On the other, you have a familiar plot and a recycled script without much originality. On the one hand, you have some cool action beats and a terrific performance by Winstead. It’s her show all the way.Īll of this makes Kate a mixed bag for Netflix. Michael Huisman from Game of Thrones is wasted in a throwaway role, whereas Harrelson never really gets in on the action with Winstead. They even managed to entice some legit Japanese heavyweight actors into the cast, including Jun Kunimura (from The Wailing) and Tadanobu Asano, but only Kunimura gets a substantial part. Director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan makes the most out of his Japanese locations, and the Nathan Barr score works in many Japanese pop tunes that give the film some authentic atmosphere.
It’s doubly odd that they would green-light such standard fare when they’ve put a lot of money and creativity into it.
#ACTRESS FROM KATE NETFLIX MOVIE#
As if any hardcore action fans are watching this that isn’t at least passingly familiar with Luc Besson’s film, which is still arguably the best hitwoman movie of all time. Even worse, there’s an origin scene where Harrelson sends her to kill someone with an empty gun that seems copied from La Femme Nikita.
How many times have we seen an assassin movie where they’re haunted by a job gone wrong that involved a kid? Here, the titular Kate ends up protecting the daughter of the Yakuza boss she killed previously from upstarts, saving the girl from having a future like hers.Įven Kate‘s origin that she was recruited as a child by Woody Harrelson seems painfully familiar to Black Widow. Still, it’s too bad that Winstead, who has an intense vibe that makes her a convincing badass, is saddled with such a lame hitwoman storyline. There’s also a killer battle royale with Japanese pop star Miyavi, which alone makes this well worth watching. She moves well and looks good handling all the weaponry, but it’s the hard-to-hand/ edged weapons fights that work well, such as an extended blow-out in a Japanese Yakuza bathhouse. Winstead, who’s only in her mid-thirties, seems more than up to the challenge, plunging herself into the action. Indeed, one of the things that make 87North’s movies so remarkable is that they often turn unlikely performers into action heroes, with them recently reinventing Bob Odenkirk in Nobody. Coming from David Leitch, Chad Stahelski and Kelly McCormick’s 87North Productions, you can rest assured that the action looks pretty good here, with Winstead looking like she’s doing a lot of her stunts. Kate would be eminently forgettable with a less committed lead performance and action that wasn’t executed as well. Heck the premise has already been reinvented for the 21st century with Crank, with the only real difference in Kate being that the protagonist is now female.Īrguably, Kate is only really worth watching for the action design and that Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays the lead. The “twenty-four hours to live” scenario has been done to death, going back to the 1949 film noir classic D.O.A.
REVIEW: Netflix’s Kate is nothing if not familiar. Before succumbing to radiation sickness due to her poisoning, she opts to use her last twenty-four hours to find and kill those responsible, cutting a bloody swath through the Tokyo Underworld. PLOT: A contract killer ( Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is poisoned on the eve of her final assignment.