AvN:Alien vs Ninja (2010)

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General		Extras
Category	Action Comedy	Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Eastern Eye Trailers x 5
Rating
Year Of Production	2010
Running Time	81:02 (Case: 90)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Seiji Chiba
Studio Distributor	Nikkatsu Madman Entertainment	Starring	Seiji Chiba Mika Hijii Ben Hiura Shűji Kashiwabara Masanori Mimoto Yűki Ogoe Donpei Tsuchihira
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$29.95	Music	The Reboot

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Feudal Japan. A group of Ninja led by Yamata (Masanori Mimoto) and including his friend Jinnai (Shuji Kashiwabara), the female Rin (Mika Hijii) and buffoon Nezumi (Donpei Tsuchihira) are sent to investigate when a number of fireballs appear in the sky and crash into the forest. When the ninjas arrive they are confronted by a deadly alien creature that is out for blood. Seemingly impervious to swords (the creature can rapidly re-attach severed limbs) Yamata and his group have to come up with a plan to destroy the alien before it can destroy them all. Or worse!

     Alien vs. Ninja (or just AvN) must have seemed like a great idea to writer / director / editor Seiji Chiba. Take a group of ninja warriors and set them fighting with aliens in a forest with lots of blood, severed heads, severed limbs and gore. Costume the ninjas in cool black body armour that owes more to the LAPD than to medieval Japan, give them a neat array of weapons, add a sassy chick and a comic relief sidekick, blend with kinetic fight scenes and a loud electronic score, and what can go wrong? Sadly, quite a bit. Alien vs. Ninja is billed as an “action/comedy” and the film, including the carnage, is played with a great deal of broad, slap-stick humour, including sexual humour, which is very juvenile but might work ok if the “comic” sidekick character of the ninja Nezumi wasn’t so downright annoying. Could a cowardly, whinging, buffoon really be a ninja? The fight sequences, on the other hand, are reasonable using a combination of wire work, ground action and frenetic intercutting. Only limited CGI is utilised, which is just as well as when CGI occurs it is very poor; the opening sequence when the ninjas jump from a castle roof says it all. And then there is the creature.

     Alien vs. Ninja clearly had a limited budget, evident in the creature effects. The alien is a man in a scaly suit, with a long tail, claw like hands, dripping goo and a head that looks like a dolphin. As well, little lizard-like creatures secrete from its head and burrow up its victims’ noses, growing in their throat and allowing the alien to control the ninja as zombie-like creatures. As a deadly adversary, the alien does not look particularly scary and at times it gets punched around too easily by various ninja to be a terrifying beast. However, it sort of works in a tongue in cheek way until the alien is to required to move, when it become a terribly fake looking CGI creation. Later in the film, when the alien sprouts wings and flies off with our hero hanging on, it looks totally ridiculous.

     Alien vs. Ninja tries to be over the top and mixes elements from Predator, Alien, The Matrix and early John Woo films with broad humour, kinetic fight scenes and excess gore. It sounds great on paper, and I do enjoy Japanese over the top filmmaking. Sadly Alien vs. Ninja tries too hard and comes across as just silly. Some films can be silly, yet entertaining good fun. This, unfortunately, is not one of them.

Video

     Alien vs. Ninja is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. I suspect the original theatrical ratio, which is not listed by the IMDb, is 1.85:1. It is 16x9 enhanced.

     The low budget of the film does impact upon the film’s presentation on DVD. It is softer than a recent film should be although detail is good, good enough in fact to show clearly the dodgy CGI effects. Colours are natural, although sometimes skin tones can be on the light side. Contrast and brightness do vary occasionally, however blacks are solid and shadow detail fine. I noted no obvious marks, film or video to film artefacts.

     The English subtitles are in a yellow font and are easy to read. They are in American English and include lots of “gonna” type words but otherwise I did not notice any spelling or grammatical errors.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Audio is a choice between Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448 Kbps, Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 at 224 Kbps or English Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448 Kbps.

     The Japanese 5.1 track is aggressive and enveloping. Dialogue is clear and effects and music constantly occurred in the surrounds, including panning effects as characters walked into shot. The subwoofer mostly supported the music.

     Lip synchronisation occasionally appeared out during rapid fire exchanges of dialogue but was not distracting

     The electronic score by The Reboot was loud and frenetic, like the film itself.

     Those parts of the English track I sampled sounded as poorly dubbed as usual.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Original Trailer (3:08)

Eastern Eye Trailers

     Trailers for other films from Madman: Big Tits Zombie (1:38), Ip Man – The Legend is Born (2:06), Legend of the Fist (1:09), Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl (1:14) and Yatterman (1:07).

     The Region 1 US release has the same video and audio as our release (including the English dub), but includes a “making of” running 19:31 as an extra. The Region 2 UK has no extras, and omits the English dub. Strangely, I cannot find a Japanese release of the film. The US version seems the most complete.

     Take a group of ninja warriors and set them fighting with aliens in a forest with lots of blood, severed heads and gore. Costume the ninjas in cool black , give them a neat array of weapons, add a sassy chick and a comic relief sidekick, blend with kinetic intercut fight scenes and a loud electronic score, and what can go wrong? Sadly, quite a bit. Some films can be silly, yet entertaining good fun. This is not one of them.

     The video is acceptable, the audio loud; a trailer is the only real extra.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall