Ninja Assassin follows Raizo, one of the deadliest assassins in the world. Taken from the streets as a child, he was transformed into a trained killer by the Ozunu Clan, a secret society whose very existence is considered a myth. But haunted by the merciless execution of his friend by the Clan, Raizo breaks free from them and vanishes. Now he waits, preparing to exact his revenge.

On the east coast of New Zealand, the Whangara people believe their presence there dates back a thousand years or more to a single ancestor, Paikea, who escaped death when his canoe capsized by riding to shore on the back of a whale. From then on, Whangara chiefs, always the first-born, always male, have been considered Paikea's direct descendants. Pai, an 11-year-old girl in a patriarchal New Zealand tribe, believes she is destined to be the new chief. But her grandfather Koro is bound by tradition to pick a male leader. Pai loves Koro more than anyone in the world, but she must fight him and a thousand years of tradition to fulfill her destiny.

Ma travels to Shanghai to look for his father and to learn kung fu from him, and in the process discovers that he has superhuman strength. He puts his extraordinary power to good use as he goes against a band of ruthless fighters!

Edward Barton-Wright was one of the first Europeans to study Ju-Jitsu in Japan. Back in London, he founded a club where he taught the upscale society in self-defense. He combined the most effective martial arts of his time: Canne Vigny, Boxing, Savate and Ju-Jitsu. Barton-Wright became such an early pioneer of mixed martial arts (MMA). He called his self-defense art Bartitsu . The stick fighting instructor at the Bartitsu Club was Pierre Vigny, who optimized the techniques of classic French stick fighting for self-defense.