Beginning as a 1940s-era newsreel for some strange reason, Ninja: Shadow of a Tear picks up after the events of 2009’s flatly titled Ninja, with Caucasian gaijin Casey (Scott Adkins, Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning) living a happy life in Japan with his wife, Namiko (Mika Hijii, Alien vs. Ninja). Their marital bliss is short-lived, however, when Namiko is murdered while Casey’s out procuring Chocolate Thunder ice cream to soothe her pregnancy cravings.
Seeking respite at a Thai dojo run by Nakabara (Kane Kosugi, Pray for Death), Casey is much too grief-stricken to stay put, so with a slew of homemade ninja weapons and ninja potions, he flees to the Burmese jungle to take revenge on the persons responsible for Namiko’s death. All paths lead to Goro (Shun Sagata, Ichi the Killer), an aging drug lord who dispatches his victims with an infernal contraption of lassoed barbed wire. A lot of people die.
Very ’80s in its execution (no pun intended), Ninja: Shadow of a Tear — aka Ninja II — is a serviceable but unremarkable sequel from returning director Isaac Florentine (Undisputed III: Redemption). Its story is the least fulfilling factor; its martial arts sequences, superb. Looking more than a tad Affleckian, the charismatic Adkins is the real deal. He deserves to have a shot at a big-screen career that Jean-Claude Van Damme did, and if he had been born 20 years earlier, he likely would have. His ass-kicking skills make the action scenes easy for Florentine to shoot — all he has to do is keep his star within frame. Easy enough! —Rod Lott