Action movies, like other genres, tend to release in packs, meaning a success will usually result in a stream of similarly styled films. The big hit in recent years has been the John Wick franchise, and that means every other action movie features fights, choreography, and set-pieces clearly inspired by the Keanu Reeves-starring series. The trick is to to both deliver with that action but also find your own voice along the way, and that’s something that most of these “copycats” seem unable to do. Kate is the latest film to to take its shot, and while it delivers where it matters most — the action, obviously — it suffers imposter syndrome elsewhere.
“I’m dying,” says Mary Elizabeth Winstead‘s poisoned assassin, “I have to finish something.” The something she has in mind is a heaping pile of revenge targeting those responsible for her incurable condition, and as she stalks them through the streets of a neon-lit Japanese city the radiation eats away at her body. Discoloration, burnt skin, a blood-streaked eye — Kate is not in good shape, but the next twenty-four hours are going to leave a lot of people feeling far worse.
Kate’s bad luck kicks in when her latest hit forces her hand leaving the target’s young daughter splashed with his blood. Nearly a year later, the other shoe drops when a one-night stand slips her a deadly mickey, and all clues point towards it being an act of revenge that earlier assassination. What looks to be the last day and night of her life sees her cross paths with dozens of yakuza, her mentor Varrick (Woody Harrelson), and the little girl, Ani (Miku Martineau), whose life Kate altered with a single bullet.
Kate‘s plot is as simple as that, and along with some backstory and a third-act reveal that wouldn’t surprise a toddler, the script by Umair Aleem (Extraction, 2015) feels almost like a color by numbers affair. Happily, the numbers (body count) are high, and the colors are vibrant, sharp, and frequently centered around blood red. You know what’s coming plot-wise at every turn, but if you’re an action fan you probably won’t care all that much.
Director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan (The Huntsman: Winter’s War, 2016) knows the action is the key, and he’s assembled the ideal team for the job in producers David Leitch & Kelly McCormick, cinematographer Lyle Vincent, and stunt coordinator Jonathan Eusebio (fight coordinator on all three John Wick films). That’s not to imply it’s a grounded affair, though, as the film embraces a certain cartoonish sensibility at times that works more often than not. One exception is an early car chase that feels crafted almost entirely with digital effects — 2008’s Speed Racer comes to mind, but where that film spends its entirety in the digital realm the visual style feels out of place here.
The rest of Kate‘s action, though, offers up some energetic fun with bloody knife fights, pseudo-martial arts, and blistering gunplay. One highlight sees Kate arrive at an exclusive teahouse/restaurant with monochrome paper walls, and as her search for answers sees her work through numerous yakuza members the blood flows freely. Crimson splashes decorate the walls (and floors and camera lens…), bodies crash through tables, and there’s a sweaty physicality to it all allowing viewers to feel every hit. Nicolas-Troyan never attempts anything resembling fancy long-takes, but the editing and camera typically work together to highlight the choreography without the temptation of rapid-fire cuts.
While the technical merits are more than competent here, one big reason Kate‘s action works to impress and entertain is Winstead. She’s no real-life martial artist or fighter, but her physical movements and the way she carries herself make for a compellingly believable character. Yes, of course she has stunt doubles, but Winstead carries much of the physical load herself and delivers hits with weighted focus and intense grunts. A one-on-one apartment brawl is less about the artistry of movement and more about pure brutality, and she sells both sides of that equation. “You’re a badass killer motherfucker,” says Ani after a few close calls and bloody beatdowns, and viewers will find it hard to disagree.
Winstead’s Kate is also a likable killer — an expected turn in genre cinema that isn’t typically the case in the real world — and she balances the character’s early excitement at the possibility of retiring with her far more pessimistic reality. She’s dying, the film commits to the setup as there’s no hint of an antidote, and she grows progressively worse as both the beatings and poison take their toll. Martineau makes her feature debut here, and while the character risks being annoying she powers through on personality. The supporting cast also includes Michiel Huisman, Miyavi, and Tadanobu Asano.
It’s worth pointing out that by the very nature of its story and setting, Kate is a film about a white person cutting a swathe through Asian bodies. She’s far from the first to do so on the screen as the likes of Robert Mitchum (The Yakuza, 1974) and Michael Douglas (Black Rain, 1989) preceded her — and the flip side has been done too in films like Revenge of the Ninja (1983) — but that element alone might be enough to turn some viewers. The story could just as easily have been set elsewhere, but the choice was made here most likely for various visual aesthetics including gang members’ tattooed skin, the neon-lit cityscape, and an entertaining detour into a bathhouse. It works, and the film’s visuals are rarely dull, but your mileage may vary.
Kate owes a clear debt to both John Wick and La Femme Nikita, respectively, for its action and narrative, but while the latter falls flat — unnecessary flashbacks feel ripped straight out of Luc Besson’s 1990 action classic — the former delivers fun, occasionally exhilarating thrills. It’s an attractive film that succeeds in its action-oriented entertainment. No single element will blow action movie fans away, necessarily, but in a world where there can never be enough diversions it’s a hundred-minutes well spent.
