Manga, Blood-Red, in Three Dimensions The first thing you notice about Fred Ho and Ruth Margraff's "Deadly She-Wolf Assassin at Armageddon!," now at La MaMa, is the elegant simplicity of the set, created by Anka Lupes and augmented by Chad McArver's gentle lighting. A long stripe of fluorescent red, ornamented with shapes suggesting carvings on a sword hilt, crosses the floor; overhead, taut red lines of rope intersect, like laser beams in darkness. Red also predominates in the gorgeous costumes (also by Ms. Lupes) - red, and black, and leather. This meeting of cool design with blood-red passion drives this martial arts tale, which touches familiar bases yet feels fresh, dynamic and fully realized. The story draws from many samurai and kung fu films, but its principal inspiration is "Lone Wolf and Cub," the classic manga series by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima about an itinerant former executioner and his young son. In "She-Wolf," directed by Sonoko Kawahara, a Shogun (Rick Ebihara) is furious that his henchman, Iyagu (Perry Yung), has failed to kill the Rogue Assassin (Yoshi Amao), who abandoned the Shogun's service long ago. So the Shogun sends out three killers to do the job. But Iyagu has his own candidate: the Deadly She-Wolf Assassin (Ai Ikeda), who has ties to the Rogue Assassin and his son (Jet Yung at the show I saw; Bradley Fong plays him on other nights). Cue the battles, blending Mr. Amao's sword choreography and Emmanuel Brown's martial arts. The clashes are marvels, graceful and kinetic. One encounter has ninjas appearing to jump out of a wall of mist. In recent years, as kung fu films and comic books have exerted an influence on theater, the emphasis on, and scale of, fight choreography has grown accordingly, in productions by the Vampire Cowboys, among others, and in sequences by Rick Sordelet. This production takes the art to a dancelike level, merging it with the multitalented Mr. Ho's jazzy score. And no performer here is more nimble than Ms. Ikeda, a coiled spring of energy. Imposing in a Mohawk with red-tipped spikes, she leaps and lunges and rolls across the backs of adversaries. As the Rogue Assassin, Mr. Amao is a compelling, nonverbal man of action, while Mr. Yung, one eye encircled in black makeup, is appropriately sinister. The Shogun's hit squad comprises amusing archetypes: Bok Mei Lotus (Teake) is a fallen Chinese Shaolin monk; Colonel USA (Luca Nicora) a white, debonair personification of imperialism; and Qaseem the Killing Machine (the muscular and acrobatic Jerry Ford) an African trader of slaves. The tireless Marina Celander, as the Narrator, speaks all the dialogue; the other actors express only the occasional battle cry preceding a sword thrust. The story is not all blades and brawls; it also says something about being a parent. And Mr. Ho - a prolific author, performer, jazz musician and opera composer, who conceived "She-Wolf" - has a lot to be proud of.