When Netflix launched Gunpowder Milkshake on the heels of Marvel re-launching their cinematic universe with Black Widow, I declared this season at the movies Action Lady Summer. Now Netflix is doubling down on killer babes with Kate – a gory assassin drama set in a neon-drenched Tokyo underworld controlled by Yakuza organized crime clans.
Kate is mostly made-up of tried and true assassin movie elements built around the more unique addition of focusing its story on women: Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has been trained as a high-level assassin since childhood. Her handler, V (Woody Harrelson), has tasked her with taking-out a succession of top gangsters before killing their big boss. After a hit goes sloppy, Kate’s regrets find her wishing for a normal family life and she vows to quit after one last kill. However, she soon finds out she has less time to complete the job than she thought, and her professional life becomes an all-too-personal quest for vengeance even as she creates a motherly bond with the teenage daughter (Miku Martineau) of one of her victims.
Kate only has one notable twist – no spoilers – and it’s not likely that viewers who aren’t already fans of action crime films will want to sit through this one. That said, if you love bullet-riddled-martial-arts-crime-noir-movies you’ll probably love Kate. This film is locked and loaded for genre movie fans and it’s overflowing with criminal intrigue, ambitious stunts, blood-splattered fighting sequences and lots of gorgeous Japanese tattoo work. Kate reminds me that I haven’t seen enough people kicked through windows recently, and it’s been a minute since I saw someone improvise a pistol silencer out of junk found at a convenience store.
The film has generated a bit of online controversy as it’s been released in the wake of a surge of anti-Asian violence. But the criticism is irrational as Kate isn’t killing people for being Japanese, she’s killing them for being on the wrong side of a clan war in an actual, infamous organized crime culture that happens to be based in Tokyo. Kate is also a victim of this same system and its codes of honor, and her cooperation and connections with many of the Japanese characters in the film only underline how baseless the claims of racism are. These kinds of wolf cries only distract from actual incitements to anti-Asian violence, and its doubly unfortunate that a movie that successfully puts a woman at the center of a male-centric genre film has to defend itself from critics who don’t seem to have actually watched it.
Winstead is good in the title role. Her fighting skills are pretty unconvincing, but the choreography is more brutal than stylized and some of her awkwardness actually plays well as a result. Even if she’s not physically up to the bloody tasks at hand her commitment cannot be questioned, and she brings so much gusto to the film’s ubiquitous knife-play that she makes the movie’s countless stabbings as exhilarating as they are disturbing. Winstead is better at character work and she’s so convincing as a no-nonsense single-minded killer that her pangs for a normal family life seem as unconvincing to viewers as they do to V who insists “Two trips to Walmart, you’ll be back.” All the best films of Action Lady Summer count on woman actors who can believably embody the kind of character we traditionally associate with male actors, and Winstead’s performance is a big reason why Kate is currently Netflix’ top movie.