A grotesquely violent cult favorite flop scatters a frenzy of severed body parts on streaming

Bad movies are a lot more likely to secure cult favorite status than good ones, for the sole reason that there’s no point in even trying to interpret them as high art. That being said, based on the title alone, Ninja Assassin was never designed to catch on with critics and place itself in the running for awards season glory.

There’s no point in trying to deny that Wachowski protege James McTeigue’s jaw-droppingly violent martial arts actioner isn’t very good – with respective Rotten Tomatoes scores of 26 and 54 percent from reviewers and ravenous gorehounds underlining that sentiment – but what do you expect from a film that is quite literally about an assassin who is also a ninja?

If you want spurting geysers of blood, dismembered body parts strewn all over the screen, gratuitous decapitations, and a body count that spirals into the hundreds all set against barely-perceptible lighting and infuriatingly dim cinematography, then Ninja Assassin is quite frankly a blast.

True to form, the box office bomb that earned only a shade over $60 million from theaters against production costs of $50 million has been cementing its unabashed credentials as a dementedly over-the-top extravaganza of unfiltered brutality for the umpteenth time on streaming, with FlixPatrol naming it as a Top 10 hit on streaming in upwards of a dozen countries around the world.

If you want in-depth character work then look elsewhere, but if it’s seeing arms, legs, torsos, and even faces being sliced off in borderline masochistic style, then what are you waiting for?