“House of Ninjas” is now streaming on Netflix. I had the chance to chat with director Dave Boyle this week about the show. Read below to learn his favorite fight scene, working without an interpreter in Japan, and the fate of Season 2.
Interview with Dave Boyle for “House of Ninjas” on Netflix
House Of Ninjas. (L to R) Kento Kaku as Haru Tawara, Riho Yoshioka as Karen Ito in House Of Ninjas. Photo: Courtesy of Netflix © 2024
What it was like working with Kento [Kaku] to bring the show to life?
Dave Boyle: “I just got a call out of the blue, I guess, three years ago from my friend who’d worked at Netflix. He just asked me, ‘Hey, you, like ninjas?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah. I mean, who doesn’t like ninjas?’ And he told me that Kento had brought this project to them, this concept, and they were looking for a take on it…I pitched some ideas for it [and] they decided to have me write the show bible. I did that. And then the next thing I knew, they were moving ahead with it. Now, me directing was still sort of an open question…But then it was Kento, who sort of really pushed for [it]…So yeah, I love the guy.”
On not working with an interpreter during the filming
Dave: “I mean, it was challenging…It’s hard to self-evaluate. But, you know, I would say that my Japanese—now having done the show—is probably like 1,000 times better than it was before. And before it was still, it was still good—like not to toot my own horn or anything. I felt like my ability was good enough that having an interpreter was probably just going to add sort of an extra step between my relationship between the actors and between myself, and the actors and the crew. And that it was probably better for me to just, you know, just get better sink or swim. And that I was going to be better for just so much of filmmaking, and especially on a scale like this.”
“Because we’re not working with the blockbuster type of budget that an American show would have, but it’s all the same complications. Action scenes. Long, long, you know, we were shooting for, I mean, we shot for a total of 6 months, but then I was there for a total of 18 months, including, you know, prep and, and post-production. And I just feel like those human relationships just tend to be just so delicate. And I just felt like, I just really need to be a part of the team. This is a Japanese show, I should be doing this in Japanese or otherwise. Otherwise, what’s the point of why? I just felt like, I just felt like there should be a very basic qualification of the job. So it was offered, but I just decided that it was better not to go that way.”
On the fight sequences—Was there anything you drew on for inspiration for how you approached directing those scenes? And do you have a favorite?
Dave: “Well, first off, I want to talk about my action choreographer, Keiya Tabuchi, who’s just so wonderful, imaginative choreographer, really just incredible imagination. And just a great collaborator. He became involved early on in the show. So while we were sort of working on scripts, we could kind of touch base with him and swap ideas around. So that collaboration was really, really important to making all those action scenes really work.”
“You know, it’s funny, like a lot of the stuff that we kind of looked at for inspiration. It’s probably not immediately obvious from looking at it because we wanted to take a real grounded approach. And make sure that the action scenes really hurt, and that they look and that they looked like there was a real sense of danger involved. And then we wanted to have each one of them have their own flavor, you know, some of them have like a little bit of a playful quality to them. And then as things get further and further on into the story, when we got to Episode 8, we decided we just wanted to go full on and just leave it all on the field. And, you know, everything up until that point had been fairly grounded. And, you know, I guess gritty is the wrong word. Because we’re doing some doing some pretty out there stuff.”
“But as far as it goes, aside from a few fantastical touches, fairly grounded, but we wanted to have at least one place where we had an excuse to just really go wild. And that was the Battle of the Smoke. That you know, I won’t spoil anything here but we just really wanted to have a lot of fun and have it just be as imaginative and crazy as we we could go.”
“I think my personal favorite is probably the very shortest one. Without spoiling too much. It’s the fight between the two grannies. The whole show has a lot of playfulness to it. We’re dealing with some weighty, weighty themes and stuff here and there. But at the end of the day, we’re having a lot of fun. And that one was maybe the most playful out of all of them. Had a lot of fun figuring that out and finding a location where we could make that actually work. And then when the trailer came up, and that was in the trailer, I was like, yes! Mission accomplished.”
And what about Season 2?
Dave: “I’ve already written it, but it depends on how we do honestly, over the next couple weeks.”
Listen to the full interview on our podcast
About “House of Ninjas” on Netflix
Ninjas existed throughout many pivotal times in Japanese history—but what if they were still secretly undertaking missions in modern society? Set in today’s Japan, this series tells the story of the Tawara family, the last ninja clan who abandoned their roots after a mission gone wrong. Now, an unprecedented crisis beckons the family back into action.
“House of Ninjas” is now streaming on Netflix.
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