Directed by: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan
Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Miku Martineau, Woody Harrelson, Jun Kunimura
Rated R, 106 minutes
Someday, Mary Elizabeth Winstead will get the leading role she deserves, but her role in “Kate” isn’t it. The actress, who had her breakout role in 2010’s “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” and has more recently appeared in thrillers like “Birds of Prey” and “Gemini Man,” has an innate on-screen gravitas, almost reminiscent of a young Sigourney Weaver. Were an “Alien” remake in the works, Winstead would be an obvious choice for the role of Ripley.
Instead, we have “Kate,” an unimaginative bloodbath whose greatest novelty is the many ways in which the title assassin kills Yakuza henchmen. Set in Japan, the movie follows Kate, poisoned with Polonium-204 and given only a day to live, as she seeks revenge against the Yakuza boss responsible for her poisoning. She shoots and stabs her way through marketplaces and teahouses, littering the floors with the bodies of disposable thugs in her quest to find her killer, the calm but ruthless Kijima (Jun Kunimura, “Kill Bill: Vol. 1”), and make sure he dies before she does. It’s a simple plot, executed with all the plodding momentum of a subway train. Unfortunately, what few plot twists there are—her poisoning is itself an act of revenge, or so Kate thinks—are predictable from the movie’s opening minutes, giving “Kate” a dullness it never polishes away.
What “Kate” lacks in storytelling finesse it sometimes makes up for in other ways. Visually, the movie boasts a sleek metropolitan look full of neon pinks and blues, giving the production the feel of sci-fi or even cyberpunk, even though it’s nothing of the sort. In the movie’s lone car chase, those neon colors take over the screen completely, creating an effect somewhere between “Speed Racer” and a Las Vegas marquee. It’s the only such moment in the movie, but it stands out for its saturated excess. Another standout is Miku Martineau, in her first movie role, playing Kijima’s niece Ani. Martineau shows a promising range, although Ani’s rapid shifts—one minute she’s a fun-loving teenager, the next an indignant victim of mob politics, then a sly femme fatale—only draw our attention to the inconsistent and sometimes incomprehensible script, written by Umair Aleem (“Extraction”).
Most admirable in the film, though, are its effects, those “how’d they do that?” shots, which make the movie’s abundant fight scenes uniquely striking. This much is unsurprising; Cedric Nicolas-Troyan made his name not on directing but on visual effects (he was nominated for an Oscar in 2013 for his work on “Snow White and the Huntsman”). Fittingly, this is the one area where “Kate” consistently succeeds, and Nicolas-Troyan makes sure we always get a clear view of his tricks, whether it’s a knife jammed up through a henchman’s chin and sticking out cleanly through the bridge of his nose, or a man beheading his enemy with a sword. “Kate” is gory, sure, but its gore is unnervingly realistic.
These achievements are overshadowed, however, by Nicolas-Troyan’s uninspired direction elsewhere. Color scheme aside, the camerawork is often plain and uninteresting, a waste of good lighting; the set pieces are similarly ordinary, all recognizably future-chic but lacking any personality. Meanwhile, the movie’s score, never daring to make an impression, melts forgettably into the background. Stylized in a manner that calls to mind better movies like “Blade Runner 2049” and “Kill Bill,” but without ever staking out a claim for itself, “Kate” too often reads as an homage by a beginner whose tastes still exceed his talents.
That just leaves Kate herself: exhausted from all the killing, exhausted from the poison that slowly kills her, exhausted from being a pawn in someone else’s game. Mary Elizabeth Winstead has worked her way up through a series of action movies to be standing in the spotlight by herself, and for that “Kate” is commendable, but like the assassin she capably plays, she’s collateral damage in a production that treats her as an unfeeling instrument. To some degree, that’s the point; the movie reserves its harshest criticism for those crooks who use people and discard them once they’ve outlived their usefulness. As Kijima himself puts it, “it’s their way to take and take until there’s nothing left.” But whereas Kate goes through hell to reclaim the life that’s been taken from her, the movie around her lazily makes her into an object of pity, letting down its own heroine.
Originally published in The Harvard Press on 9/17/21.