Into The Sun

"Only one man can stop the Yakuza."

Steven Seagal stars in Into the Sun as ex-CIA sniper Travis Hunter. The movie opens up with Hunter and his spotter, (Heisman Trophy award winning, Pro Bowl running) back Eddie George deep in some foreign jungle getting ready for an assassination. Everything seems to be going as planned until Seagal blows their cover to help some random chick in trouble. A simple operation turns into a huge firefight that ends with Eddie George getting shot, making for a long drawn out death scene.
Next, the movie jumps to Tokyo, Japan where the governor of Tokyo is assassinated by Yakuzas. For some reason this is the business of the CIA and the FBI, and even though Seagal's character is retired, the CIA drags him into it, because he grew up in Yakuza territory. Only one man can stop the Yakuza... and apparently its a big fat white guy who can't even complete a sniper mission without getting his spotter killed. Hunter is pretty irritated that the CIA is having him come in on this job, but for some reason he helps anyway. He is assigned an FBI partner, who happens to be a rookie, and the quarterback from Blue Crush. Seagal and the rook hit the hard streets of Tokyo and start snooping around. For some reason, the eldest Yakuza leader has promised Hunter his daughter, Jewel, as his slave or something and so she's along for the ride as well. However, instead of banging the chick Hunter has her run his errands. Meanwhile Travis is sparking an ice-cold romance with some cocktail waitress named Nayako, who apparently has a past with him. At one point they even pinky swear a marriage proposal in a garden while Nayako is dressed like a geisha.
On the streets Hunter has learned that it's not the Yakuza that have been behind the recent crime wave, but a guy named Kuroda who has teamed up all the baddest youngsters of the Yakuza and the Chinese gang, the Tongs. This is obviously pissing off the elders of these two gangs but instead of turning against Kuroda, most of them are acting like there's nothing they can do about it and letting Kuroda eventually turn the two gangs against one another. Kuroda is pretty smart and he finds out quickly that Seagal is on his trail. For this he kills the FBI dude and Nayako. This only makes Hunter more angry so, with Jewel and some tattoo artistin tow, he heads out to take down Kuroda before he becomes too powerful and takes over the entire Tokyo underground. They all march into Kuroda's hideout with Samurai swords and take out all of his gang and eventually Kuroda himself. The movie then ends quietly with Seagal pinky swearing with the ghost of Nayako.

This movie was pretty terrible. It had some potential with a decent Japanese cast that included Chiaki Kuriyama for a two second cameo, but the story was almost as lame as Seagal's character. Every single supporting character in the movie made no sense and had about a 2 second explanation as to why Seagal's character or anyone else should give a shit about them. The only cool part of the movie is when Seagal stabs some guy in the neck with a set of chopsticks and the guy dies instantly. There was only 1 broken arm and 1 broken leg. One ponytale is as generous as I can get for a movie directed by a guy named Mink who's only other credited directing gig starred Busta Rhymes and Xzibit.

Into the Sun: 1 Ponytale