James McTeigue, the Aussie filmmaker behind the big screen adaptation of “V for Vendetta,” is back with "Ninja Assassin," which hits theaters on Wednesday. Korean pop sensation Rain plays Raizo, who was kidnapped as a child by the Ozunu Clan and trained to be a deadly assassin. The film, produced by Joel Silver and the Wachowski brothers — whom McTeigue worked with for many years on “The Matrix” trilogy -- was inspired by the ninja scenes featured in the Wachowskis' 2008 film "Speed Racer."  Hero Complex contributor Yvonne Villarreal spoke with the filmmaker.

YV: How did the project come about?

JM: I guess I got involved with it from standing around on too many movie sets, talking about what genre’s going to be good to shoot and revamp. But, seriously, I did some work on “Speed Racer” and I worked with Rain, who’s the main star of the movie, and thought if I was ever going to do a ninja movie that he’d be a perfect person to put in that vehicle. So we approached Warner Bros. and they were into the idea; they knew and liked Rain from “Speed Racer.” They gave us the go-ahead and put a writer onto it. Matthew Sand to start with it and J. Michael Straczynski came in and did a polish on the script. And then went off to Berlin to shoot it.

YV: Was this a genre you were hoping to tap into?

JM: Yeah. I sort of grew up with a confluence of American TV and Japanese serials and movies. And I was looking at taking the ninja movies from the '80s, and the stuff I grew up with, like Japanese shows like "Shintaro," "The Samurai" and "The Phantom Agents" and  Japanese anime … and just make this union of styles. I wanted to blend anime,  horror and film noir. I thought it’d be good to put elements of that into a ninja movie of the 21st century.

YV: Were you hoping it would develop into a film with mainstream potential?

JM: Yeah, that was kind of the goal. I mean, I think it sort of goes along the lines of graphic novels and comics. I guess one of those — the thing they used to be is subculture. But now … they are the culture. You got "Spider-Man," "Iron Man," "The Dark Knight"  .... They all started out as comics. I think ninja is a part of that sort of folklore. They’re interspersed — especially in "The Dark Knight," for example; the first one had ninjas in it. So I think people know and like ninjas. I think it was …  they were sort of unfairly maligned because of the no-budget, sort of cheesy movies of the '80s and early '90s. I thought it would be good to take a movie that was essentially in a B genre and give it the affectation of an A genre and see if it could cross over and hopefully it will.   

YV: What were some of the challenges in filming?

JM: I guess the challenges in filming stunts is always being well prepared. Of course, the biggest challenge is making sure you don’t hurt anybody.  I’ve worked with the stunt choreographers and also the second unit directors on this movie, Chad Stahelski and Dave Leitch, a lot over the years. I knew them from the "Matrix" movies and they became stunt coordinators on "V for Vendetta" for me. I think we have a short-hand and a symbiotic relationship. We know how to push each other to the next level. Hopefully that shows in the stunts in "Ninja Assassin."

YV: Do you have a favorite scene?

JM: I have a few. I love the sort of rite of passage in the bathroom scene — how kind of shocking that is… I also like the opening scene. I think it’s kind of fun and sets the tone of the movie.

YV:  People know you from "V for Vendetta." What did you carry over from that film into this one?

JM: I hope that by now I have a certain aesthetic or style. What I was trying to do with this movie … I mean, "V for Vendetta" was a comment on the times that we were living in. It was essentially about the morality of terrorism and why and how does it exist in the world that we live in. Even though that movie was written in the Thatcher period in the '80s, I thought those two administrations had direct parallels. The ninja movie is something much simpler. It’s trying to take something that is a genre film and give it story and give it characterization and some amazing action sequences. I think sometimes with action movies, stories and characterizations and narrative are sort of mutual exclusives. Hopefully, we give them a story that didn’t get in the way of all that. Yet you get some interest in what made the man.

YV: And you’ll be up against "New Moon," the latest installment in the "Twilight" saga.

JM: I think the audience for my movie is different from "Twilight." Obviously, "Twilight" is a behemoth. If you look at tracking for the new ‘Twilight’ movie [New Moon], the awareness is probably at about 98% at the moment.

YV: But a ninja could certainly beat a vampire, right?

JM: Definitely. Hopefully.  Especially if he were up against one of the vampires from "Twilight."

Photo: McTeigue on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures', Legendary Pictures' and Dark Castle Entertainment's action film "Ninja Assassin"; credit: David Appleby.

For the record, Alan Moore has not softened his view on Hollywood nor its plan to bring his classic graphic novel "Watchmen" to the screen next March.

"I find film in its modern form to be quite bullying," Moore told me during an hour-long phone call from his home in England. "It spoon-feeds us, which has the effect of watering down our collective cultural imagination. It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms. The 'Watchmen' film sounds like more regurgitated worms. I for one am sick of worms. Can't we get something else? Perhaps some takeout? Even Chinese worms would be a nice change."

Moore is often described as a recluse but, really, I think it's more precise to say he is simply too busy at his writing desk. "Yes, perhaps I should get out more," he said with a chuckle. In conversation, the 54-year-old iconoclast is everything his longtime readers would expect -- articulate, witty, obstinate and selectively enigmatic. Far from grouchy, he only gets an edge in his voice when he talks about the effect of Hollywood on the comics medium that he so memorably energized in the 1980s with "Saga of the Swamp Thing," "V for Vendetta," "Marvelman" and, of course, "Watchmen," his 1986 masterpiece. The Warner Bros. film version of "Watchmen" is due in theaters in March although the project has encountered some turbulence with a lawsuit filed by 20th Century Fox over who has the rights to the property. Moore has no intention of seeing the film and, in fact, he hints that he has put a magical curse on the entire endeavor.

"Will the film even be coming out? There are these legal problems now, which I find wonderfully ironic. Perhaps it's been cursed from afar, from England. And I can tell you that I will also be spitting venom all over it for months to come."

Moore said all that with more mischievous glee than true malice, but I know it will still pain "Watchmen" director Zack Snyder when he reads it. The director of "300" absolutely adores the work of Moore and has been laboring intensely to bring "Watchmen" to the screen with faithful sophistication. But I don't think there's any way to win Moore over, he simply detests Hollywood. Moore said he has never watched any of the film adaptations of his comics creations (which have included "V for Vendetta," "From Hell," "Constantine" and "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen") and that he believes "Watchmen" is "inherently unfilmable." He also rues the effect of Hollywood's siren call on the contemporary comics scene.

"There are three or four companies now that exist for the sole purpose of creating not comics, but storyboards for films. It may be true that the only reason the comic book industry now exists is for this purpose, to create characters for movies, board games and other types of merchandise. Comics are just a sort of pumpkin patch growing franchises that might be profitable for the ailing movie industry."