Watch out, world of web TV, because there’s a new ninja in town: Katana has debuted with a pilot episode on Strike.TV. Billed as the first martial arts web series, Katana brings in a host of top-notch stunt talent. The hard hitting show stars John Koyama and Yuji Okumoto (also the writer-producer) alongside stunt superstars Al Goto, Sam Looc, and Don Tai. If you haven’t recognized any of those names, check out those IMDB listings, because you’ve definitely seen their movies.
Koyama and Okumoto play brothers in a Japanese American Yakuza crime syndicate family. Where Koyama quit the ninja lifestyle to spend time with his wife and daughter, however, Okumoto decided to carry on with the family business – and “convinces” Koyama to join him. Family kidnappings, organized crime, and ninjas; it’s like 1980s action movies meet The Sopranos.
Personally, as a huge fan of both martial arts films and ’80s action movies, I’m glad to see things start moving to the web – especially since Katana’s pilot episode has only stoked my lust for all things ninja and Yakuza. Oh, and Koyama reminds me of an Asian Solid Snake. Bonus points.
Strike.TV came together in December 2007, as a result of the infamous writer’s strike. We have a healthy dose of coverage of its early days and first web series, along with plenty of reviews. More recerntly, we interviewed Kate Purdy of Strike.TV’s Joe & Kate to hear more about working on an indie web series with the upstart web series portal.
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Comments
Ninjas sneaking around on the Internet? Scary!
Bad acting. The stories all over the place. Very predictable. They should stick to karate chops and jumping off buildings and leave the storytelling to professionals.
I bet TJ probably reads Playboy for the articles, too.
Wow. Not bad. Not bad at all. Internet TV may have to start being taken seriously after all.
When the guy gets out of the SUV and is sliced, look at the direction of the swinging sword, the position of the guy and the blood splatter on the car. Seriously. There are basic rules of film making one of them is called the line.
TJ is entitled to his opinion, but so am I. I don’t think a sword slice direction degrades this in any way and it can be easily fixed. The point is that it is made and better than the junk I have seen on TV and movies that have so called professionals working on them. I like it. And how can a story be predictable in the pilot episode? All it did was create a premise to build on. Also my opinion, “bad acting” is subjective. I think it was appropriate acting and everyone matched each other, which is more important to me. No one tried upstaged other people. Overall, i think it was entertaining.
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