(“Hey, bros, watch me pose shirtless with these swords I never actually cut anyone with.”)

I always get a couple people whining in the comments section when I rip on Ninja Assassin (from Wachowski Bros protege James McTeigue and Korean pop star Rain), but come on, tell me this synopsis doesn’t give you a major case of the dismissive wanks.  From Collider:

Raizo is one of the deadliest assassins in the world. Taken from the streets as a child, he was transformed into a trained killer by the Ozunu Clan, a secret society whose very existence is considered a myth. But haunted by the merciless execution of his friend by the Clan, Raizo breaks free from them…and vanishes. Now he waits, preparing to exact his revenge. In Berlin, Europol agent Mika Coretti has stumbled upon a money trail linking several political murders to an underground network of untraceable assassins from the Far East. Defying the orders of her superior, Mika digs into top secret agency files to learn the truth behind the murders. Her investigation makes her a target, and the Ozunu Clan sends a team of killers to silence her forever. Raizo saves Mika from her attackers, but he knows that the Clan will not rest until they are both eliminated. Now, entangled in a deadly game of cat and mouse through the streets of Europe, Raizo and Mika must trust one another if they hope to survive…and finally bring down the elusive Ozunu Clan.

Blow me.  And of course the clips are all stylized slo-mo and wire fu.  Haha, I love you, masturbatory posturing.  All I’m saying is if you film two guys sword fighting, someone better be getting a limb cut off or else they may as well be frotting.
Read the rest of this entry »

This is the trailer for Ninja Assassin, from V for Vendetta director and protege of the Wachowski… uh, siblings… James McTeigue. And for extra credit, it stars a Korean pop star known simply as “Rain.”  Well, looks like now’s good a time as any to break out the played-out crappy action movie checklist. Shall we?

• Ninjas? Assassins?  Check and check, obvi.
• Origin story?  Check.
• Underexposed for dramatic effect?  Check.
• Gruff Asian mentor with thick accent?  Check.
• Pop musician attempting to act? Check.
• Homoerotic shirtless training montage?  Check.
• Protagonist raised by fraternity of assassins?  Check.
• With whom he later has a falling out?  Check.
• Slow-motion CGI weaponry?  Check.
• Car driving through explosion? Check.
• Cheesy butt rock soundtrack courtesy of Linkin Park or Papa Roach or God forbid… Hoobastank?  Check. (*shudder*)
• Epic choir gasps???  Check and mate, motherf*cker! TICK TICK TICK… SPLOOGE!

Well that clinches it, this looks familiar enough for me to go see (I spaz out like an autistic kid when movies get too unpredictable).   Man, one job that must be recession proof is the people in that epic opera gasp choir.  Between UFC events and movies based on graphic novels, they must work 18 hours a day. You can just see them practicing. Instead of a baton, the conductor just stands at the podium karate chopping boards.  Ahh ahh ah-ah!  Ahh ah ah ahhh-ahh AH AH….

Since I know how much all you FilmDrunkards love watching a shirtless, muscular Asian guy with flowing feminine locks work out, check out this training video.  It comes from 87 Eleven, the stunt coordinating team behind Ninja Assassin, the Wachowski siblings-produced, James McTeigue (V for Vendetta)-directed action film coming out later this year.

During the training, Rain [star of Ninja Assassin and a Korean pop star] has lived on the restricted diet of only chicken breast and vegetables for 8 months, trained for 10 hr a day and achieved the incredible body with 0% body fat.

I’m not a doctor (I just play one with kids from the neighborhood), but I’m pretty sure only mummies have 0% body fat.  Maybe the synopsis was written in North Korea.  Anyway, the video reminds me of the guys I see at the gym who train sword and stick fighting and pitch it like it’s some kind of self-defense.  Ahh, I see you’re practicing the ancient martial art of carrying a giant f-cking weapon around with you all the time. I think I read about that in Sun Tzu.
Read the rest of this entry »

After the jump I’ve got the first three minutes of the Wachowski Siblings’ Speed Racer, a movie with all the sexy car porn of The Fast and the Furious or Doomsday, in a format perfect for impressionable young children.  "The Mach 5 is sooo awesome!  I wonder what kind of mileage it gets!" the kids will shout.

Oh hey, and did I mention that it’s live-action but is very reminiscent of a cartoon??  I don’t know how they did it – it’s totally the exact opposite of what people normally do.  It’s like wearing socks on your hands, or underwear on your dog.  They sure flipped the nail on its head this time.

[Thanks to Robo for the tip]

Ali Dee and the Deekompressors recently released a video of their cover of the Speed Racer theme song that will play during the movie.

It’s the audio equivalent of a million blinking emoticons and thus, the perfect companion for this movie.  Everything I’ve seen surrounding Speed Racer so far has been a gangrape of the senses – and I mean that in the least sexy sense of the word.  I’m convinced this is some kind of propaganda film.  I think the working title was Maybe the Communists Were Right.