Scifi.com’s Mike Szymanski is reporting that the Wachowski Brothers will deliver Ninja Assassin, a new martial-arts movie (Collin Chou and Rain being two of the costars) to be directed by James McTeague, the Wachowski toady who directed V for Vendetta. (Which, to be fair, I liked quite a lot.)
Producer Joel Silver recently told Collider the project is a completely original story, a “full on martial arts movie” about revenge.
Question #1: Can there be any such thing as an “original” martial-arts film, given the mind-numbing repetitiveness of the genre and the absolute guarantee that all martial-arts films will show guys whopping and flooring and foot-kicking each other with incredible moves over and over and over, and nobody ever getting hurt or even momentarily stunned? There can be, of course, martial arts films with new stuff, new tricks and new ways to be visually engaging. But “original”? With a title like Ninja Assassin?
Question #2: Who could have imaged at the beginning of the Wachowski’s career, in that glorious period between the releases of Bound and The Matrix, that they would making the 21st Century equivalent of grindhouse movies for the none-too-cerebrals?