CINEmelma: ninja assassin

Va bene che ormai dai fratelli Wachowski non mi aspetto altro che porcatine semi-stylish, ma con Ninja Assassin si esagera davvero, trascinando nel fango anche un tal Straczynski qui impegnato a mettere mano ad una sceneggiatura non pervenuta.

Poootentissimo ninja di un millenario clan, fugge dopo aver fatto particolarmente poco per impedire la morte della pseudo-amata.
Nella sua strada per la vendetta, si ritroverà senza alcuna spiegazione plausibile a difendere una tizia dell'europol (ebbene sì) da ondate su ondate di fessi in calzamaglia che si fanno impallinare uno ad uno come tordi. Però sono letalissimi quando non serve, tipo contro tutte le comparse.
Si giunge infine allo scontro finale con Il Maestro^® - uno Shô Kosugi più severo-ma-giusto del solito, coi suoi metodi didattici da Signorina Rottenmeier.

Il non avere una logica non sarebbe neanche un problema, se i combattimenti fossero fatti bene.
Purtroppo dare in mano la telecamera ad un malato di parkinson ubriaco, non si è rivelata una grande idea: movimenti convulsi e privi senso, messi lì - si suppone - per coprire l'inettitudine degli attori. Al qual proposito non si può non sottolineare la grande prova di quell'eclettico artista di Rain, che saltella in giro con la stessa disinvoltura con cui fa le smorfie.
Una regia senza freni ci regala poi altre perle in qua e in là, non ultimi dei grandi inseguimenti automobilistici ed una serie di ritratti di Kosugi visto di fronte/di lato/da sopra/da sotto.

Il film ha comunque i suoi meriti istruttivi: ad esempio scopriamo - ma già lo sospettavamo - che Shô Kosugi è in grado di eseguire complessi interventi chirurgici in laparoscopia a mani nude, e che il corpo umano contiene 300 litri di sangue, ad una pressione di 80 atmosfere.

Voto: meno del numero di punte di uno shuriken.
Trashometro^® 6/10: Trash divertente: 6/10

Tags: ninja, azione, thriller, clan, Rain, Shô Kosugi, fratelli Wachowski, europol, inseguimento, auto, ferita, omicidio, ombra, buio, shuriken, arti marziali, mulinar di braccine, vendetta, punizione, severo ma giusto, tatuaggio, ecatombe, arresto, oro, trash.

Rain (IV)

Nome di battesimo: Ji-Hoon, Jeong
Data di nascita: 25 June 1982
Altezza: 6' 0½" (1.84 m)

Ultimi lavori:

Ninja Assassin (2009) .... Raizo [attore]
"East of Eden" (2008) .... [attore]
Speed Racer (2008) .... Taejo Togokahn [attore]
Speed Racer: Wonderful World of Racing - The Amazing Racer Family (2008) (V) .... Taejo Togokhan [attore]
Saibogujiman kwenchana (2006) .... Park Il-sun [attore]
"Pool ha-woo-seu" (2004) .... Lee Yeong-jae [attore]
"Sangdooya hakgyo kaja!" (2003) .... Sang-doo Cha [attore]

Biografia:
Rain was born in Seoul, South Korea, on June 25, 1982 with the birth name Jung Jihoon. He was extremely shy in elementary school, stating in interviews that he barely spoke a word. He caught the desire to become a dancer when, at a school talent show in sixth grade, no one from his school stepped forward to dance so he gave it a try, imitating the moves he saw on TV. The applause was extremely gratifying and he decided on the spot to become a professional dancer. In order to learn, he sought out older street dancers, who sometimes helped him, sometimes bullied and beat him up. Rain and his younger sister, Hana, enjoyed a comfortable life until the Korean recession of 1997, when his father's mill and bakery businesses failed. Bankrupt, his father left for Brazil to pursue economic opportunities, leaving Rain's mother to try to support the family as a food vendor. Rain's mother was ailing from diabetes due to lack of money for medical care and insulin. Rain got a start in the entertainment business briefly as part of a six-member boy-band called Fanclub. Revealing abuses in the Korean entertainment industry, Rain described the Fanclub members as "caged animals" locked in the rehearsal room for up to ten hours without food. After Fanclub released only two CDs, the company promoting the band failed and Rain was back to square one. During his junior year of high school Rain lived with some of his dance group members, subsisting mostly on cups of ramen noodles. He auditioned eighteen times for entertainment companies but was told that, although he was talented, he was too ugly to become a star. He was told that he should have plastic surgery to create "double eyelids", a common Korean practice to obtain more western-looking eyes. Finally in 2000, he was accepted by JYP Entertainment as a trainee. CEO Park Jin Young, who put Rain through a grueling 3-4 hour audition, described Rain as "desperate" and "like a tiger who was about to starve to death" (2008 Discovery Channel documentary "Hip Korea"). JYP stipulated that Rain had to attend college so, after studying "ferociously," Rain got accepted to Kyunghee University and became a music major. Rain spent three years as a trainee and back-up dancer for JYP, who has stated that he was particularly critical of Rain in order to push him to be the best and keep him from "getting a swelled head." During Rain's time as a trainee, his family was living in poverty and his mother was becoming increasingly ill due to lack of money for medicine. Rain drove himself hard in order to prove himself ready to make his debut, but did not achieve success in time to save her life. She died from complications of diabetes a year before his debut. This event had a huge impact on Rain. He has said in interviews that he regrets having had conflict with her over skipping school to go to dance practice, and that he believes she is in heaven where she can see him. He says that a major motivation in his life is to make her proud and he still visits her grave before embarking on each new project. Another motivator Rain has mentioned is remembering what it was like to be hungry. He is a self-professed workaholic and after acting alongside him in Speed Racer, John Goodman called him "the hardest working man in show business."

Trivia random: His favorite artists are Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson.

Filmography links and data courtesy of IMDb.

Kosugi, Shô

Nome di battesimo: Kosugi, Shôichi
Data di nascita: 17 June 1948
Altezza: 6' 1" (1.85 m)

Ultimi lavori:

Ninja Assassin (2009) .... Ozunu [attore]
The Scorpion King (2002) .... (choreographer: taiko) [misc]
Tenchu (1998) (VG) .... Rikimaru (voice: Japanese version) [attore]
Kyokutô koku shakai (1993) .... Larry Matsuda [attore]
Za kakuto oh (1993) .... [regista]
Kabuto (1991) .... (producer) [produttore]
Blind Fury (1989) .... The Assassin (as Sho Kosugi) [attore]
Aloha Summer (1988) .... Yukinaga Konishi [attore]
Black Eagle (1988) .... Ken Tani [attore]
Rage of Honor (1987) .... Shiro Tanaka [attore]

Biografia:
Easily the best known actor/martial artist during the 1980s ninja cinema craze, Kosugi was a proficient martial artist & skilled weapons performer which was highlighted in his several starring roles. Kosugi grew up as the youngest child and only son of a Tokyo fisherman, and began his martial arts training at the age of five studying karate at a local dojo. Sho expanded upon his martial arts studies, also learning judo & kendo, and by his 18th birthday he had achieved the status of All Japan Karate Champion. Intent on entering the world of international finance, Sho left Japan at only 19 years old to study and reside in Los Angeles, USA where he achieved a Bachelor's Degree in Economics, yet he also remained focused on constantly improving his martial arts skills. Throughout the early 1970s, Sho competed in hundred's of martial arts tournaments & demonstrations including winning the L.A. Open in 1972, 1973 & 1974. In addition, he also met a young Chinese woman named Shook, who was eventually to become his wife and mother of his children, plus Sho had his first foray into the cinema with part's in a minor Taiwanese film titled "The Killers", and then in a Korean production, shot in Los Angeles known as "The Stranger From Korea". Sho's big break came in 1981 when karate legend Mike Stone pitched a screenplay under the title of "Dance of Death" to Cannon Films. Cannon was at the time, a lackluster production house that had two years prior been purchased by film producer cousins Menahem Golan & Yoram Globus. The innovative cousins quickly turned Cannon into a profitable key player in the independently produced film market by latching onto topics popular to the youth market, having rapid shooting schedules, relatively unknown casts and tight budgets. Menehem Golan once remarked that he believed it was impossible to lose money on a film shot for the US market with a budget of under $5 million!! Cannon Films backed Stone's screenplay and the title was changed to _Enter The Ninja (1981)_ starring Franco Nero, Christopher George & Susan George with filming completed in the Phillipines in early 1981. Sho's role was as the evil black ninja "Hasegawa", and his icy screen presence and martial arts skills grabbed the attention of martial arts film fans, and ignited the huge fascination with ninjitsu that engulfed martial arts for the next decade. With the financial success of their first "ninja" film, Cannon readily backed a further ninja movie, only this time Sho was elevated to being the star of the film and had become a good guy!! Revenge of the Ninja (1983) was shot in Salt Lake City, Utah in late 1982 and featured Sho as a ninja master forced to flee from Japan to America with his only surviving son, after the rest of his family are butchered by opposing ninjas's. Launching into an art importing business with an American business partner, Sho finds out too late that his partner is also a ninja, importing drugs hidden in Sho's Japanese dolls. The second film outstripped the first on box office takings, and Sho Kosugi was now the hottest star in martial arts cinema! Based on those booming ticket sales, Cannon were once again happy to back another ninja movie, and in late 1983 shooting commenced in Phoenix, Arizona on Ninja III: The Domination (1984). The plot line however, was a rather strange affair, with the spirit of dead ninja possessing the body of dance instructor Christie (played by Solid Gold dancer Lucinda Dickey)......it was a misguided attempt by Cannon to combine ninjutsu with the 80s break dancing craze and horror movies about possession. None the less, fans didn't seem to mind, and the third installment in Cannon's ninja trilogy did reasonable business at the box office. Kosugi then starred in the short lived action TV series _"The Master" (1984)_ alongside legendary screen bad guy 'Lee van Cleef', before going onto star in several more ninja films, including taking on Mafia thugs in the bloody Pray for Death (1985), stopping terrorists as a ninja commando in Nine Deaths of the Ninja (1985) and as a ninja secret agent taking on "the Muscles from Brussels" Jean-Claude Van Damme in the military adventure Black Eagle (1988). However, by 1990 the US movie going public had grown tired of a decade of black clad ninja's hurling shuriken's and swords at each other, and Sho Kosugi left Hollywood to venture back to Japan where he became involved in numerous TV productions again centered around martial arts. In 1992, Kosugi starred in his biggest budgeted movie to date, a samurai epic titled _Journey of Honor (1992)_ also featuring screen legends Toshirô Mifune and Christopher Lee. Since then, Kosugi has remained very active in Japanese TV, was involved in contributing martial arts choreography for the highly popular Sony Playstation game "Tenchu; Stealth Assassins", plus he returned to Hollywood in the late 1990s to set up the Sho Kosugi Institute to assist Asian actors wishing to break into the mainstream US film market. Undeniably, many of the ninja films featuring Sho Kosugi were marred by low budgets & cheap production....however his superb martial arts skills and captivating on screen presence have assured him a unique place in the history of martial arts cinema, and his name has become synonymous with the art of ninjitsu.

Trivia random: Performed the motion capturing for the Rikimaru character in the PlayStation game, "Tenchu: Stealth Assassins, " (1998) which was released in the U.S. and Japan.

Filmography links and data courtesy of IMDb.

3 commenti:

Seconda serata ha detto...: Nella mia classifica dei film del mese gli ho dato due stelline, quindi merita di essere visto in tv, ma aspettando con calma.
http://gegio.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/i-migliori-film-di-novembre-e-dicembre-2009/

Saluti!!!!; 07 dicembre, 2009 12:19
Marco Brunello ha detto...: lo volevo vedere anch'io sto film, ma con ste premesse non so...

ma guardandolo non fa tornare alla mente neanche un po' robe del tipo Enter the ninja o American ninja? la presenza di Sho Kosugi mi aveva dato qualche speranza in tal senso...; 10 dicembre, 2009 20:53
Davide Alberani ha detto...: @Brunez: alla fin fine, è come sempre una questione di aspettative.

Io mi son anche divertito, ma forse - come dice giustamente Gegio - è meglio aspettarlo a noleggio.
Certo, Sho Kosugi si guarda sempre volentieri! :-)

Mettiamola così: per spendere i soldi al cinema in questo periodo, il titolo è uno solo: JENNIFER'S BODY!
Stupendo. Degno di Godfrey Ho.; 12 dicembre, 2009 17:48

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domenica 6 dicembre 2009

ninja assassin - anche no

Wachowski, Andy

Rain (IV)

Ninja Assassin (2009)

Kosugi, Shô

McTeigue, James

Straczynski, J. Michael

Wachowski, Larry

3 commenti:

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