, Rain and Kosugi play off each other effectively as the good vs. evil personifications of the whole ninja concept.

The adrenaline-injected highlight of the movie comes when Raizo carries out his first assassination assignment. He'll need to draw upon all his years of training (including those numerous lessons on pain management) to overcome a hulking brute known as Kingpin (Stephen Marcus), who he confronts in the men's room of a public building. Kingpin isn't one to drop at the first sign of injury, and the bathroom is soon transformed into an abattoir.

While the story didn't start out as a comic book (pardon me, graphic novel), it bloody well should have. Credit that distinctive visual vibe in part to co-writers Matthew Sand (who wrote the story) and Babylon 5 guy J. Michael Straczynski (who assisted with the screenplay).

Forget the sappy adolescent romance subplot: go see Ninja Assassin for the frenetic action thrills.

And the Audi sedan with embedded shuriken option.

What do you think?