Tongan Ninja

talkkiwitome wrote:I've just watched it, and it is pretty awesome. And the opening with Jemaine looking like Elvis...priceless.

Anyone know where I can procure the music?

sargifster wrote:

talkkiwitome wrote:I've just watched it, and it is pretty awesome. And the opening with Jemaine looking like Elvis...priceless.

Anyone know where I can procure the music?

Made for talkkiwitome, but I've put it here as well for other people, if they want it.

Mods - feel free to remove if inappropriate.

Tongan Ninja opening music mp3 (1.45MB)

I personally loved the fight scene where TN grabs the boom mic and uses that as a weapon. I also loved the ninja receptionist at the ninja headquarters. I think there was one scene too, where one of the ninjas was raking the zen garden and kept getting pissed off at everyone walking through and ruining it.

[size=150:pi415ybp]KIWI CLASSIC: TONGAN NINJA

[size=100:pi415ybp]New Zealanders often describe themselves as having a ‘
No. 8 wire’
mentality –
a belief than anything can be solved, repaired or willed into being using nothing more than No. 8 fencing wire (a farming staple) and a good helping of Kiwi ingenuity. So in many ways, what the Your Big Break brief is asking of you is to get in touch with your inner New Zealander –
in order to tell an entertaining story in 3 minutes, from a 2-day low-budget shoot and with just a week in post, you might find be forced to rely on the old No. 8 from time to time yourself.

A couple of weeks back, I looked at Bad Taste, Peter Jackson’
s splatstick alien invasion opus –
as fine an example of No. 8 wire filmmaking as New Zealand has ever produced. That is, until 2003, when Wellington filmmaker Jason Stutter unleashed Tongan Ninja, an affectionate parody of 1970s martial arts imports, shot on SD video. Stutter didn’
t quite go to Jacksonian lengths –
his epic took only three years of weekend shooting to complete, not quite equalling Bad Taste’
s four, and his chosen target is the martial arts movie, not the splatter film. But Tongan Ninja is every bit the spiritual successor to Jackson’
s debut in terms of what it aspires to –
and delivers –
on a shoestring.

Opening with a knockout musical number, the film quickly introduces Sione Finau (Sam Manu). Trained as a ninja after his father was eaten by piranhas, Sione finds himself en route to New Zealand. There, he becomes embroiled in a blackmail plot masterminded by the evil Mr. Big (Victor Rodger), who dispatches three of his most skilled assassins –
Gun Man, Knife Man and Action Fighter (Jemaine Clement) –
to deal with the Tongan Ninja for once and for all. Throw in an off-the-wall dance setpiece (choreographed by Conchord Bret McKenzie and featuring Eagle Vs. Shark director Taika Waititi), the requisite Kiwi humour, some seriously lo-fi martial arts action and more bad dubbing than you can shake a shuriken at (much of it necessitated by the fact that Stutter shot the film without a sound recordist), and you have New Zealand’
s answer to El Mariachi: a digital feature that sets the bar really, really low –
but then proceeds to jump over it with delirious ease time and time again.

It may well be the Kiwi classic you’
ve never heard of, but Tongan Ninja is truly inspirational zero-budget filmmaking. You don’
t have three years in which to shoot a Your Big Break film, but if you can soak up a little of the spirit of Tongan Ninja –
and practice your No. 8 wire skills –
you’
ll have no trouble at all delivering the entertainment value Peter Jackson will be looking for in the winning film.

You can pick up a copy of Tongan Ninja from Amazon.com. Director Jason Stutter’
s two-minute short film Careful With That Axe was selected for the 2008 Melbourne International Film Festival, the 2008 Edinburgh International Film Festival and the 2008 AFI Fest in the USA, among other accolades –
in a future blog entry I’
ll be asking his advice on how to tell an award-winning story in three minutes.

...

–
Your Big Break Critic

[size=150:t9dmtbhz]TOP 50 NEW ZEALAND FILMS
AS VOTED BY NEW ZEALANDERS

[size=100:t9dmtbhz]Over 10,000 Kiwis voted for their favourite New Zealand-made film, these are the results... Perhaps the most honest and certainly our most hard-hitting film, Lee Tamahori's Once Were Warriors, trumps some big budget epics and is chosen as our favourite. Unsurprisingly Peter Jackson is the theme here (9 titles in total) - all three Lord of the Rings film make the top ten along with Heavenly Creatures.
...
48. Tongan Ninja
...