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.
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Voto: meno del numero di punte di uno shuriken.
Trashometro
® 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.
Wachowski, Andy
Nome di battesimo: Wachowski, Andrew Paul
Data di nascita: 29 December 1967
Altezza: 6' 3¼" (1.91 m)
Coniuge: Alisa Blasingame::(1991 - present)
Ultimi lavori: Trivia random: He and his brother have written a screenplay called "Carnivore". The script was one of the scripts on Empire magazine's "Twelve Greatest Unproduced Scripts In Hollywood" list. (As of October 2003 it is still unproduced.)
Salario massimo: $4,000,000 + gross points, per The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
Filmography links and data courtesy of IMDb.
Rain (IV)
Nome di battesimo: Ji-Hoon, Jeong
Data di nascita: 25 June 1982
Altezza: 6' 0½" (1.84 m)
Ultimi lavori: 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.
Ninja Assassin (2009)
Regista: James McTeigue Scrittore: Matthew Sand,
J. Michael Straczynski Genere: Action, Drama, Thriller, Crime
Valutazione: 6.9/10 (3201 voti)
Durata: 99 min
Paese: USA, Germany
Lingua: English
Cast:Trama:Trained since childhood to be a lethal killer, Raizo has since turned his back on the Ozunu clan that raised him and now seeks revenge for their heartless murders. Teaming up with Europol investigator Mika, Raizo steadily butchers his enemies while inching ever closer to the long-awaited bloody reunion with his former master.
Trivia random: Producers Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski hired J. Michael Straczynski to completely rewrite the script six weeks before filming started, as they weren't satisfied with Matthew Sand's original work. Straczynski finished the rewrite in 53 hours.
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: 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.
McTeigue, James
Ultimi lavori: Trivia random: Grew up in Sydney, Australia.
Citazione random: "I don't think anyone wants to go to the cinema and get preached at. You have to evolve the ideas, some of them political, some of them personal, into a film. Then the film becomes like a Trojan Horse. You push it into the village as one thing and it comes out another thing. Hopefully it is something people think about afterward, have discussions about, even vehemently disagree on. I like the idea you can have the entertainment and the political idea in there."
Filmography links and data courtesy of IMDb.
Straczynski, J. Michael
Nome di battesimo: Straczynski, Joseph Michael
Data di nascita: 17 July 1954
Altezza: 6' 3½" (1.92 m)
Coniuge: Kathryn M. Drennan::(? - ?) (divorced)
Ultimi lavori: Trivia random: Although he attended his 20-year high school reunion, he only found one former classmate who "sort of" remembered him.
Citazione random: To me science fiction is about the sense of mystery, the sense of awe. Not 'shock and awe', just 'awe'.
Filmography links and data courtesy of IMDb.
Wachowski, Larry
Nome di battesimo: Wachowski, Laurence
Data di nascita: 21 June 1965
Coniuge: Thea Bloom::(30 October 1993 - December 2002) (filed for divorce)
Ultimi lavori: Trivia random: Attended Whitney M. Young Magnet High School along with his brother Andy Wachowski in Chicago, Illinois.
Salario massimo: $4,000,000 + gross points, per The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
Filmography links and data courtesy of IMDb. 
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