The Wolverine

A haunted Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) journeys to Japan to bid an old friend farewell, and gets drawn into a conflict involving ninja and Yakuza in a stand-alone spin-off set following the events of X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), and preceding the events of X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). The story begins in Nagasaki. As a B-29 bomber appears in the sky and air-raid sirens howl, panicked Japanese troops begin committing harakiri (ritual suicide). Terrified, yet unwilling to sacrifice his own life, young soldier Yashida takes cover in a heavily fortified prison pit containing the immortal mutant Wolverine, who shields him from a deadly blast. Decades later, Wolverine has sworn off violence after he was forced to kill his beloved Jean Grey (Famke Janssen). He's confronting a hunter who has been using illegal, poison-tipped arrows when the sword-wielding Yukio (Rila Fukushima) comes to his aid, and summons him to Japan at the behest of the dying Yashida (Hal Yamanouchi), now the head of Japan's largest and most powerful tech giant. Just hours before passing away, Yashida implores Wolverine to protect his granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamato), whom he has personally chosen to take over the family business, much to the chagrin of her plotting father Shingen (Hiroyuki Sanada). When the Yakuza attempt a high-profile kidnapping of Mariko during Yashida's funeral, Wolverine comes to her rescue, and receives some much needed help from enigmatic ninja Harada (Will Yun Lee). Narrowly escaping with their lives, Wolverine and Mariko go into hiding with the Yakuza and ruthless mutant Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova) hot on their trail. But the battle is far from over, and with Wolverine's healing powers mysteriously diminished, he may not be able to protect Mariko for long.