12-03-09

--------Ninja Assassin. Now I saw this movie on opening, Thanksgiving, day. I wanted to get this column out to you right away. However this movie was so full of ninja awesomeness that I had to see it a second time in order to catalogue my thoughts properly. There is no doubt that the acting was of the over acting variety. I mean nobody in this movie is getting an Oscar, unless there is a new category that rewards for most ninja ass-kickingness.

--------The opening scene kicks it off with a healthy dose of ninjafied mutilations. My personal favorite scene is on Raizo’s, the good ninja, first assassination. He gets a little pig-sticker and he has to take out this big fat guy. The big fat guy in question seems to be able to take an infinite amount of stabs from this knife and keep on fighting. Raizo eventually has to kill him by smashing his face repeatedly into a toilet.

--------Those who know me know I am a big fan of flail weapons. I have always been a huge fan of nunchucks, which is apparent in my comic book. I have always gravitated towards the flexible weapons. This movie highlights a weapon designed specifically for this movie. It is a knife on a long chain. Simply brilliant. Now in the real world I don’t think this weapon would be capable of cutting off peoples legs, however in this instance it is just plain old-fashioned good cinematography.

--------This movie featured some pretty sweet ninja weaponry across the board. The swords were all cool. What struck me as particularly awesome was the shurikens. Typical martial arts store shurikens don’t really seem like they could do a whole lot of damage. The standard justification was, “ ninjas always poisoned their shurikens.” Which is of course all well and good. However the shurikens in this movie are about eight inches across. They are closer to the blade thrown in the movie Krull than anything else I have seen. Kudos to the Weapon Master whoever that a person might have been, IMDB gave no credit for that position.

--------Now I didn’t know this before I saw this movie but apparently when ninjas are about to attack en masse, they like to whisper threats. I call this form of psychological warfare the Ninja Whisper Assault. This attack has got to be made using ninja magic because they are whispering but you can hear them from across the room. It is a very intimidating attack because lets face it ninjas are terribly spooky and to have a bunch of them whisper threatening you has got to be unsettling.

--------This is not the only form of ninja magic we see in this movie. Ninjas can also shadow merge and shadow step, which is of course not surprising. What I dint know before seeing this movie is that apparently ninjas can heal. They probably learned that one from mister Miyagi.

--------The spy boss of the lead female character was probably the cheesiest spy I have ever seen. This guy reminded me of Bill Paxton’s character from True Lies. The difference being Bill Paxton’s character was a used car salesmen pretending to be a spy and this guy was just a cheesy actor.

--------Why is it that there always has to be a love interest in movies? Ninja Assassin is no exception. Now it wasn’t as bad as most movies however it was there. There were a couple lines about Mika’s special heart that were pretty much intolerable. And of course Rain, the Korean pop star that played Raizo, gave some pretty cool but dreamy looks that were laughable. You never know whom to blame on that crap. Was it the actor or the director?

---------The Sub-Boss and Boss fights were however quite satisfying. The Sub-Boss had the most poorly delivered line of the movie right before he went down, “ I remember the sound she made when I stuck her.” Poor delivery, good kill. The final boss fight was awesome. It had a cool silhouette and blood sequence and a wide variety of ninja attacks. The ninja chain was an awesome weapon for fodder and sub-bosses however when you go to take out a ninja master it must be done sword on sword. There is no substitute. Like I said earlier I am a big fan of the flail. That being said the sword is the greatest weapon ever made. There is no substitute, and for boss killing it is a necessity.

--------I’m not saying this is the best ninja movie ever made; however I cannot think of a better one off the top of my head. If you can think of a better one drop me a line.

--------Speaking of Ninja awesomeness I just spent Thanksgiving week up in Aspen skiing and eating turkey with my family. I hadn’t skied in about a dozen years. But don’t worry I was awesome. It truly is like riding a bike. What was most awesome was that my brother Chris Tatsuno is a professional extreme skier. You can check out his website here. Anyways I got to ski with the locals in a way most tourists never get to experience. It reminded me of the years I lived up is Ketchum Idaho. Back then we used to travel the mountains in small packs of unruly kids.

--------Shout out to my brother Chris who just won The Ultimate Ski Bum Contest. He just won a three-month paid vacation to Canada’s Powder Highway. Package includes like eighteen days of helicopter skiing. You can see the winning video submission here.

--------From the years 1980 to 1985 I lived in Ketchum Idaho. Some regard mount Baldy, the local mountain, to be one of the best ski spots in the world. I wouldn’t know myself, as I have not been to all the ski spots in the world. Any ways during that five-year stretch I skied quite a bit, won a couple trophies and what not. However in 1985 I moved back to Southern California and didn’t get up into the snow again until 1999. I spent one day snowboarding and one day skiing at Heavenly in Tahoe.

--------So I have not been following the latest advances in ski technology. All I know is that everything looks way different than it did in 1985. Which brings me to the next topic of conversation. My brother Max brought up the new swimsuit that seems to have caused a controversy in the swimming world. Prior to that I had never heard about it, which is kind of funny since everybody else seems to know about it when I bring it up in conversation. So I have been reading up on it. I find the idea of a swimsuit that enhances performance that much to be fascinating. We are now living in times that are considered science fiction to previous generations. Times are still a little light on spaceships.

---------I just don’t understand what the controversy is all about. Sure the suits a very expensive right now and they only last for a couple of matches. But the price will go down. When the pocket calculator first came out from Texas Instruments it was $300. Now you can get one for $.99. The suits will eventually come down in price and I am sure they will improve in durability.

--------So what if all the world records are being broken. That is the natural order of things. Do you think that anybody could set the current world record for skiing using the skies they used in 1959? Of course not! The world is not flat! I say improve the tech whenever possible. Except of course in the instance of killing machines. Terminator has taught us better than that.