Business executive Paul Racine (Christopher Lambert) is living abroad in Japan when he one night meets a beautiful Japanese woman Kirina (Joan Chen). He has a romantic evening with her and goes back to give back her room key to witness ninja assassins are going to kill her. Soon Racine finds himself the target of the ninja clan and their ruthless leader Kinjo (John Lone) because he has saw Kinjo's face. Racine's only hope is samurai Takeda and his wife, but Takeda is obsessed with killing Kinjo since Kinjo's clan almost wiped out Takeda's family a century ago.

THE HUNTED is one of those interesting action films that I discovered back in the 1990s because I became a fan of Christopher Lambert movies. It would make a perfect double bill with WASABI starring Jean Reno since both films are foreigners in a strange land. THE HUNTED has a great cast, beautiful cinematography, and great fight scenes. Seeing Christopher Lambert handle a sword is impressive since he can't really see without his glasses and it is something that caused problems for him while shooting sword fight scenes in the HIGHLANDER movies. The Japanese characters do take front and center and Lambert's character is just a way to dip into the world of ninjas and samurai.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
New audio commentary with writer/ director J.F. Lawton (which you will have to track down in the audio submenu instead of looking under the bonus features part of the disc)

The most interesting extra on the blu-ray is the 123 minute workprint cut (in letterboxed widescreen) of THE HUNTED in standard definition (which looks sourced from a VHS tape) since it features alternate, extended, and deleted scenes which makes Takeda's obsession with Kinjo more maddening than the theatrical version from how it haunts him and affects the relationship with his wife. You also see additional scenes between Racine and Takeda's wife (and their relationship is a little bit different than what survived to the theatrical version) and more scenes with Kinjo.
Three deleted scenes not in the workprint or theatrical version

Theatrical trailer
Two TV spots
Still gallery slideshow

FINAL ANALYSIS: THE HUNTED looks great on blu-ray and fans of this movie (and ninja movies and Christopher Lambert) will want to own it on blu-ray. The deleted scenes and workprint show how editing changes the flow and story of a movie. Those two extras are worth checking out. I hope Shout Factory gets to release more Christopher Lambert movies to blu-ray including his French movies that haven't seen release in the USA.

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