‘House of Ninjas’ Netflix Series Review - A Family that Fights Together Stays Together

A good director can make something enjoyable out of a good idea. A hack, on the other hand, will destroy the potential of the premise and create something mind-numbingly tedious and unimaginative. Director Dave Boyle is not exactly a hack, though he does take out most of the juice from his promising one-line premise: A family, full of shinobis, return to their old stealthy habits to defeat a criminal mastermind. Well, the villain doesn't look very intimidating. This is one of the flaws you detect early on while watching this series. Tsujioka (Takayuki Yamada), the founder of a cult, simply hangs around like a side character with a dour face. We never fully register his presence. His plans, involving a yellow powder, never imbue the narrative with a sense of urgency. Tsujioka considers himself a god. The viewer sees him as an insignificant cardboard cutout. He fails to make you feel as if he is a real threat.

The heroes, too, are nothing to write home about. They are a collection of traits that occasionally dispatch masked men. Haru (Kento Kaku) breaks the rules, Nagi (Aju Makita) misses her brother, Souichi (Yôsuke Eguchi) wants to live a normal life and hopes Haru will take over the family business, and Yoko (Tae Kimura) itches to return to her former ninja routine. None of these characters are even remotely interesting. They act as per our predictions, so there is no suspense in the story. It's like watching a chess match where you know the current positions of all the pieces as well as have the knowledge regarding what steps these pawns will take in the future.

There is one character, however, who really infuses her scenes with energy. I am referring to Yoko, the woman bored with living an everyday life. Kimura's lively expressions make Yoko appealing, and exciting. When she shoplifts from a supermarket, she looks like a puckish child. The act itself, though, is filmed in such a way that it merely suggests mischief instead of fully conveying a sense of thrill. Another character who proves to be entertaining is the grandmother, Taki (Nobuko Miyamoto). She tries to introduce unpredictability in the ongoing events by always being one step ahead of everybody. Still, you are mostly able to guess what this woman is thinking and what action she must have taken. But one aspect of her life greatly flames your curiosity - the silent chats she has with another old lady. What does the titling of the head signify? What meaning can be derived from the movement of the eyes? I was intrigued by this muted conversation and wanted to know more about it. This is the only thing in the whole series that's actually fascinating. Unfortunately, it's left unexplored as House of Ninjas fulfills its banal plot duties.

The show mainly collapses because Boyle has no control over the tone. We enter the realm of amusements when Yoko gets bored by a jazz performance, when a boy notices his sister running on the roof, when waterfalls activate as soon as a character says, "I love you." These scenes don't seem to belong in a show where the mood becomes depressingly bleak when a journalist (Riho Yoshioka) shows newspaper articles to Haru when someone's wife and child are killed when someone's brother and someone's son is stabbed from behind. This uneven tone keeps you off balance.

There are flashes of joy in very few places. You can find it during that scene where a man tries to catch a bird for a mission. You can also find it in that scene where characters disguise themselves to retrieve information. But these minor pleasures don't make House of Ninjas any better. The eight episodes simply kill time and then leave the doors open for a second season. My question is, "Who's interested?"

Final Score- [4.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times