"The Hunted" review

The Hunted (1995)

Directed by J.F. Lawton
Writing credits J.F. Lawton

Christopher Lambert.... Paul Racine
John Lone.... Kinjo
Joan Chen.... Kirina
Yoshio Harada.... Takeda Sensei
Yôko Shimada.... Mieko Takeda

Christopher Lambert is in Japan on business. He lucks out with a beautiful woman in red. Too bad she has been targeted to die by the ninja. Lambert survives the attack and is hunted for the rest of the movie while being protected by a grumpy samurai and his loyal wife.

The big question is this: Why is Christopher Lambert in this movie? There is a perfectly fine ninja movie going on and he fumbles his way into the middle of it. He's wounded throughout most of the movie, letting the samurai do most of the fighting. He springs to life near the end with a few hours of training allowing him to take on a wounded ninja. I can hear the pitch: "It's Highlander with ninjas!". No, it's not. Highlander was on vacation and we got Lambert with a limp.

Even though I'm perplexed by Lambert's presence, I still liked this flick. Plenty of good sword fights and blood to go around. The bullet train scene was great. The ending was a bit hokey but still full of blood soaked ninja mayhem.

SCORE: 3 out of 4 hunted Lamberts