A dying person has nothing left to lose. If you know that X thing is going to kill you soon, then in a way you have been given a gift. A gift you may not want, but a gift nonetheless. Knowing your hourglass is about to run out of sand lets you finish up whatever business you need to and, hopefully, do it in style. Kate (2021) shows us the journey of a dying woman intent on making the most of this final gift by giving it out to as many enemies as possible.
The titular Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is a highly skilled sniper/assassin who’s been working with her handler, Varrick (Woody Harrelson), for years to take out the two brothers at the top of the yakuza ranks. In the opening scenes she assassinates one of the brothers in front of his daughter (talk about collateral damage! Hello, therapist bills!). Months later, she’s all set to take out the other brother, Kijima (Jun Kunimura), and complete her years-long mission with plans to retire afterwards. She suddenly falls ill and misses the shot. She discovers she’s been poisoned with a radioactive substance that will kill her in ~24 hours. Being a “the glass is half-full” kind of assassin, Kate decides to make the most of her remaining hours by hunting down her poisoners and returning their gift in kind.
Kate resembles John Wick in many ways (charismatic, unexpected actor as hardened assassin, one assassin on a revenge mission, criminal underworld, frequent conversations between bad guys). But John Wick had just the right level of action while Kate comes up a bit short. The action presented is terrific, particularly the hand-to-hand fight scenes which make great use of both location and props, but the pacing always seems too slow slow slow when I want it to go go go. For example, when Kijima faces off against another yakuza clan member, Renji (Tadanobu Asano), in a sword fight, you might think, “Alright! We’ll get some excellent sword play here.” Nope. Kijima swings twice, cutting Renji in the tum-tum before decapitating him. Welp. That fight was over so fast it makes Indy’s battle against the ninja in Raiders of the Lost Ark look like a twenty-episode anime battle.
Kate herself isn’t the easiest character to root for initially. John Wick works, in part, because Keanu Reeves’ exudes a gentle goodness no matter his role and has a sympathetic backstory and set-up right out of the gate to get the action going. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is a terrific actor with charisma for miles, but her character’s sympathetic background isn’t known until the middle to end of the film, when things finally unfold enough to let us start rooting for Kate and her mission a bit more. That should have happened way, way earlier.
Even though the story’s predictable plot points stack up to the height of Mt. Everest, it’s a decent enough time. The slow parts aren’t that bad, and the strong cast and terrific fight scenes help prop things up from dragging too deeply.
Spoilers: I appreciated the bittersweet moment between Varrick and Kate at the end. You finally see that Varrick loves Kate like a daughter but his actions to try to become incorporated into the yakuza clan have put him at odds with Kate and ultimately led to her poisoning. Right before they have an old fashioned quick draw, a flashback appears showing Varrick teaching a young Kate if you shoot someone in the stomach, it means it’s personal because they die a slow agonizing death. Then, they each shoot each other in the stomach. Kate survives long enough to watch Varrick die, then passes herself. A fitting end to a story filled with blood, betrayal, and revenge.
Action Rating: 3 Hour Glasses, out of 5
Disclaimer: Just because I am the Action Flick Chick and love action movies does not mean I condone real life violence in any way. Everyone has their own shit to deal with, be nice to each other.
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