Ninja Assassin 037
Margaret Sigars
Ninja Assassin is a 2009 martial arts film directed by James McTeigue from a story and script by Matthew Sand and J. Michael Straczynski. The film stars Rain as a disillusioned assassin looking for retribution against his former mentor, played by Sho Kosugi. Ninja Assassin explores political corruption, child endangerment and the impact of violence. The film was produced by The Wachowskis, Joel Silver and Grant Hill under Legendary Pictures, Dark Castle Entertainment and Silver Pictures. It was distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.
The Ozunu Clan, led by the ruthless Lord Ozunu, trains orphans from around the world to become the ultimate ninja assassins to offer assassin service to rich clients. The clan charges 100 pound worth of gold for their services and always kill any witnesses in the vicinity of their target. Raizo is one of the orphans. The Ozunu Clan's training is extremely brutal, especially for Raizo since he is to be the next successor of the clan. The only kindness he ever feels is from a young kunoichi named Kiriko, with whom he eventually develops a romantic bond. As time goes by, Kiriko becomes disenchanted with the Ozunu's routine and decides to abandon it. One rainy night, Kiriko climbs a wall to escape and encourages Raizo to join her, but he chooses to stay. Branded as a traitor, Kiriko is captured and later executed in front of Raizo by their elder ninja brother Takeshi, who impales her through the heart.
Years later, an adult Raizo is instructed by Lord Ozunu to complete his first assassination to kill a group of gangsters. After the mission, Raizo meets the rest of his clan atop a city skyscraper in Berlin. There, Lord Ozunu orders him to execute a kunoichi traitor. Remembering Kiriko's death, Raizo slashes Lord Ozunu's face with his kyoketsu-shoge and fights against his fellow ninjas. Barely surviving, he falls off the rooftop and into a river. After years, Raizo recovers and trains on his own to intervene in, and foil, all of Ozunu's assassination attempts.
Meanwhile, Europol agent Mika Coretti has been investigating money-linked political murders and finds out that they are possibly connected to the Ozunu. She defies her superior, Ryan Maslow, and retrieves secret agency files to find out more about the investigation. Mika meets Raizo and convinces him to see Maslow for protection, as well as to provide evidence against the Ozunu. However, Raizo is arrested by Maslow and abducted by Europol agents for interrogation.
Although feeling betrayed, Mika is assured by Maslow that he is still on her side and gives her a tracking device for emergencies. The Ozunu ninjas infiltrate the Europol safe house, where Raizo is being held, in an attempt to kill him and everybody inside. Mika frees Raizo and they both manage to escape, but Raizo suffers near-fatal wounds. Mika then takes him to a motel to hide. Resting in the motel, Mika implants the tracking device into Raizo, as the ninjas remain in pursuit. Unable to fend off the Ozunu, she hides outside the motel until Special Forces arrive to help her.
By the time they arrive, the ninja have already kidnapped Raizo, bringing him before Lord Ozunu for execution. During the transport back to the Ozunu, Raizo uses his ninja techniques to heal his own wounds. Europol Special Forces and tactical teams led by Maslow storm the secluded Ozunu retreat (nestled in the mountains) using the tracking device on Raizo.
Turning the night into day by saturating the sky above with powerful flares, the military forces are able to fight the ninjas on their own terms. In the confusion, Mika frees Raizo from his bindings. He proceeds to kill Takeshi and confront Lord Ozunu in a sword duel. Mika interferes to help but gets stabbed by Lord Ozunu. Enraged, Raizo uses a "shadow blending" technique for the first time to distract and kill Lord Ozunu. Mika, seemingly fatally wounded, is in fact saved by a quirk of birth: her heart is actually on the right side of her chest.
With the Ozunu defeated, Europol leaves. Raizo stays behind in the ruins of the Ozunu retreat. Climbing the same wall Kiriko did in the past, he looks out at the surrounding countryside and breathes with a smile, feeling his freedom for the first time.
Ninja Assassin was directed by James McTeigue, who had previously worked with producers The Wachowskis and Joel Silver on V for Vendetta four years prior. The Wachowskis were inspired to make the film by actor Rain's impressive ninja-based fight scenes in their 2008 film Speed Racer. The initial screenplay was written by Matthew Sand, and was rewritten by J. Michael Straczynski only six weeks prior to filming due to the Wachowskis' initial dissatisfaction. Martial Artist turned actor Sho Kosugi had previously starred in a number of ninja movies playing ninja villains and heroes several times in the 1980s, and had become a cult icon, hence his role as the antagonist Lord Ozunu, named after En no Ozunu, a 7th-century Japanese mystic and one of the developers of ninjutsu. "If you've ever watched any ninja films from the 1980s, you know that Sho Kosugi is the ninja; he is the man," asserts McTeigue.[5]
The film was not well received by critics. On Rotten Tomatoes 26% of 117 critics gave the film positive reviews, with an average rating of 4.40/10. The site's consensus reads "Overly serious and incomprehensibly edited, Ninja Assassin fails to live up to the promise of its title."[13] On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 34% based on 20 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[14] While critics generally panned the film as a melange of gore scenes without a convincing plot,[13] some critics commended the film's numerous action scenes.[15] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "B" on scale of A+ to F.[16]
Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle described the film as "a gorefest, a borefest and a snorefest."[17] Joe Williams of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch opined that "this amateurish action flick is so lacking in personality or punch, it ought to be titled 'V for Video Store Discount Bin.'"[18]
Entertainment Weekly's Chris Nashawaty wrote "...this slick slice of martial-arts mayhem from the producers of The Matrix is awash in blood. It spurts and sprays in geysers. And it never lets up. There's a brutal (and admittedly very cool) fight scene every five minutes... But let's be honest, killing is this film's business... and business is good."[15]
As I remember it, it's a single shot of three bored young people watching a kung-fu movie. We never see what they're watching, but we hear the grunts and groans and smacks of the characters fighting on the screen. The noise of the mayhem goes on and on, but the passive expressions of the three viewers never change.
I thought of the Jarmusch scene while watching the outrageously violent "Ninja Assassin," a guaranteed good time for people who like to watch other people get their limbs chopped off, get sliced in half and have other undesirable things happen to them.
You might not be inclined to down a Whopper after watching the carnage in "Ninja Assassin." The opening slaughter will probably be the litmus test for moviegoers: Some will likely go "Whoa!" (or something on that order) and enjoy the rush of over-the-top action; others will be appalled by the slicing and dicing and blood and gore. Those ninjas aren't only so fast you can't see them strike, they're also mean!
One of the most overused phrases these days is "it is what it is," and one reason is it often perfectly expresses things. And I think it applies here. My 21-year-old son, an action fan, found it amusing when, after the screening we attended, he overheard people saying they thought the movie was awful because it was too violent. "What did they expect?" he asked. It's called "Ninja Assassin," after all. That should provide some kind of clue.
Saw this movie last week and everyone i saw it with was amazed by the straddle press handstand followed by some headstand push ups in the beginning of this clip. However, his hips were definitely not aligned before he brought his legs up and his arms were partially bent. At the same time tho, it almost looks like a straddle planche press handstand..... Do you guys think it's just a bad straddle press hs, or is it close to a sstraddle planche press hs?
I use two beds of nails when I do my hand stand work, one for each respective hand, spaced so that there are no nails underneath my face. That way, you can get more range of motion on the handstand push-ups. What I really need is a big bed of nails, with longer nails right where my hands are, so there is that whole cool ninja do or die motivation, with a full range of motion. This training would be followed by a session of jumping about the living room with sharp objects, and a flash back or two about my severe childhood training.
Back on Thursday at Comic-Con, I finally got to see a first look at James McTeigue's Ninja Assassin, a movie I've been following for the longest time. In the film, Rain stars as Raizo, one of the deadliest ninja assassins in the world, who looks to avenge the death of his friend by betraying the clan that trained him. Not only is Rain's involvement quite exciting, but McTeigue's involvement, the same guy who directed V for Vendetta, is really what has me genuinely very excited for this. Not only did I catch up with McTeigue after the panel, but the presentation of footage was phenomenal. I really had no clue what to expect and finally wanted to see some footage and damn it looked awesome. This is every ninja fan's ultimate wet dream - an amazing assassin revenge movie complete with more ninjas that you could ever imagine.
Before I wrapped up the evening, I caught up briefly with McTeigue himself. Although he's personally inspired by Ninja Scroll, this was just something that came from their own imagination. "We've been talking about ninja movies for a long time," McTeigue recalled. In terms of the action and extreme violence, McTeigue stats that "if you're going to make a ninja movie, you've got to go there, and we went there." At one point, it was rumored that Ninja Assassin was a live-action remake of the Ninja Scroll anime, but that ended up being fake. Instead, McTeigue explains that "Ninja Scroll has a lot of cool set pieces, a lot of cool action pieces." He adds that he "was interested in making a cross between an anime, horror film, and also a bit of film noir." What I saw was exactly that and kicked ass!
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