The Character of “The Huntress” in Birds Of Prey played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead will be greatly admired by comic book fans (Guess who). And this is one reason that when actors/ess that play superheroes/villains roles take up the elitist deadly female assassin role, viewers like myself pick up a quick interest. Kate has Mary Elizabeth Winstead playing the lead role and has Varrick (Woody Harrelson) as her handler. The female assassin lead is beginning to gain prominence on our screens, we have seen characters like Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman, Kill Bill), Ava (Jessica Chastain, Ava), Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie, Salt) amongst others, and if you have seen these types of movies, you may have built a mental map of how the movie Kate could play out in your brain, and in most cases, you would have checked out the basic boxes and will be right. For example, we can easily draw similarities to Ava (Jessica Chastain) and Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie); these were assassins that both had handlers from their youth. This is probably the same with Beatrix kiddo, and you will not find it missing in this movie.  

Having this in mind, the informed viewer will want to go beyond the basic murder-for-hire script and will constantly be on the lookout for what will be different about this movie. Firstly, it is set in Osaka, Japan, and ushers you into the world of the Yakuza. It’s one thing to be an assassin, and yet another to kill people that are assassins. The viewer can expect to see how a story goes from the regular hire-to-kill pattern, mutates into a tale of revenge, and then morphs into an all-out civil war amongst assassination squads. There will be twists, but they will be fairly predictable.  

If you love a movie to take you to places that you have never been before (Like me), then perhaps this movie will show you some satisfying sights and sounds of Japan. The beautiful drone shots that make a city come alive on your screen; the vibrant indoor club settings are not missing as shown in a scene where Kate seeks out a target, and of course, the movie is laced with music that was played intermittently indicating to the viewer that Japan is definitely not left behind as far as pop culture is concerned. Most of the music played was in the local language.  

Early fight scenes in the movie can easily transport the viewer to the scene in Kill Bill where Beatrix battles The Crazy 88; more with the scenery though but not froth with any Quentin Tarantino-type blood splash. With the fight choreography, you can expect to see substantial machine gun fire, breaking glass, and car crashes. 

As with different movies of this nature, assassins come with different personalities, the viewer may not perceive Kate as a cold-blooded killer, but for the most part, will empathize with her story; her health is compromised in the early parts of the story and as with other female assassins, things begin to unfold that make the main character begin to question the very core of their personality.