My Review of "Kate"

Kate is one of Netflix's latest action films to come out in 2021. I was a little at odds with this movie because it looks like another Last Samurai movie. It had white savior written all over it especially since it's story takes place in Japan. The weird thing is that this movie takes itself seriously and is somewhat aware of itself at the same time.

The movie starts off with our hero Kate who is on an assassination mission. She's a hired killer that has been ordered to take out a high ranking Yakuza member. Just before she pulls the trigger she realizes her mark has brought his teenage daughter with him on his trip. Kate suddenly has hesitation in what she is doing with her life.

She's a professional so she has to evaluate the situation. Eventually she gets part of the job done. It's a botched mission and she has to go to her superior to let him know that this will be her last assignment. She doesn't want to continue in this type of work. Of course, there will be hesitation from her boss and you can tell that something is going to happen to her because of her decision.

This main part of the movie is quite predictable. You can see the writing on the wall as to what's going to happen. Fortunately they were able to put a little twist to this story albeit a kind of unbelievable one.

Kate has a one night stand with some stranger at a bar and this stranger poisons her with radiation. I know it sounds so crazy already. At this point of the movie it almost felt like the movie Crank but with a more serious tone. They tried to play this story off as if it was realistic and in the back of my mind I thought it was ludicrous but maybe that's the comedy of this movie?

As a badass she wants to finish the job she's been tasked and figure out why she was poisoned. As the audience we can all sort of see what is eventually going to happen.

There are unbelievable crazy action sequences for all of the action lovers out there. You'll like the choreography and the stylistic approach they went with in terms of color and composition of these fights.

Throughout the movie I felt kind of off about the movie because I've seen too many movies where white people come into Asian cities and just demolish the Asian people in combat. Meanwhile they use the cities to create some sort of stylistic look and aesthetic of what we stereotypically think of the culture. In some ways it feels like a weird method of cultural appropriation while making the hero look like some sort of superhero.

The ending does have a bit of a twist that helps us understand that the writers of the movie kind of knew people would think this. There's a bit of a twist that kind of proves that they are aware of what kind of movie it was but it still feels like they did this all and then they apologize for it at the very end.

I have no doubt a lot of people will enjoy this movie but for some reason I felt a little wrong in certain scenes of the movie. It was sort of like a guilt of why am I watching this movie? That's not to say it's a horrible movie. Like I said earlier a lot of people will enjoy this movie and perhaps that's what made me feel uncomfortable.

Overall, I didn't fall asleep so it is an entertaining enough movie. I just didn't feel comfortable throughout the runtime of the movie. That's just me though. I can say that there will be a lot of people that will feel comfortable watching the movie and I would say yes go ahead and enjoy. For me, I have to give this movie a 5.5 out of 10. There are some good performances and it's a good cohesive story. I just wouldn't recommend it to my friends.