“I just missed you, heart.” This line in the opening scene of the new movie “Hanna” was followed by a shot to the heart. This coming-of-age story is not for the faint-hearted. But if you can handle some gore and chase scenes, this movie is worth an hour and 51 minutes of your time.

Hanna is a 16-year-old raised by her father, an ex-CIA operative in an isolated section of Finland with only moose and trees for company. Not only has her father trained her to be an assassin, the role of assassin runs through her veins: Hanna was genetically modified as an embryo to be the perfect soldier.
Once she and her father believe she is ready to seek revenge on the head of the intelligence agency responsible for her mother’s death, Hanna sets foot into the modern world for the first time in her memory.

On her mission, Hanna encounters a family of American tourists whom she travels with for a portion of her journey to Berlin. She forms a friendship with the teenage daughter, Johanna, who depicts modern teenagers in an unflattering but unfortunately often accurate manner. She’s whiny and desperately seeks to distance herself from her parents despite her dependence on them. With Johanna, Hanna forms the first real relationship other than the one she had with her dad, and is appreciated for more than her fighting abilities.

But having been denied the luxury of modern technology and most human interaction, the most influential obstacles are electricity and an admiring teenage boy. Evil henchmen, however, are her specialty. If you are interested in a movie where goon upon goon gets their butts whooped by an innocent looking 16-year-old, “Hanna” has got it down.

But when faced with the affections of a teenage boy, Hanna’s got some catching up to do. Generally, in the modern world, if a girl asks a boy if he’s going to kiss her and then leans in, that’s an invitation. Hanna sees it a little differently. A smack and a tackle followed the initiation of the kiss by the dumbfounded and admittedly cute Spanish boy.

The artistic approach to the dramatic and action scenes add to the intensity of the thriller element of this story. The slow-motion action shots and use of various angles throughout the filming sequences, contribute to the mix of emotions woven into each scene. The various forms of mutilation and continuous cat-and-mouse game also kept the audience awake and on their toes.

So if blood spatter, broken glass and broken bodies define a good movie but you are tired of grown men getting all the glory, watch Hanna dominate. Intertwined touching scenes of kinship and loss give this flick a little more depth than the traditional thriller.