Ninja Assassin

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Ninja Assassin
A white poster. Above and in the center, is a young Asian male wearing a black
leather jacket and black pants. In his right hand, he is holding a blade connected
to a metal chain behind his back, with the other end of the chain being held in his
left hand. He is injured, stumbling forward grimacing in pain. There are
splatterings of blood all around. Below reads the lines, "Ninja Assassin". Beneath
that are the film credits with the line, "November 25" appearing in a larger font
than the rest of the surrounding words.
Theatrical release poster
Directed by James McTeigue
Produced by
Joel Silver
Lana Wachowski
Lilly Wachowski
Grant Hill
Screenplay by
Matthew Sand
J. Michael Straczynski
Story by Matthew Sand
Starring
Rain
Naomie Harris
Ben Miles
Rick Yune
Sho Kosugi
Music by Ilan Eshkeri
Cinematography Karl Walter Lindenlaub
Edited by
Gian Ganziano
Joseph Jett Sally
Production
company
Dark Castle Entertainment
Legendary Pictures
Silver Pictures
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date
November 25, 2009
Running time
98 minutes[1]
Country United States
Germany
Language English
Budget $40 million[2]
Box office $61.6 million[2]
Ninja Assassin is a 2009 German-American neo-noir martial arts thriller film
directed by James McTeigue. The story was written by Matthew Sand, with a
screenplay by J. Michael Straczynski. The film stars South Korean pop musician Rain
as a disillusioned assassin looking for retribution against his former mentor,
played by ninja film legend Sho Kosugi. Ninja Assassin explores political
corruption, child endangerment and the impact of violence. Known for their previous
work on the Matrix Trilogy and V for Vendetta, Lana and Lilly Wachowski, Joel
Silver, and Grant Hill produced the film. A collective effort to commit to the
film's production was made by Legendary Pictures, Dark Castle Entertainment and
Silver Pictures. It was distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.
Ninja Assassin premiered in theaters across the United States on November 25, 2009.
Its box office gross was $61,590,252, of which $38,122,883 was from North America.
The film's budget was $40 million.

Contents [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
3.1 Filming
4 Marketing
4.1 Video game
5 Release
5.1 Critical response
5.2 Box office
5.3 Awards
6 Home media
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
Plot[edit]
The Ozunu Clan, led by the ruthless Lord Ozunu (Sho Kosugi), trains orphans from
around the world to become the ultimate ninja assassins. One of these orphans,
Raizo (Rain), was forced to train as an assassin for the clan. The training was
both brutal and hard especially for him because he was to be the next successor of
the clan.

The only kindness he was ever shown was from a young kunoichi named Kiriko, with
whom he eventually develops a romantic bond. As time goes on, Kiriko becomes
disenchanted with the Ozunu's routine and wishes to abandon it for freedom. One
rainy night, Kiriko decides to make her escape and encourages Raizo to join her;
however he decides to stay. Branded as a traitor, Kiriko was caught and later
executed in front of Raizo by their elder ninja brother Takeshi, impaling her
through the heart.

As a result of Kiriko's death, Raizo begins to harbor resentment and doubt towards
the Ozunu. Kiriko's death opens his eyes and he begins to see faults within the
clan and sees that what he's been taught to do wasn't right. Some time later, Raizo
is instructed by Lord Ozunu to complete his first assassination. Afterwards, Raizo
meets the rest of his clan atop a city skyscraper in Berlin. There he is instructed
by Lord Ozunu to execute another kunoichi traitor like Kiriko. Upon remembering
Kiriko's death and finally having had enough, Raizo cracks. He rebels against Lord
Ozunu by cutting his face with a kyoketsu-shoge and engages in combat against his
fellow ninja kin. Barely surviving, he falls off the roof of the skyscraper and
into a river. For the years that are to come, Raizo recovers and trains on his own
to intervene and foil all of Ozunu's assassination attempts in hopes of bringing
down the clan that took everything from him.

Meanwhile, Europol agent Mika Coretti (Naomie Harris) has been investigating money-
linked political murders and finds out that they are possibly connected to the
Ozunu. She defies her superior, Ryan Maslow (Ben Miles), 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 agents from Europol
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 ninja infiltrate the
Europol safehouse 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 ninjas have already kidnapped Raizo, bringing him
before Lord Ozunu for prosecution. During 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, where he proceeds to kill Takeshi and confront
Lord Ozunu in a sword duel. Mika interferes to help, but is 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 opposite side of her chest. After Europol
leaves, Raizo stays behind to tend to the ruins of the Ozunu retreat. He later
climbs the same wall Kiriko did while trying to escape in the past, and looks out
at the surrounding countryside, recognizing his freedom for the first time.

Cast[edit]
Rain as Raizo
Naomie Harris as Mika Coretti
Ben Miles as Ryan Maslow
Rick Yune as Takeshi
Sho Kosugi as Lord Ozunu
Randall Duk Kim as Tattoo Master
Sung Kang as Hollywood
Jonathan Chan-Pensley as Yakuza Henchman
Ill-Young Kim as Yakuza Mohawk
Yuki Iwamoto as Yakuza Couch
Linh-Dan Pham as Pretty Ninja
Yu Fang as Laundromat Manager
Adriana Altaras as Landlady
Kylie Liya Goldstein as Young Kiriko
Sungwoong Yoon as Young Raizo
Eleonore Weisgerber as Mrs. Sabatin
Wladimir Tarasjanz as Aleksei Sabatin
Lee Joon as Teenage Raizo
Kai Fung Rieck as Teenage Takeshi
Anna Sawai as Teenage Kiriko
Thorston Manderlay as Agent Zabranski
Richard Van Weyden as Ibn Battuta
Mina Ghousi as Kid with Envelope
Hans Hohlbein as Mika's Neighbor
Stephen Marcus as Kingpin
Nhi Ngoc Nguyen-Hermann as Girl on Roof
Guido Föhrweisser as Lead Europol Agent
Tim Williams as Europol Cell Guard
David Leitch as Europol Door Guard
Wolfgang Stegemann as Europol Pointman
Steffen Groth as Europol Guard
Jens Neuhaus as Europol Guard
Patrick Pinheiro as Maslow's Aide
Matthias Schendel as Task Force Agent
Johannes Ahn as Medic
Production[edit]
[icon]
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (November 2014)

One day I got a call from the Wachowskis, who are friends of mine. And they said we
need some help on something, can you meet us tomorrow and talk about something. I
met with them and they had a draft for this movie called Ninja Assassin which
wasn't where they wanted it to be. And they said we need a whole new draft, a whole
new script, and we go to camera in six weeks. And I said, "Okay, when do you have
to have the scripts?" And they said it had to go out to actors that Friday. So I
went home and put on a pot of coffee, and I wrote essentially a whole new script in
53 hours.
—J. Michael Straczynski, writer
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. Actor Sho Kosugi had
previously played ninjas several times in the 1980s, and had become somewhat of 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.

Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg provided filmmakers US$1 million in funding,[3] and

Germany's Federal Film Fund provided an additional US$9 million to the film's
funding.[4]

Filming[edit]
Principal photography began in Berlin, Germany at the end of April 2008. Filming
took place in Babelsberg Studios and on location throughout Berlin.[5]

McTeigue cited various influences in filming Ninja Assassin such as the films Panic
in the Streets (1950), The Getaway (1972), Badlands (1973), Ninja Scroll (1993),
and the anime Samurai Champloo (2004–2005).[6] Actor Collin Chou was originally
cast for an undisclosed lead role after Jet Li turned down an offer to appear in
it,[7] but Chou later left the role.[8]

Marketing[edit]
Video game[edit]
On November 5, 2009, Warner Bros. Entertainment released the video game application
based on the film for the iPhone.[9]

Release[edit]

Critical response[edit]
[icon]
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (November 2014)
The film was not well received by critics, while some praised the revival of the
martial arts genre, the movie still failed on originality. Rotten Tomatoes reported
that 26% of 113 sampled critics gave the film positive reviews and that it got a
rating average of 4.3 out of 10. The consensus reads "Overly serious and
incomprehensibly edited, Ninja Assassin fails to live up to the promise of its
title."[10] At 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.[11] While critics generally panned the film as a melange of gore scenes
without a convincing plot,[10] some critics commended the film's numerous action
scenes.

Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle described the film as "a gorefest, a
borefest and a snorefest."[12] 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.'"[13]

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."[14]

Box office[edit]
Ninja Assassin opened at #6 at the North American box office earning $13,316,158 in
its first opening weekend. The film grossed $60,462,347, of which $38,122,883 was
from North America. In Japan, this film opened on the March 6, 2010 in only one
movie theater in Shinjuku and then also opened on the March 20 in Osaka.[15] Ninja
Assassin earned 2,214,000 yen (Approximately $25,672 U.S.) during its first opening
weekend in Shinjuku.[16]

Awards[edit]
On June 9, 2010, Rain was awarded the "Biggest Badass" award on the MTV Movie
Awards for his work in Ninja Assassin.[17]

Home media[edit]
Ninja Assassin was released on DVD, Online Streaming and Blu-ray Disc formats on
March 16, 2010.[18]

See also[edit]
Film portal
Ninja films
Samurai films
References[edit]
Jump up ^ "NINJA ASSASSIN (18)". British Board of Film Classification. September
17, 2009. Retrieved February 8, 2015.
^ Jump up to: a b "Ninja Assassin". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2010-05-16.
Jump up ^ Kastelan, Karsten (April 14, 2008). "Medienboard funds 'Assassin,'
Schweiger pic". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved May 20, 2008.
Jump up ^ Meza, Ed (May 8, 2008). "German fund backs 'Ninja Assassin'". Variety.
Retrieved May 20, 2008.
Jump up ^ Ball, Ryan (May 30, 2008). "Cameras Roll on the Wachowskis' Ninja
Assassin". animationmagazine.net. Animation Magazine. Retrieved July 11, 2008.
Jump up ^ Douglas, Edward (August 1, 2008). "SDCC EXCL: Ninja Assassin Director
James McTeigue". ComingSoon.net. Coming Soon Media, L.P. Retrieved August 1, 2008.
Jump up ^ Szymanski, Mike (March 18, 2008). "Chou Stars In Wachowski Ninja Film".
Sci Fi Wire. Sci Fi Channel. Archived from the original on April 21, 2008.
Retrieved May 20, 2008.
Jump up ^ "Colin Chou Turns Down Ninja Assassin". ReelzChannel.com. ReelzChannel.
April 18, 2008. Retrieved May 20, 2008.
Jump up ^ "Ninja Assassin By Warner Bros". iTunes. Retrieved 2010-05-16.
^ Jump up to: a b "Ninja Assassin (2009)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved January 31,
2010.
Jump up ^ "Ninja Assassin reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved January 31, 2010.
Jump up ^ LaSalle, Mick (November 25, 2009). "Review: 'Ninja Assassin' butt kicking
is boring". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved January 31, 2010.
Jump up ^ Williams, Joe (November 27, 2009). "Punchless martial-arts film falls
flat". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Retrieved January 31, 2010.
Jump up ^ Nashawaty, Chris (November 24, 2009). "Ninja Assassin (2009)".
Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved January 31, 2010.
Jump up ^ "Ninja Assassin". Warner Bros. Retrieved 2010-05-16.
Jump up ^ "Ninja Assassin". Eiga Consultant. Retrieved May 16, 2010.
Jump up ^ Rosenberg, Adam (June 7, 2010). "Rain Takes The MTV Movie Awards Golden
Popcorn For Biggest Badass Star". MTV. Retrieved June 19, 2010.
Jump up ^ "Ninja Assassin". DVDActive. Retrieved 2010-05-16.
External links[edit]
Official website
Ninja Assassin on IMDb
Ninja Assassin at Box Office Mojo
Ninja Assassin at Rotten Tomatoes
Ninja Assassin at Metacritic
[show] v t e
Films directed by James McTeigue
[show] v t e
Works by The Wachowskis
[show] v t e
Dark Castle Entertainment
Categories: 2009 filmsEnglish-language films2000s action thriller films2000s
fantasy films2000s martial arts filmsAmerican action thriller filmsAmerican
filmsGerman action filmsGerman filmsGerman thriller filmsBabelsberg Studio
filmsDark Castle Entertainment filmsFilms directed by James McTeigueFilms produced
by Joel SilverFilms produced by Thomas TullFilms set in BerlinFilms set in
JapanFilms shot in GermanyHeroic bloodshed filmsLegendary Pictures filmsMartial
arts fantasy filmsNinja filmsNonlinear narrative filmsSilver Pictures filmsWarner
Bros. filmsWorks by J. Michael StraczynskiFilms produced by The Wachowskis
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