"Ninja Ko, the Origami Master" is an American live action short film from 1990, so this one has its 30th anniversary this year and the only reason why it us not totally forgotten is the fact that it was directed and co-ritten by a certain Rian Johnson, who was 16 years old or so back then. This was the very first filmmaking effort (according to imdb) for the lauded director. I must say I am a bit unsure about him as a filmmaker. i really did not like Looper, but last year's "Knives Out" is an absolute contender for best 2019 movie for me. So it was curious to see what such an established filmmaker made during his early days back then and this can also give young filmmakers hope because to be honest these slightly under 4 minutes were a big mess and I am glad it was this short. You cans ay that it was basically boys having fun with a camera. One of them was posing as ("playing" would not be accurate) as a ninja and he runs into a couple antagonists and takes them out like a pro. Now story-wise it really made no sense, especially towards the end when we have that guy who seems to be in control of the ninja and how he offers the cigarette is still alright, but why then he simply won't shoot him, but lets him get in the car, just made no sense at all. And the ninja here also has a bit of Knight Rider in him as we find out immediately afterwards. One of the actors here (cannot say which because the credits don't tell) is Brendan Koelber and he came up with the "script" together woth Johnson. Unreal to see even two people working on this mess of a story. However, Koelber's career turned out the exact opposite compared to Johnson's as he never worked on another film before or after this again, so you can probably easily see that Johnson was the driving force here. What maybe surprised me the most about this movie (except how bad it is) was the yodeling that came with the closing credits and also the German singing, which especially caught my attention because this is where I am from. Then again, it could have been Austrian too, just Alps music if you want to call it that. Okay, these are definitely enough works for this mess of a film. My definite suggestion is that you skip it. Not even worth seeing for the biggest RJ fans, just for completionists really. Still thumbs-up that it is available online because this is certainly not the case for all early works by renowned filmmakers. Spielberg is a good example I think. And with the title of my review I mean that Johnson took a break of 7 years apparently after this film and his second movie was already improved, even if still obviously very far away from today's level. But that's alright looking at how young he was.
Review of Ninja Ko
