Kate

  Kate's another John Wickalike movie from Netflix - they promote it as "'John Wick' meets 'Crank'"; "'John Wick' meets 'The Professional'" would be much more accurate, but they already used that for Polar. This one is actually produced by EightySeven North, the House that John Wick's money built, so you know that at least the action is going to be good.

 The titular Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is yet another ridiculously proficient assassin in yet another shady underworld outfit that needs full time assassins in their roster. She was taken at a young age and moulded into a killer by her handler, Varrick (Woody Harrelson), whom according to the rules of this sort of thing is either going to betray her or die heroically trying to save her from whatever conspiracy targets her.
 After something goes wrong on a job against the Yakuza in Osaka (the target's daughter is at the assassination site) Kate is left visibly shaken, and decides to retire. She promises Varrick that she will complete what they came to do in Japan, but after that, she's out.

 Does any last job ever go smoothly? As she's about to kill her final victim, Kate feels violently ill and botches it. This leads to a good running gun battle that transitions to a cool (and pretty artificial-looking) car chase, which ends badly.
 When she wakes up in the hospital a doctor soberly informs her that she's been poisoned with a radioactive agent - Polonium-204, and she only has twenty-four hours to live (that's six less poloniums than what the Russians used to kill Alexander Litvenko; in this case, though, it sounds like bad news).
 Kate stocks up on five stim-filled autoinjectors, and decides to go after the Yakuza kingpin she was after originally, who seems the most likely culprit.
 I liked the use of the autoinjectors throughout the movie; they end up being a sort of countdown clock.

 On a completely unrelated note, they could have called this movie Atomic Noirette, and it would be pretty accurate.

 As she tears through Tokyo's criminal underworld, it soon becomes clear that the only person who can lead her to her target is the crime lord's niece Ani (Miku Martineau)... the girl whose father Kate killed in front of her. With time and options running out, Kate kidnaps the girl, and things get a little complicated in mostly predictable ways.
 For one, there's internecine trouble within the yakuza, which means that Ani immediately becomes a target for Kate to protect. And then there's the fact that Katie killed Ani's father, and that's gonna come out at some point. I can't say anything there are any major surprises as the film barrels on to its conclusion, but for the most part it's solid. It doesn't embarrass itself.

 Helmed by visual effects guy turned director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan  (he's only directed this and the second The Huntsman movie), the action is, well, pretty good. It's not up to the studio's best efforts but it's bloody, dynamic, varied, and full of cool moves and little moments; Because of the Japanese setting, there's some nods to samurai movies and pop culture. There's a really cool variation of one of those bits where the killer seems to disappear but is wedged above the people searching for her; A great gun and knife battle with lots of horizontal panning and blood splattering paper walls, good stuff.
 It looks pretty stylish, in what can probably be called the EightySevenNorth house style by now - you know, a lot of nighttime, neon-drenched streets and stylized graphic violence. This one's a bit more naturalistic, despite taking advantage of the setting's animated billboards and cheesy J-pop soundtrack.

 Winstead's already proved she can do action, and does great here. Kate makes for a really compelling protagonist, enough to make it credible that Ani very quickly goes from being terrified of her kidnapper to thinking she's the coolest thing in the world. She gets as good as she gives, as well, especially as her health deteriorates; normally action movies use kid gloves with female fighters or cop out with acrobatics, but no such concessions here; she's brutally manhandled by stronger and bigger opponents, and it makes the fights that much more realistic and interesting (this was also one of the few good points in this... sorry, last year's otherwise disappointing The Princess.)

 The script... is ok. It strings together the action sequences nicely and has plenty of good moments, but has a little trouble dealing with the central relationship between Kate and Ani; by the end how Ani is feeling towards Kate seems really arbitrary. It's like some vital character moments were cut out throughout.

 More than anything else, this is Mary Elizabeth Winstead's movie to carry, and, like Mads Mikkelsen in Polar, that other Netflix John-Wickalike, carry it she does. Kate doesn't take a lot of risks, and isn't free of issues, but it's a slick, great action vehicle for a relatable and utterly badass protagonist. There's way worse ways to spend a couple of hours.

 P.S: I'm not watching that Netflix Bullet Milkshake movie or whatever is called. I have my limits.