An old man sits quietly among the cacti on a cold desert
night, warming himself by a small campfire.
His peaceful little scene is disturbed by when he senses the presence of
another: the mythical chupacabras. The beast
has designs on the old man’s goat.
Before it can pounce, a ninja appears from the darkness to challenge the
beast. As the battle unfolds, the old
man testifies to the legend of Ninjito, the Mexican Ninja!
One thing that many genre properties lack is a sense of the
absurd. This is ironic seeing as how so
many of them are based on outlandish ideas that beg to be taken seriously. This is especially true of films that mix
different mythologies from different cultures.
Both The Warrior’s Way and Cowboys and Aliens did so horribly. Nevertheless, this trend has yet to subside. That would explain why anyone would have the
balls to attempt something like Ninjito:
Mexican Ninja.
Ninjito: Mexican Ninja
is a proof of concept short for a planned feature film. If the concept in question sounds silly, that’s
because it is. Ninjito makes no attempt to pull its punches in that regard. While its very premise inspires laughter, its
production values surely do not. The lighting
and framing provide a nice mythical ambience, as does the costuming. The production design combines the sensibilities
of manga and anime with that of live-action productions based on manga and
anime, namely the ones from Japan. There’s
an obviousness to the setting that feels more surreal than fake. This isn’t reality, but a mythic daydream
based on reality.
Ninjito begins
with a Mexican sage sitting in front of campfire, issuing a warning to the
mythical chupcabras. It’s played for
laughs, but the actor’s racially ambiguous appearance is a visual
representation of the film’s basic concept.
Ninjito blends the mythologies
of Japan and Mexico. The old sage
dresses and talks in in a stereotypically Mexican manner, but looks vaguely
Asian. In fact, he’s reminiscent of the
drunken monks often found in classic chopsockies. He’s two archetypes rolled into one.
The costume and creature design also combine a number of
familiar mythologies. Ninjito looks like a cross between The Man
with No Name and one of the ninja from Lone
Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx.
The chupacabras looks like a crawler from The Descent, and operates in a similar manner. It drags off the poor goat and devours it
like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. During the fight scene, it looks like a
stubby, muscular Na’vi. Ninjito cribs from a number of different
sources, and with good reason. All of
the aforementioned films featured memorable imagery.
Ninjito: Mexican Ninja
is executed in a very tongue in cheek manner that successfully maintains a
sense of wonder. Still, I wonder how
this idea could be stretched out to a running time of 90 minutes or more. Perhaps
they could have the chupacabra being dispatched by some evil baron in order to
drive poor townspeople off of their land.
It could be kind of like Zorro
with a martial arts bend. After seeing this, I wouldn’t put
anything past Josh Turnbow and his associates.
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