Ninja movie to keep an eye on in '09

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http://www.kungfucinema.com/?p=2142

Scott Adkins to star in Florentines Ninja

By Mark Pollard June 6, 2008

This, my friends is news to warm the heart of any modern martial arts movie lover. THE SHEPHERD and UNDISPUTED 2 co-star Scott Adkins will be making his leading debut in an upcoming all-out ninja flick by action director Isaac Florentine.

NINJA promotional poster

The news comes to us courtesy of the Scott Adkins Fanz forum and website where an early plot summary for NINJA from the films production company Nu Image is posted.

The gist of the story is that a young ninja in Japan runs away to America with a woman expected to marry against her will. Her angry husband-to-be is a yakuza boss who follows them to New York with a gang of assassins in tow to get revenge. Using his fighting skills, the ninja fends them off initially. Yet after his girlfriend disappears, he is forced into what is described as an epic battle on a moving train. The ninja is badly beaten, allowing a local detective trying to piece together whats going on to catch up with him. Once recovered, the ninja teams with the detective to take on the yakuza boss and his assassins that include a female ninja, aka a kunoichi and a blind ninja. Another intriguing element is that the ninja develops modern versions of the ninjas arsenal to take on an army of assassins.

The original synopsis refers to the hero as being Japanese, at least in name, suggesting the script was originally written with someone else in mind to play the lead. Its no major loss. Adkins may not be Japanese but his screen fighting skills are world class and its about time this British-born actor finally gets a chance to become a martial arts star. Who would have guessed it would be in a new modern ninja flick?

Scott Adkins in UNDISPUTED 2

Prospects for this movie are huge, given the right circumstances. Florentine has repeatedly proven himself to be a highly capable action director with a genuine love and understanding for martial arts screen fighting. Given a respectable budget and enough creative freedom, NINJA could even give the upcoming Wachowski Brothers film, NINJA ASSASSIN, some competition. One thing is for sure, Rain aint got nothing on Scott Adkins and hell need all the overblown digital wizardry the Wachowskis will undoubtedly throw at him.

For now, Adkins has been keeping busy on the shoot for X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE where he plays one of several Weapon X operatives going against Hugh Jackman, who reprises his role from the X-MEN films.

Adkins is also expected to reprise his role as Russian underground fighting champ Uri Boyka in Florentines UNDISPUTED 3. This time, he assumes the role of the main protagonist. Having suffered a crippling defeat at the hands of American boxing champion George Chambers (Michael Jai White) at the end of the previous movie, he is given a titanium knee replacement that becomes his secret weapon for deadly knockouts. He is then transferred to a Chinese prison where he is forced to compete in an annual death match and eventually leads a prison riot.

Good stuff coming from the power team of Scott Adkins and Isaac Florentine. It looks like 2009 is going to be the year of the ninja.

[debs]

all i read was:

japan
ninja
new york
yakuza
assasin

and thats all i needed to read. this will be watched.

edit
nevermind. scott adkins?? honestly, they can’t find a japanese american at least? really? how many white man asian films are we going to get???

[regulate]

Andy Dick should play the ninja for hilaritys sake, or mel gibson.

[maxx]

andy Dick Should Play The Ninja For Hilaritys Sake, Or Mel Gibson.

Gtfo Of My Thread! Noooo!

[NegroNinja]

nevermind. scott adkins?? honestly, they can’t find a japanese american at least? really? how many white man asian films are we going to get???

Hollywood’s historically had a big problem with casting Asians in leading roles for anything, in the beginning it was downright racism, now it’s just a hidden agenda. It’s why they removed Jet Li and Aliyah’s romance scenes from Romeo must die…still I can’t see why they’d go and fuck this up when it’s set in Japan…

If it makes you feel any better, there’s probably already 3 Japanese movie with the same plot floating around somewhere.

[Stuart_Hayden]

I was hoping for another 3 Ninja’s movie.

[maxx]

Hollywood’s historically had a big problem with casting Asians in leading roles for anything, in the beginning it was downright racism, now it’s just a hidden agenda. It’s why they removed Jet Li and Aliyah’s romance scenes from Romeo must die…still I can’t see why they’d go and fuck this up when it’s set in Japan…

If it makes you feel any better, there’s probably already 3 Japanese movie with the same plot floating around somewhere.

to be fair adkins’s martial arts skills are world renowned. so it can easily be his skills were just better than the people who auditioned. its definetly not because of screen recognition cause only hardcore fans know adkins.

[Shinkuu_Tatsumaki]

Hollywood’s historically had a big problem with casting Asians in leading roles for anything, in the beginning it was downright racism, now it’s just a hidden agenda. It’s why they removed Jet Li and Aliyah’s romance scenes from Romeo must die…still I can’t see why they’d go and fuck this up when it’s set in Japan…

Hmmm… I was watching that movie on FX one time or was it Dinner and a movie? Anyways, they said it was because Jet Li suggested that they shouldn’t add it because the character isn’t suppose to kiss the daughter of the enemies.

Or was that just bs to cover up?

And just for the record… I’m just going to assume that Jet Li and Jackie Chan never get the girls in movies because they aren’t really the most “good looking” guys. Rush Hour 2 is an exception to Jackie. You know how hollywood is… And I hate how in Transporter the Asian girl has sex with Statham JUST like that.

[KagerouSama]

Here’s hoping for a Cameo of Ernie Reyes Jr. ala “Surf Ninjas.”
[media=youtube]9tAZUQwKa0A"[/media]
Link for those who have never seen it.

Oh! And an appearance by [media=youtube]awGpWzJVgMA"[/media]

Not sure what I’m implying in the second link. I just find it hilarious.

[scum_gale_88]

oh man! 2 upcoming films with ninja in the title! Im in heaven!

[fishjie]

Hollywood’s historically had a big problem with casting Asians in leading roles for anything, in the beginning it was downright racism, now it’s just a hidden agenda. It’s why they removed Jet Li and Aliyah’s romance scenes from Romeo must die…still I can’t see why they’d go and fuck this up when it’s set in Japan…

yeah hollywood always does gay shit like that

fuck em

[NegroNinja]

to be fair adkins’s martial arts skills are world renowned. so it can easily be his skills were just better than the people who auditioned. its definetly not because of screen recognition cause only hardcore fans know adkins.

I’ve seen Adkins in action and yeah I’m very impressed, taking nothing away from his he’s a bad man…but he’s not Japanese. Yes I know neither was [media=youtube]Xy8AlMh31cM"[/media] but the central plot of that story is that he was THE American Ninja and not just any white dude could be one.

I just really think this movie called for an Asian lead, but then again this is the first I’m even hearing of it so I’m not not upset by the outcome, more-so the further perpetuation of this Hollywood practice. I’ll probably still check this out, I didn’t hate Last Samuai after all.

EDIT: I actually could see Adkins in the position of the detective rather than the Ninja actually.

yeah hollywood always does gay shit like that

fuck em

I just watched some special on Asian film history and they got a bunch of the older actors to come in for interviews, and they were all so happy to assume that someday soon they’d see more serious Asian lead roles coming from Hollywood, I can’t help but feel that Florentine just wanted kicked them all in the sac. Okay maybe not Florentine, but whoever’s putting up money for this project.

[Satomiblood]

I was hoping for another 3 Ninja’s movie.

But they’ve already been to the top of Mega Mountain.

[fishjie]

I just watched some special on Asian film history and they got a bunch of the older actors to come in for interviews, and they were all so happy to assume that someday soon they’d see more serious Asian lead roles coming from Hollywood, I can’t help but feel that Florentine just wanted kicked them all in the sac. Okay maybe not Florentine, but whoever’s putting up money for this project.

yeah every time i see an asian play a role on tv he’s either a martial artist, can’t speak english, or a nerdy pussy who can’t get any pussy. its annoying. its so refreshing to see movies like better luck tomorrow where asians are pistol whipping white guys. we need more like that, and less forbidden kingdom bullshit.

[evilj]

yeah every time i see an asian play a role on tv he’s either a martial artist, can’t speak english, or a nerdy pussy who can’t get any pussy. its annoying. its so refreshing to see movies like better luck tomorrow where asians are pistol whipping white guys. we need more like that, and less forbidden kingdom bullshit.

too bad better luck tomorrow is not free from displaying stereotypes in itself (though it was refreshing to see dynamic characters) and actually perpetuates asian-american stereotypes between the different asian ethnicities and is not that great of a movie, whereas forbidden kingdom was actually a decent fun movie. I read a post by you in that thread that you would boycott forbidden kingdom simply because of the random white dude factor. That’s just stupid in my opinion, I watched it recently and it wasn’t bad at all.

[Septimus_Prime]

Yeah, it’s going to be a white guy playing the leading role. Always.

[myleftshoe]

^ well that sucks. He’s from japan i was hoping he was Asian.Asians really do not get any respect round the states. How the hell did Ong Bak get into theaters? That one was so foreign it came outta nowhere

[Taito]

First a white samurai now a white ninja. Hot. Next up should be a Yakuza film where Brad Pitt plays the kumicho.

[Shinkuu_Tatsumaki]

^ well that sucks. He’s from japan i was hoping he was Asian.Asians really do not get any respect round the states. How the hell did Ong Bak get into theaters? That one was so foreign it came outta nowhere

I haven’t watched Ong Bak in so long, but doesn’t he fight against Asian people in that movie? Even if it wasn’t, You’ll never get Asian guy killing White guy in a movie in hollywood. It’s always Asian and White/Black guy killing other Asians.

In War, Jet Li gave a bullet right to Stathams head. But that’s because Jet Li is popular here. They wouldn’t do that in a film with a no name Asian lead actor.

[Debaser]

Sometimes you don’t want an Asian actor as the lead role in movies like this. Take Ninja Assassin for instance. Sure it has a Asian actor, but this “actor” also happens to be Rain, some Korean pop star.

Soooo, would you rather have a guy who can’t fight his way out of a soggy paper bag or would you rather have a white dude who knows his chops? The Asian actors in these kinds of movies tend to be pop stars/tv stars, so I don’t understand why them being Asian automatically makes them the best candidates.