Cliché princess in a castle plot, awkward acting, horrible plot and lines

Rating: 3/10 (25 July 2013)

Cliché princess in a castle (literally, except it's a Japanese one), and awkward acting by the two female Japanese actors.
The princess in a castle plot was so blatantly obvious that it would have been better to just rub it in the viewer's face. I mean, really. They could have done better than just the lone knight moving determinedly towards the castle; not to mention that the Wolverine calls Mariko "princess".
The movie is also a stereotypical picture of Japan and its men and women. We get it that the Japanese have their sword-in-your-own-gut suicides and the women are all stereotypical obedient housewives who actually can turn into screaming ninjas and kill you with a sword. WE GET IT. Enough of these people obsessing over their historical culture and ENOUGH WITH THE NINJAS. ENOUGH WITH THE NINJAS PLEASE. Every country in the world had professional assassins that covered themselves in black to sneak in and kill people. EVERY COUNTRY HAD ASSASSINS DRESSED IN BLACK. Why can't we just call them assassins? or spies? Great Britain has the MI6, with their spies dressed in black suits. Are we gonna start calling them ninjas too? The Japanese government is trying to claim that anything and everything came from their island. They claim that their neighboring countries' land is theirs as well the sea and stuff from other countries. They could very well claim that the British got their ideas of James Bond from them. They did it to China and Korea's islands and archaeological finds. Please do not let them copyright men wearing black tights as "ninjas". I prefer not to create any more words than necessary. We already have the word "assassin".
I thought the so-called "love hotels" were a bit exaggerated, but it turns out it wasn't so. Japan has tons of them in cities - and YES, with those hilarious themed rooms. It was funny until I found out it was real; then it just became weird. I mean sex and making out is already perfect on its own without having to do it in a room with fake moon- rocks and a space shuttle theme. We get that Japan has its own thing going on, and it's nothing special; we all have that weird kid in class who like to guzzle ketchup or sniff glue. THEY are that kid. We just have to wait until they grow out of it - which they are starting to - and turn into sensible global citizens. I just don't need it to be shoved in my face, like how I don't like it when people guzzle ketchup in front of me.
Moving on to the acting. I thought the male Japanese actors did well, some of the antagonists acted brilliantly! The female Japanese actors, on the other hand, were HORRIBLE. They acted natural when they spoke Japanese, but when they did their lines in English, it was REALLY AWKWARD. I had to squirm in my seat to avoid looking at the screen because their awkward lines made ME awkward. Can't they have used Japanese-American actors? Maybe the director was aiming for authenticity in their accents, but what he hit was failure. After seeing the Japanese female actor in "Pacific Rim", I thought I would never see more awkward acting than her - but they did it. Congratulations.
Overall, I would give the movie a 3/10. The only reason I give the three stars is because the male actors in the movie did good acting; the awkward lines and acting from the female Japanese acting was what took out three stars, the cliché plot took out the four.