Member HyperDrive Posted May 15, 2009 Member Share Posted May 15, 2009 According to Florentine, NINJA pays homage to a range of martial arts and action movies from Akira Kurosawa's samurai comedy SANJURO and Bruce Lee's kung fu classic FIST OF FURY to modern actioners 300 and V FOR VENDETTA. Coincidently, the latter is directed by James McTeigue who has his own ninja movie, NINJA ASSASSIN, coming out in 2009. Hopefully, these homages are not too visible or they're the right amount and long enough apart throughout the movie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member emacs Posted May 17, 2009 Member Share Posted May 17, 2009 i'm not too sure whether it was intentional, but i get a feeling this film is more of a homage to those cheesy direct-to-VHS martial arts films produced in America during the 1980s. if that's the case then i suppose it has achieved it's goal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Drunken Monk Posted July 16, 2009 Member Share Posted July 16, 2009 This looks awful, unless you view it as a cleverly directed tongue in cheek homage to 80's ninja movies... oU1DaMeNZBU Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member ThunderScore Posted July 16, 2009 Member Share Posted July 16, 2009 Issac Florentine also directed some POWERS RANGERS (IN SPACE, maybe?) episodes... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member edher_M.A. Posted July 23, 2009 Member Share Posted July 23, 2009 He was the original director of the Power Rangers series. He directed seasons 1-3 i think or a little bit more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Fightingfist Posted July 23, 2009 Member Share Posted July 23, 2009 Trailer looks good to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Charuto Posted July 24, 2009 Member Share Posted July 24, 2009 This looks like ass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member The Amazing Psycho Per Posted September 1, 2009 Member Share Posted September 1, 2009 hmmm... Apparantly, according to amazon.co.uk both DVD and Blue-ray are due march 10 2010. Is this direct to video? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ninja-DVD/dp/B002KAIW0I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1251772675&sr=8-,1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Morgoth Bauglir Posted September 1, 2009 Member Share Posted September 1, 2009 I hope it's in theaters, but Florentine has only done DTV. Maybe they get limited releases, because his movies have never been shown here in Omaha NE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member ThunderScore Posted September 1, 2009 Member Share Posted September 1, 2009 To say that is a bit of a letdown would be a masterpiece of understatement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member LeRolls Posted September 1, 2009 Member Share Posted September 1, 2009 Damn! March it pretty far off. I was hoping it was coming out end of the year. Crossing my fingers for a Blu-Ray release in the US or atleast a region free import. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member make believe Posted September 4, 2009 Member Share Posted September 4, 2009 I have to agree with the people who say this looks pretty bad. It does look way cheesy. I can't imagine this doing very well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Drunken Monk Posted November 27, 2009 Member Share Posted November 27, 2009 I actually watched this a few days ago and was pleasantly surprised. There is a nostalgic 80's feel to it and the acting is pretty atrocious but the action is very enjoyable. It is not the all out kung fu stuff you may expect but caters more towards throws, grabs, arm locks and such. However, the action does take a turn towards the end where Scott Adkins is really let loose and we get to see his usual flips and incredible skills put to work. The film is not perfect, nor polished. It is, however, an enjoyable little martial arts flick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member shapes Posted November 27, 2009 Member Share Posted November 27, 2009 This film did not deliver, the Ninja action was really lame, Adkins did as few nice kicks and flips that's about it, there was one shot where he did a side sommersuat over a car, I think it might have been greeen screen, can't make up my mind , anyone else remember that shot? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member LeRolls Posted November 29, 2009 Member Share Posted November 29, 2009 I'd still like to check this one out. I think I know what tI'll be getting so I probably won't have overly high expectations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Mark Pollard Posted December 3, 2009 Author Member Share Posted December 3, 2009 I posted my review of NINJA last night. http://www.kungfucinema.com/review-ninja-2009-11972 In summary I'm a little disappointed by the results. I didn't expect a masterpiece. I've been following Isaac Florentine's work since U.S. SEALS II (2001) and I know what his strengths and weaknesses are as a director. The biggest problem with this one is that it just didn't flow together, especially as a ninja movie. Adkins looks fantastic in his fighting form but needs to work on his screen presence. I don't want him to end being another Gary Daniels or Ray Park but that's the direction he's headed. Too many soft-spoken, nice guys coming out of the U.K. right now, at least in the martial arts realm. We need an Oliver Reed-type in the genre. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Lionclaw Posted December 3, 2009 Member Share Posted December 3, 2009 I posted my review of NINJA last night. http://www.kungfucinema.com/review-ninja-2009-11972 In summary I'm a little disappointed by the results. I didn't expect a masterpiece. I've been following Isaac Florentine's work since U.S. SEALS II (2001) and I know what his strengths and weaknesses are as a director. The biggest problem with this one is that it just didn't flow together, especially as a ninja movie. Adkins looks fantastic in his fighting form but needs to work on his screen presence. I don't want him to end being another Gary Daniels or Ray Park but that's the direction he's headed. Too many soft-spoken, nice guys coming out of the U.K. right now, at least in the martial arts realm. We need an Oliver Reed-type in the genre. Well said. The reveiw was exactly on point but was I the only one who found the final battle lacking a bit? They're was all this build up and it didn't live up to the hype. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member gorhama Posted December 3, 2009 Member Share Posted December 3, 2009 I'm still interested in seeing this movie. I'm glad Scott Adkins impresses in the fight scenes, but then again how could he not?? Hopefully with Undisputed 3 he will get a chance to be a great anti-hero and show some charisma. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member chanbara Posted December 4, 2009 Member Share Posted December 4, 2009 I was quite disapointed by it too. I was really hoping it'd be good, and went in wanting and willing it to be so, but it's frankly about the same as the "American Ninja" sequels, and that's not where you wanna be. I wasn't familiar with Scott Adkins, and while it's clear he's got martial arts skills, he's got virtually no screen presence or charisma. And none of the other performances are really that good in this either, with the majority being just awful. In my opinion the only good scene in the film was the subway fight where both Scott and Mika Hijii move around nicely and do some solid fighting. It's not as awesome as the subway fight in "The Hunted" with Yoshio Harada, but still good. The stuff at the dojo at the begining was also decent. I liked seeing the displays of Kenjutsu and Karate, etc.. but ultimately nothing all that exciting there. It was nice to see Sensei Fumio Demuro in a role though. And don't even get me started on the batman/gi joe ninja outfits or the flying ninja. Ugh. It's great to see new ninja movies being made again, and this one was certainly better than last year's unwatchable "Mask of the Ninja", but I hope future ninja movies like next year's "The Last Ninja" will be on par with "Ninja Assassin" which, while not perfect, is a kick-ass film that's a lot of fun, looks impressive, has great performances from the great Sho Kosugi, Rain, Naomie Harris, Joon Lee, and Anna Sawai, and has made ninjas cool again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Tigerstyles Posted December 4, 2009 Member Share Posted December 4, 2009 they should have compiled all the fights and scrapped the rest.. that Japanese girls eyes where VERY distracting scap her asap! She Fugly eyes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member kingofkungfu2002 Posted December 4, 2009 Member Share Posted December 4, 2009 I've got the Thai dvd on order. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member thedirtytiger Posted December 7, 2009 Member Share Posted December 7, 2009 It takes a while to get going, the big penultimate fight in the Temple place and the fight on the subway were ok, the end was stupid though and sucked, especially the last 3 minutes. The fights in general were ok but could have been better. Adkins has got some good skills ( as is evident in the Temple fight scene ) and he could be great if in the right hands. Fingers crossed his next one will showcase his skills to their full potential Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member The Running Man Posted December 10, 2009 Member Share Posted December 10, 2009 I was disappointed with the movie. Florentine's best movie to date is still Special Forces. I think one of the problems is that Florentine fell back to the real cheesy aspects his pre-Special Forces films had. Like that whole cult clan with the hoods, the goofy sets and all was just laughable. And the silly love story needed to go which was only made worse with the deus-ex machina moment at the end (funny enough, Ninja Assassin had a moment like that too and I can't decide which was worse). I also keep feeling that for a movie called "Ninja" there should have been more ninja action. The only thing that comes to mind as to why there probably wasn't more was that perhaps he didn't want to keep Adkins in a mask the majority of the time but there could've been ways around this (i.e., have the last fight scene with Adkins be with the ninja gear but without the mask). It just isn't a good thing when the best fight scene in a movie called "Ninja" doesn't involve a single ninja at all (Adkins one vs the cult) Also, Florentine really needs to stop getting gimmicky with his stye. He has a great eye for action that is rarely seen outside of Asia. He doesn't need to add stupid post production special effects, especially when it rarely works out in his favor. In Undisputed 2, we had the lame "slo-mo fast speed" stuff he kept doing. And in this one he had a lame 300 inspired sequence with the ninja slashing the people outside the dojo. There was no impressive action in that scene so it only called attention to the effects used making the end result lame. However, it was better than Ninja Assassin but that wasn't a tough feat to accomplish really since I thought that movie was so lousy. The fights were far better and the scene with Adkins against the members of the cult was A grade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member MLee Posted December 20, 2009 Member Share Posted December 20, 2009 I wasn't expecting too much from this movie from the early clips I had seen previously. Since my expectations were low I actually quite enjoyed it. The fight in the temple even though it wasn't very ninja like was the best fight scene. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Chinatown Kid Posted January 3, 2010 Member Share Posted January 3, 2010 I've got this on pre-order and really am pumped to see it. Adkins is my favorite action star of the moment and I hope he churns out some great films in 2010! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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