Cloud USA

Greetings lovely Clouds!

As all of you know, Ninja Assassin was released here in the United States yesterday.  Some time ago, I made the decision not to pre-order the movie.  I know.  What was I thinking, right?  Really, it was more of a personal budgeting decision than anything else.  And it wasn’t a decision I thought much about after I had made it.  I mean, after all, I was planning to buy my copy of the movie on the very first day of its release.  So, there should still be plenty of them available.  Right?

Wrong.  You see, apparently being released here in the USA doesn’t actually mean that the movie will be available for purchase on that day.  At least, it didn’t mean that here in Atlanta.

The first store I went to, a Target near my work (Yes, I was so anxious that I couldn’t even wait until I got to my side of town before I started looking…), had only three copies of the regular DVD on its shelves.   The Blu-ray section was empty.  At first, I thought, Wow.  Sold out already?  On day ONE?  How on earth did that happen? But then a suspicious little voice popped up in my head.  Hm.  I wonder how many copies they ordered in the first place?

After all, the movie only stayed in our neighborhood theaters a couple of weeks before it was moved to the “select theaters” category.  What that meant was that if people wanted to see it, then they had to hunt for it, because it was only playing in three theaters all across Atlanta.  Was the same fickle fate about to befall the Ninja Assassin DVD sales?  Hm.

Since I wanted to buy the Blu-ray version, I had no choice but to ask the attendant at the electronics department counter to see if they had any Blu-ray copies in the back.  She checked.  They didn’t.  “You know, I don’t think we got many of those things,” she admitted.  “It wasn’t a very popular movie, was it?”  Grrrr.

She had a little scanner thingy in her hand, so I asked her if she could tell me how many they had actually received.  She couldn’t tell for sure, but she did say that it looked like they only had ten of the regular DVDs in stock.  And they hadn’t received any Blu-rays at all.  Geez.

On we go to the next store, Barnes & Noble.  Barnes & Noble is a book store, but it usually has a pretty good selection of new movie releases.  ONE COPY. Yes, you are reading that right.  They had only ONE copy of the regular DVD in stock.  I’m not kidding.  When I asked the counter clerk how many copies they had actually ordered, all she could say was that whatever they had ordered they weren’t in the store yet.  Maybe they’d be here by tomorrow.  Maybe.

I couldn’t believe it.  Strike two.  I trudged to my car.  I was a little bummed out.  My son, who commutes with me to work, was a little more optimistic.  “Maybe we’d have better luck closer to home, Mom,” he said.  It was very sweet of him to try to cheer me up.  It was.  But it wasn’t working.

My next stop was the Target in my neighborhood.  Finally, the jackpot!  Not only did the store have a FULL shelf of the regular DVD copies, they also had a full shelf of Blu-rays!  Hooray!  My son dashed to the shelf and grabbed up our copy, as if a ninja was going to swoop around a corner, scarf them all up, and vanish back into the shadows.  :-}

The rest is history.  We went home, had dinner, and watched the movie with unabashed delight.  I must say that it was as terrific this time as it was the last time I saw it in the theater.  Probably even better, because we had all of the special features to enjoy too.  Two special features of note were:

Training Rain:  This special feature shares the intimate details of the intense physical training Rain went through to transform himself from a singer/dancer/actor into a powerful ninja warrior.  Excellent!

The Extreme Sport of Ninja:  An elite group of noted freerunners, martial artists and gymnasts brings to life the breathtaking and bloody action of Ninja Assassin.  All I can say is wow, what a team!  No wonder the action sequences were spectacular!

I’m really hoping that my problems with purchasing this DVD were due to a few release snafus and were not an issue of stores not stocking the movie because they didn’t think it would sell well.

USA Clouds, here’s your assignment (if you should choose to accept it):  Please call all of your neighborhood stores that sell movies and ask them to stock Ninja Assassin (both  regular and Blu-ray versions).  I mean, the least we can do is make sure that American audiences get the chance to see this wonderful movie at home.  Because they sure didn’t get a chance to see it at the theaters!

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Wishing you many Rainy days,

Terri :-}

(image credits: Warner Bros., Filmax)

~ by Cloud USA on March 17, 2010.

Posted in Bi Rain, Bi Rain blog post, Ninja Assassin, Ninja Assassin US DVD, Rain, Rain News, Rain stuff, Rain Topics, Uncategorized
Tags: Bi Rain News, newly added, Ninja Assassin, Rain Ninja Assassin DVD US release, US alert