Kate
NETFLIXNot a star in Hollywood deserves her leading role right now more than Mary Elizabeth Winstead. In Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), Winstead’s performance as Huntress shows the makings of a legitimate action star. It is good that her latest film, Kate, demonstrates precisely why a Huntress HBO Max spinoff would be in Warner Bros’s best interests, though it is a shame that most of the material in Netflix’s latest production is entirely predictable and borrows heavily from better action movies.
Directed by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, who helmed 2016’s The Huntsman: Winter’s War, the film follows Winstead as Kate, an assassin who has been tasked to kill the top Yakuza Boss in Tokyo, Kijima (Jun Kunimura), by her mentor and handler, Varrick (Woody Harrelson). During her mission, she gets poisoned and learns that she only has 24 hours to live. She must now find Kijima and the men responsible for her poisoning for one last revenge-fueled night.
After The Huntsman: Winter’s War, Troyan can only go up from there. In Kate, he has got a great sense of visual kineticism in his action sequences, which act as a great tribute to Japanese cinema and great Yakuza films of the past. Its first significant setpiece, a hyper-visualised car chase staged to the sounds of Band Maid’s Blooming, is incredibly exciting and arresting to watch. As the music becomes an integral part of Kate’s high-speed journey to escape the hands of Kijima’s henchmen, Lyle Vincent’s cinematography starts to light up and deliver the high-octane, no-holds-barred actioner as promised by the film’s trailer and neon-filled posters. Moreover, while there is a valid criticism of Japan being used as a backdrop for a bisexual-lighting action film with a white saviour protagonist, Winstead commands every ounce of screen-time she is given during those action sequences Troyan’s visual mastery cannot be forgotten.
Kate contains some of the most expertly choreographed action scenes of the year that could make every audience member in the right state of mind for a purely escapist film applaud at how effortlessly cool its action scenes are. From a black and white tea room sequence where Kate must confront innumerable henchmen to a never-ending chase scene inside a dark alley and its highly entertaining climax, action film fans – specifically Yakuza film fans, such as Sydney Pollack’s The Yakuza or Kinji Fukusaku’s Battles Without Honor and Humanity – will have a blast seeing Winstead dominate the screen and have so much fun bringing life one of the most compelling female action protagonists of the year.
It is just a shame that the film’s script is relatively tepid and predictable, with its main threat – or Kate’s source of poisoning – already being established during its opening sequence. As soon as Woody Harrelson appears during the film’s first sequence, his demeanour screams “BAD GUY!” and . . . lo and behold! Troyan never hides the fact that Harrelson will eventually double-cross Kate, and his motivations are as superfluous as the supposed main antagonist of the film, Renji (Tadanobu Asano), who wants to take over Kijima’s operations. However, it is good to see Jun Kunimura give yet another legendary performance in the film’s most emotional sequence, where Kate learns the truth of her poisoning. This is where the film's emotional crux reaches its boiling point, and it never lets up from here.
When the film focuses on its action and protagonists, it rocks harder than anyone ever expected it to be. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is a bonafide action star, and her performance in Kate’s numerous adrenaline-inducing action sequences perfectly demonstrates why she deserves any form of future success, plus Troyan’s effortless aesthetic to make everything pop visually should be commended as a daring feat of visual kineticism and a celebration of the great Yakuza films of the past, whilst simultaneously infusing life inside every frame. That alone should be lauded at attempting to do something different compared to the plethora of CGI-driven blockbusters released this year, and Kate should be celebrated in that regard by everyone who dares to enter its coked-up Crank-like world. Nevertheless, beware of a rather uninspired story.