646f9e108c A hit man looks to protect the daughter of one of his victims against CIA assassins. In Tokyo, a minister of public works is rumored to be taking evidence of corruption to a reporter: the CIA, the yakuza, and others want to grab the information and use it to squeeze the government. On the subway trip to meet the reporter, the official is murdered, but it looks like a heart attack. However, no one, including the murderer, can find the flash drive with the evidence. Now the CIA, gangsters, and the city police are searching. The dead official&#39;s daughters are in danger: the shadowy John Rain, ex-special forces and perhaps now in league with North Korea, tries to stay one step aheadhe looks for the flash drive and protects one of the daughters. Not being familiar with the novel upon which this movie is based, nor with the author in general, it was with a clean slate and no expectations that I sat down to watch &quot;Rain Fall&quot;.<br/><br/>I must say that I find it odd why the movie got such a low ranking on IMDb, because I found the movie to be rather interesting and captivating. It is a great political thriller/action movie a great amount of character development and a good flow to the movie. I especially like the way that the story was built up, you start out rooting for one side, thenthe story progress, you switch sides and end up rooting for someone else entirely.<br/><br/>The story takes place in Tokyo, where top ranking officials are being murdered and a flash-drive with highly valuable information is being sought by the Tokyo police, CIA, the Yakuza and ex-special forces John Rain. But in this race to acquire the memory stick with the information, who can you trust?<br/><br/>&quot;Rain Fall&quot; was really nicely shot cinematography-wise. I like the angles used in the movie, and the usage of CCTV camera, that really added to the whole feel of the setting. Plus, the movie had some really great characters in it, characters with depths and personalities, where you got to have a deeper understanding for their motivations and their driving force.<br/><br/>And it also helped, of course, that they had some really good actors and actresses to play the various roles and make the characters come to life. Kippei Shiina (playing John Rain) really did a great job and was the driving engine in the movie, acting-wise. And hats off to director Max Mannix for managing to pull this movie off and come out with this great end result.<br/><br/>I was thoroughly entertained by this thriller, and was really caught up in the storyline. You are given bits and pieces of information continuously throughout the movie, but never enough to full grasp the wholeness of the plot. I liked that, because the story evolved and unfurledyou got deeper into the movie. And there was some nice plot twists throughout the moviewell.<br/><br/>If you like Asian cinema, then &quot;Rain Fall&quot; is well worth checking out,it is great suspense and entertainment from beginning up to the very end. And the ending of the movie was actually quite good, managing to get the movie to come full circle. I&#39;m writing after watching the movie and reading the previous reviews. Watching the film I couldn&#39;t help seeing nearly every segmentyet another sad attempt at recapturing the thrills, twists, relationships, etc. carried out so wonderfully in &quot;The Bourne Identity&quot;. I felt embarrassed for Gary Oldman playing this cardboard cut-out of the Chris Cooper&#39;s &#39;Conklin&#39; character. I won&#39;t bother listing the plagiarized elements- they are too numerous, too obvious, and would take more time than this sad film deserves. I&#39;ll take a tip from you earlier reviewers and sample a Barry Eisler novel. I&#39;m so deeply into Martin Cruz Smith&#39;s &#39;Arkady Renko&#39; novels (again!) that I&#39;m liable to be disappointed. I&#39;ll need a trip to the Gulag to get my hunger back.
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