From "REVENGE OF THE NINJA" to "NINJA"/ A selected B-Movie Time Travel
by Ulrik Bruchholz

I am just back from a three day trip to Sofia, Bulgaria where my good friend Mikey and I visited the set of the new Isaac Florentine movie NINJA. Somehow it all has been like a dream and the feelings I have are quite hard to describe. That is why I start about 17 years in my past.


Shortly after the Berlin Wall fell my best friend´s father bought a VCR and I was introduced to the world of VHS, which most likely was one of the most important things ever happened in my life.
Within months I knew every Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Jean Claude Van Damme movie there was.
Over the years almost every week new movies with new action stars like Gary Daniels, David Bradley, Michael Worth or Mark Dacascos were released. It was like heaven for me and I couldn´t get enough.
Back then the most important movies in my collection were: “put in any Jackie Chan movie you want”, “Way Of The Dragon”, “Bloodsport”, “Revenge Of The Ninja” and “American Ninja 2”.


Besides imitating Jackie Chan or JCVD I had tons of books of “secret” ninja techniques (never ever even thought that when something is released nationwide as book, it’s far away from being secret), I bought every shuriken I could find and when I didn´t play “Shinobi” on the Sega Master System I did my first homemade movies playing a (German) ninja.


About a decade later I had realized that Michael Dudikoff is not really one of the best fighters on the planet, that ninjas are a lot, but mostly not what Sho Kosugi or David Bradley showed on screen and most sadly that 97% of the b-movies don´t include real heros anymore and the love for good old b-movie-action seems to be gone. Every movie on the market had cheap locations, lifeless wanna be heros and almost screamed out “we only did the movie to get your money, but not to entertain you”.


There were some of the old icons left, but for whatever reason very good people like Gary Daniels and Mark Dacascos only get parts in movies which totally waste their talent and guys like Jean Claude Van Damme or Steven Segal seem to either wanna act instead of do action or simply sell their face for the DVD covers.

It seems as if the golden age of American action B-movies died with the bankrupt of CANNON FILMS and P.M. Entertainment.


Somewhen in 2003 I was involved into some movie called “Kampfansage” (aka “The Challenge”).
For me it was like all my dreams were fulfilled, because that flick was a pure martial arts b-movie.
Most of the people involved were 110% sure that this flick will start a new wave of martial arts flicks and that it will be quite successful as genremovie.
The time has proven us wrong, but now 5 years later for me one of the most important things were that (beside of a lot of other cool people) I got to know some stuntguy called Mikey (Mike Möller).
He was (and is) totally crazy about everything that includes martial arts and knows every b-movie on the planet, even if they are not released anywhere. Back then he showed me some clips from a movie called “US Seals 2” made by some fellow I never heard of before: Isaac Florentine.


“US Seals 2” was like a wake up kick directly into my face. It had everything the classic b-movies had, but there was even more. It didn’t take itself too serious and it had high class hong kong style martial arts action. Within two months I had every Florentine movie which was available on DVD and I became a big fan of his work.


In June 2008 Mikey called me and told me that he plans to visit the set of the new Isaac Florentine movie NINJA and because he knows how crazy I am about b-movies and Isaacs work he ask whether I’d like to join him. I agreed right away and about a month later Mikey and I were sitting in some car and were driving to the NU BOYANA studios in Sofia.


Mikey was sitting in front and I in the back. Both of us didn’t say a word.
The whole situation felt quite surreal, because for the past 5 months I had been working 24/7 on some German martial arts TV show starring my friend Mathis Landwehr and the first free days I had I used to fly to Sofia to get to some movie set. On the one hand I doubt my decision and on the other I was so excited that my decision couldn’t be wrong.


The driver told us that we arrived and he entered the Nu Boyana studios. The car was driving directly thru the “Kabul set” of the movie “The Shepherd” and to our right was the new build New York set, which seemed to be taken directly from John Carpenter’s Big Trouble In Little China. I was stunned.

The car stopped between some lighttrucks and a little later we entered a Japanese Dojo.
Zack, the driver pointed at some guy with some white base cap and left with the words: “There is Isaac, have fun and call me if you wanna leave.”


For about 5 min Mikey and I were just standing at the entrance and looking at everything, trying not to be in the way of all the working people. Isaac was talking with lot of people and walking fast from one point to another to manage the things he had to manage to get his shots done.

The dojo looked similar to the one in Bruce Lee’s Fist Of Fury or any Shaw Brothers flick. It was build just in the middle of some forest and a huge mountain was in its background, which added a lot of atmosphere to it. A day later the visual effects set-supervisor Maria kindly explained me that in the final movie the mountain is supposed to be Mt. Fujiama. Awesome!


Finally Isaac took a short break and we took the chance to introduce ourselves. We tried to thank him for everything he had done for us and that ended in an endless chain of different sentences which all ended with “.. it’s such a big honor to be here” or “.. thanks soo much..”.
It may seemed like it was too much thanking, but now with some time past I am still impressed and grateful for what Isaac had done. But what was it you may ask ?


For about 7 years Mikey and Isaac wrote Emails to each other, but never met in real life. 2 years ago on the set of ERAGON Mikey got to know some stuntmen from Japan – Koichi and Kenji - and one stuntman from Sofia, Bulgaria – Raicho, which he always wanted to meet again, but flying to Japan or Sofia, was out of question.
Now the chance was there to meet all of them in one place, because Kenji was hired as stuntman for NINJA, which Isaac directed and which was shot in Sofia, the place where Raicho is living.

Mikey took the chance and asked Isaac whether it’s possible to visit the set for a short time and Isaac not only agreed, but he organized everything – he booked rooms in the hotel where the crew was staying, his driver was taking us to the set and to the airport and we were able to move freely at the set.
He did all that during the last third of principal photography for one of his biggest movies to date.


As we were done with trying to thank him he introduce us to Yuji the 2nd unit director and fight choreographer, who already did “Special Forces”, “Gyver”, “Ides Of March” etc.
We talked a little bit and then searched for some quite place to not bother anyone.
That was the moment when Kenji Sato, the stuntman who worked on ERAGON arrived and introduced us to the Japanese stunt-team.


Now we were talking to everybody, making a lot of pictures and during the day we were introduced to more and more people, including karate sensei Fumio Demura, with whom I had a quite interesting talk about Pat Morita and doing the early 80s TV show Ohara and lotsa other stuff.


Within 6 hours we knew half the team and had a lot of conversations, only one guy was missing:
Scott Adkins.

He arrived about 30min after us and did some pick-up shots. It was quite interesting to see him in real life, because usually actors are a lot smaller in reality then they seem in the movies, but he was bigger then I imagined. The whole time he was working or sitting on his chair besides Isaac. It never seemed right to interrupt him until about 4 hours later short before the lunchbreak.

Most of the team already left for lunch, but Scott was sitting alone on his chair and it seemed as if he was relaxing. Mikey, Kenji and I took the chance and started a little conversation and took some photos with him. He was very gentle and joked around, the sentence that most stayed in my mind was ".. it seems as if I am the new Michael Dudikoff."
What was funny from my point of view was that Scott was not relaxing as we started our little conversation, but waiting to make some interview he had to make and the reporters now had to wait for him, because we were talking to him. We left for lunch as soon as we realized it.
Some hours later we had another chance to talk to him and did a long discussion about how cool b-movies were in the early 90ties, how all of us discovered Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan etc. and within no time about 20min were gone, then he had to continue shooting.

But back to the lunchbreak. It was in some very big factory hall, which had a big greenscreen at one side and a New York subway was standing in the middle of the place. Kenji told us that it was used for some big actionscene, which was shot a week or two before.

Soon we realized that the three days we were on the set are some of the few days which include almost no fightscenes at all. What a bummer.

I felt a little sorry for Mikey, because he could have been at the set a week earlier and see some of the action, but he waited till I got some days off.


The day continued till about midnight and some very interesting scenes were shot, including a short fightscene in the rain and some shots with Togo Igawa who was cleaning a big collection of ninja weapons.
Every now and then I felt like I was dreaming - everywhere japanese guys in traditional suits, practicing katana movements; a japanese dojo, various ninja weapons .. that totally fit my daydreams as I was around 15 years old.


The next day started like the day before. We were talking with a lot of people and enjoying the atmosphere, but somewhen Isaac had the idea that he needs more trainings footage and Yuji had to come up with scenes of Scott training. I guess Yuji was not so happy to do the scene without time for any preperation, but Mikey and I were more then happy: Finally some little action!

Scott had to do some little kata with 5 japanese guys, then some stuff by his own. All was shot at one side of the dojo by the 2nd unit.
At the very same time the first unit shot some trainingscenes too, but instead of Scott Isaac was wearing a white karate suite and doing some kicks and punches.
Kenji and Mikey were as stunned as I was and all of us had a big smile in our faces and we looked at eachother with disbelief. Isaac himself was not happy at all with his kata, but it was really cool and I seriously hope that he uses this cameo apperence in the final movie !
I guess it can't get any better then seeing the director infront of the camera doing some karate kata !


At around 9pm the whole japanese stuntteam left the set, because only some acting scenes were left to do. We decided to stay.

Mikey and I already were more then happy about everything that happened. It was so amazing to be at the set, being welcomed so friendly and to have such interesting conversations with everyone, but there was still a little bonus ahead.

After the lunchbreak some lovescene was shot. I never ever feel comfortable watching lovescenes and how they are made. Please don't get me wrong, in this scene nothing really happened, so it's not a big wild sex scene, actually only two people look at eachother.
Anyway I took the time to watch at the way Isaac works and it was very interesting how he composed the scene, every movement of the camera and the actors and how perfect he wanted it to be.

Somewhen during that time a guy approached us and started some conversation. I still don't know who he was, but he was talking about Steven Seagal, how he made "American Ninja 4" 20 years ago etc. and wished us a good night and went to Isaac and started chatting with him and how this night is the 10th anniversary of NU IMAGE in Sofia. Woa, I would have loved to talk with him for hours, because it seems as if he was involved somehow in most of the flicks I consumed for almost two decades!

Just as the lovescene was done Isaac decided that he needs some more trainingsfootage of Scott and as Yushi was doing some pick-up shots outside the Dojo Scott had to come up with some small kata of his own and he decided for some wushu form.
Later on he told us that most likely the form won't be in the final movie, because Yushi wanted traditional Karate movements, but whatever happens we were more then happy to see him do some wushu. They shot this form about 5-6 times and Scott's movements were very fast and flexable, which is quite stunning for a guy, with as much muscles as he has.
Mikey and I decided that this is the perfect time to leave, because it couldn't get any better. We thanked everyone and left the set happily.


We used the next day to see Sofia and meet Raicho, some awesome dude, but that's another story. (anyway check out his fight vs Van Damme in "In Hell" to see him in action)


The whole trip was more then worth it. Sofia is some exciting small city and everyone seems to know NU IMAGE and/ or is somehow involved. As we were leaving a lot of people were already talking about the new Dolph Lundgren movie "Commando Performence", which was ready to start when NINJA was done. The new NEW YORK set in the NU BOYANA studios looks awesome and I can't wait for all the b-action that will be shot there.
Right now Sofia seems to be the center of the b-action world, which is awesome, because it's just two hours away from Berlin, Germany ;).

Final note:
I just want to thank Isaac Florentine and Mike Möller for this awesome adventure, same goes to Kenji Sato and Raicho Vasilev. Also to the whole crew of NINJA and Scott Adkins.
Thanks and keep it up :)