I was on YouTube. This film was featured on my homepage. The title caught me off guard.
First of all, it's:
Shaolin vs Ninja
But then...
Oi, let's swap things around, nobody would notice.
Propaply because no proper "American Shaolin", only "American Ninja" — thus the reflex-swap.
🤷♂️
American Shaolin. 🤔 It sounds like "Zen with shotguns" or "igloo skyscraper".
Right. Let's continue. The title is bloody abstract.
Shaolin? Which part?
- The entire institution?
- The whole temple complex?
- Every monk in the province?
- That one particular old lad with long eyebrows with on-off dramatic vibes toggle? That? So he represents the entire "Shaolin"?
Ninja? Is it
- the word itself?
- that one bloke in black pyjamas doing cartwheels?
- the entire shadowy clan from Kyoto?
- the concept of stealth wrapped in interpretive dance?
Ninjas (shinobis) were MI6 field agents / CIA operatives of feudal Japan. Not stuntmen with smoke bombs.
Ninja = shinobi.
Shinobi (忍び) is the original Japanese term, meaning "to conceal oneself, to endure, to sneak".
Ninja (忍者), same meaning, but it's the Sino-Japanese reading of the same characters (忍者). Ninja as a word didn't really become common in Japan until the 20th century. Thanks to pulp novels, movies, and TV shows in the 1900s, then exploded into pop culture in the 1960s–80s.
Sino-Japanese = words/phrases of Chinese origin in the Japanese language.
"Sino-" simply means Chinese.
The synopsis justified everything by using "intertwined". Somehow... intertwined. Alright.
So then, I watched the film. 😂
Oh, what an amusement that was.
The Blimey
I was mesmerised. If ninjutsu had those frontal tactics, there would be no ninja, ever.
No such thing as "American Ninja", it would be "American".
Michael Joseph Stephen Dudikoff Jr. wouldn't have the chance to say, Hi, I'm a ninja. You can tell by the fact I'm being followed by a camera crew and a synth guitar riff.
Instead, he would mutter, Hi, where am I? I'm a [blank].
In that film, Oi, let's surround the bloke and flail about. Shurikens, lads! And I waited for them to converge into some sort of Godzilla-bot — no luck.
Blimey, a ninjutsu-lad would also go, blimey! (Facepalming with hands and feet.)
That isn't ninjutsu, that is Kabuki parkour with budget weapons.
Ninjutsu is more of a 20th-century revival / reconstruction, not a one-to-one survival of what shinobi actually trained in centuries ago.
Shinobi trained in various practical survival skills and martial arts. Basically, take a normal warrior's training, then add spying, trickery, sabotage.
That frontal-ninja trope is similar to James bloody Bond. He's the most incompetent MI6 door-cleaner.
Low profile. Dead drops. No attention.
JB: Na.
Oi! The door was here earlier.
JB: And?
🤦♂️ You should be in a movie.
JB: Ja.
The Awkwardness
It's a mashup:
- Ming/Qing dynasty monk robes (Ming: 1300s-1600s / Qing: 1600s-1900s).
- Edo samurai costumes (1600s–1800s).
- And "occupied China" (1930s) narration as the duct tape holding it together.
It's the cinematic equivalent of making a WWII movie where Churchill wears a Viking helmet, Rommel shows up in a toga, and the Americans parachute in dressed as cowboys.
Historical accuracy got kung fu kicked out of the window before filming even began.
Not a single motorcar, lorry, or even a rusty bicycle rolls past. What part of China in '30s was that? Everyone walked and ran? Not even a horse or rickshaw? 🤔
In real 1930s Manchuria/China, we'd see trains, trucks, soldiers marching with rifles, telegraph wires, maybe even a gramophone crackling in the background. Not people cosplaying in Edo, going back in time to the Ming period... with shurikens. Shurikens, lads! Budget shurikens.
Amusing, if we think about it. Deeply. Not clearly.
Monks with Santa beards. 🤔
Shaolin vs Nina
Now that, is a movie title that shouldn't exist.
This summer....
The Shaolin institution, 1,500 years of history, thousands of monks, tiger stance, crane stance, scrolls, relics, and even that courtyard squirrel — all mobilised against one woman named Nina.
Available in 4K on nowhere.
But! 🤔 Which Nina?
At least, we are more specific with the "Nina", unlike "ninja".
And "Shaolin" in "Shaolin vs Nina" could be Bob. As opposed to "Jennifer Love Hewitt", it's "Robert Saw Lynn". People simply called him Bob.
Alright, it's Robert Saw Lynn versus Nina Hewitt, then.
(Judge bangs the gavel, squirrel faints.)
Lou
If you pay attention to the screenshot, the main lad was "Alexander Lou". I was... "Lou"? Really?
As in, Lou... Louis [Roman numerals here]?
It was actually Luo (羅). Thus the saga is complete.
Shaolin vs Ninja ➡️ Ninja vs Shaolin ➡️ Luo ➡️ Lou.
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