"You just need to have decent choreography and the ability to shoot in a way that lets us see it. There’s really not much else required"

wow, thats so wildly inaccurate i'm not sure how to respond

You left out the last bit of that statement. As a fan of schlocky martial arts/ninja/samurai films, I can tell you that it doesn't take much else to make me have fun with them. Of course it helps if they're better than just B-level material, but is it a requirement to make a stupid fun action movie?

"You just need to have decent choreography and the ability to shoot in a way that lets us see it. There’s really not much else required, given that the genre isn’t famous for high drama or superb storylines."

OK. There. That's the whole quote and it's still wildly inaccurate.

In fact, this whole article is ridiculous. What's with the Kitamura suggestion? You seriously complain about the use of CGI blood and then you recommend that instead they use a director who is notorious for overuse of CGI blood and gore effects with his "Midnight Meat Train".

Not only that, but you also make it seem like the movie has been testing poorly or something. You assert that it's not a good movie (without having seen it) by saying "it's a shame too—how hard is it to craft a simple and effective ninja action film?". From what I have heard (and I know the writer), the film has been testing very well. The action scenes are supposedly spectacular. I don't see where you got the idea that this movie is going to be anything but an awesome and fun ninja movie.

I"ll chime in, having seen the film last week: it sucks. Hard. The choreography is not good, and the fights are generally as dull as the shoddy characters and story that links one combat scene to the next.

Given that the film is so reliant on CGI blood, I also thought of Kitamura when I saw it. I don't mind the CGI gore, and Versus had what this movie seriously lacks: ideas and energy.

Outlook not so good: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1198524-ninja_a...

Devindra explicitly stated that he had not seen the movie, he's only speculating based on the trailer. It doesn't take a genius to clearly see all the tell tale signs of a potential stinker.

Forget about the the ninja genre, this particular film seems to be trying to simply succeed as a gory action flick using hand to hand combat. In that case, the ESSENTIAL ingredient is - good, creative, intense choreography filmed clearly. From the trailer it looks like they failed.

I really want to be wrong on this, but Im not holding out much hope now that the reviews are coming in to confirm my doubts.

I'm defending you Muffins. Being a "fan" of hardcore Japanese action flicks doesn't mean you can explain any of "those" (are they even a genre?) as just good camera work and decent choreography. Don't even bring up Kitamura and those two things in the same sentence. Ever seen Death Trance or the original Versus (not the newer fixed version)? They are badass because of a lot of things, but certainly not Hardawar's idea of things.

Also, I'd doubt any Americans would fund his work considering the mess that was Midnight Meat Train (which I'm still not blaming Kitamura for... that's Clive Barker's mess).

It's a Wachowski project, so you know it's gonna suck.

Movie looks AMAZING i friggin love over the top ninja movies and speaking of over the top ninja movies i just saw Ninja last night which at first looked like a knock off of this film but felt like a fantastic throw back to the 80s american ninja films

Oh yeah mindless Ninja slashing action. My kind of Movie! To hell with morality.

I rank Azumi as one of the best and most fun movies ever ^^ I have srlsy high hopes for NA!

ok a couple of things about the article...

you give the impression that you don't see much of anything, and that it's riddled with CG... you almost give the impression that the first part is true because of the second... but I'm assuming we don't see much of the choreography mainly because they won't want to spoil it... yes we know there's blood, so they emphasized on that, and all of the choreography we did see was pretty much (except a few shots) were shown in previous trailers. Now about the CG maybe I'm blind but the only "overuse" of CG I see is the chained sickle. Now I've seen a decent amount of movies with a similar weapon, but never to the length of this one (or atleast I get the impression it's pretty damned long) so to not lose the crispness of it snapping and whipping all around and killing people they went the CG route to probably make their lives easier...

I doubt I'll get my next point out clearly so if anyone gets it and has a better way to convey it by all means lol.

Ninja assassin is an american based ninja movie and is made to be extremely over the top in terms of action and effects as compared to the azumi trailer you showed (haven't watch the movie but I'm gonna look for it now) it seems like a pretty straight forward martial arts movie from japan. yes they did some over the topish stuff like cutting the foundation of a tower to crash it down, but in the general idea of ninja shit that's pretty much the norm... whipping around a 10-15 foot long chain sickle isn't lol

i dnt like the looks of this movie..just another hash an slash...

Sarah
http://www.isopurewater.com/

It's called "Ninja Assassin". What the hell did you expect it to be about?

This looks fucking awesome.

Looks ... pretty dark.

I wanna re-watch American Ninja with Michael Dudikoff.

I got my brother the whole American Ninja collection for his birthday last year lol

i wanna rewatch beverly hills ninja.

i like the blood Ninja Assassin ment to feel like a Manga movie too thats why it uses CGI blood

The last shot caught me by surprise! It was a rather gruesome end to a bloody but fun trailer.

I have to disagree with Kitamura. I like his work ok, actually, but I find alot of it quite akin to Michael Bay. The editing is terrible and the action staging is not very good. Much of the fighting is hidden BY the editing and it's frustrating to watch. Azumi, Aragami, Sky High; the fight sequences in all of them were irritating.

However, unlike Michael Bay movies, I actually ENJOY Kitamura Ryuhei's movies. He brings an energy to the films that really runs all the way thru, even during the expositional parts. The visuals are always very very nice and the most impressive part is that he's able to do this on such a budget.

For NINJA ASSASSIN, though, I'd want someone to set and stage and shoot the action sequences that has faith in the fighters and choreography. Give it longer shots and let the combat shine thru.

not dark just an early 1990's flick with 2009 effects and substitute the slo-mo bullet with a throwing star. yes I've seen it and no i would not recommend it. but if you're just there to help the economy then enjoy and thanks from uncle Sam and Joel Silver.

p.s. see Black Dynamite

I did like the Red band trailer for Ninja Assassin just a good popcorn flick with a omarge to all earler Martial Arts film like the fake CGI blood i will make a date to go and see this film.

Just got back from seeing Ninja Assassin and I thought it was a pretty badass little flick. It actually had way less CG blood and weapons that it seems from the trailer. I thought it was just as good as 300 in the action and gore dpartment, except in this movie the blood actually touches the ground. It really is a short, simple revenge story with ninjas being more badass than I've seen them in years. The ninjas are given a supernatural twist that is never explained but I thought was really cool visually.

The only problem I had was that much of the action takes place in the dark and it very hard too see what was going on. I also think that a lot of scenes were cut to make the movie only 90 minutes as their seemed to be absolutely no character development. But I must say that as a whole this is hands down the best straight up badass action movie I've seen since District 9. This movie also makes Rain seem pretty fuckin' badass. He was basically an Asian Rambo.

I also forgot to mention that their is one scene in particular that steals directly from 300 and it's a shot of Rain fighting all these ninjas and the speed ramps up and down as the camera zooms in and out. I swear, it's like so flagrantly ripping off 300 it's rediculous. It still looks badass though. McTiege, you got some balls ripping off Snyder like that, haha!

i was actually going to go see this movie after seeing the trailer during another flick.

and then I watched this 'red band trailer' and frankly if it was what I had seen before I wouldn't bother torrenting the flick. this trailer looks awful. i'm all for high action, barely plot but I'd rather the plot be halfway decent and what was in this second trailer was far from.

To all of you who assume the movie to be awful...to all who have seen the movie and thinks it is awful...and to all of you who are hardcore ninja/karate fans and thinks it is awful...all of u are beyond stupid, tasteless, and need-to-change-hobby dweebs...the movie was great...