The plot unfolds episodically, as Kate confronts one gang leader after another, slowly moving her way up each level like a video game. This is all routine stuff, and director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan (along with screenwriter Umair Aleem) fashion the narrative as such. Along the way, Kate teams up with rebellious teenager Ani ( Miku Patricia Martineau), who has secret ties to both the gang and Kate. Her revenge journey takes her through the back alleys of Tokyo, up and down the hierarchy of a deadly yakuza gang. After a one-night stand with a handsome stranger ( Michiel Huisman) Kate discovers that she has been poisoned, leaving her only 24 hours to find those responsible before she dies. Her mentor is Varrick ( Woody Harrelson), who took her in as a child and trained her to be an efficient killer. Kate ( Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is a top-level assassin who never misses her mark.
But just because Kate now has the chance to be seen at home doesn’t necessarily make it a good movie – far from it. Streaming services (in this case, Netflix) has become a haven for these productions. Don’t get me wrong, in the age of the superhero and franchise blockbuster, there should be a place for mid-tier actioners to exist. When your movie resembles other movies so closely that people have trouble distinguishing the difference, you might have a problem.Ĭan you blame me for being confused, though? Action films like these are chugged out with such regularity that they’ve become the cinematic version of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” We have reduced budgets and a reused story resulting in a final product that recycles other movies like it. That alone shows just how memorable – or unmemorable – Kate really is. After spending too much time doing internet research, I discovered that the movie I was thinking of was Gunpowder Milkshake (2021). When I saw the advertisements for Kate(2021) my first thought was, “Wait a minute, didn’t this movie already come out?” I could’ve sworn that I had already seen it earlier this year, and I racked my brain trying to figure out why it was being rereleased now.