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Sega Ninja Game ‘Shinobi’ Gets Movie Treatment

"Shinobi" was originally created for Japanese arcades in 1987 and features a ninja character who fights to stop a criminal organization that kidnaps child ninjas. (AFP)
"Shinobi" was originally created for Japanese arcades in 1987 and features a ninja character who fights to stop a criminal organization that kidnaps child ninjas. (AFP)
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Sega Ninja Game ‘Shinobi’ Gets Movie Treatment

"Shinobi" was originally created for Japanese arcades in 1987 and features a ninja character who fights to stop a criminal organization that kidnaps child ninjas. (AFP)
"Shinobi" was originally created for Japanese arcades in 1987 and features a ninja character who fights to stop a criminal organization that kidnaps child ninjas. (AFP)

Sega said Wednesday one of its most popular games, "Shinobi", will be made into a movie in a joint project with Universal Pictures, aiming to emulate the success of "Super Mario Bros".

The Japanese gamemaker did not give a target date for the release but said it had "started the development of a film production" with the Hollywood behemoth.

"Shinobi" was originally created for Japanese arcades in 1987 and features a ninja character who fights to stop a criminal organization that kidnaps child ninjas.

It is the latest effort to cash in on a video-game adaptation craze after "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" became the second-highest grossing film of 2023, following a 2020 adaptation of Sega's "Sonic the Hedgehog".

Last month, Electronic Arts confirmed that a much-rumored movie based on its life-simulation gaming series "The Sims" will be developed by Amazon MGM Studios.

"Shinobi is one of Sega's most popular series worldwide, along with Sonic the Hedgehog," Sega said on Wednesday.

The movie will be directed by Sam Hargrave, whose first feature film was the 2020 Netflix movie "Extraction" starring Chris Hemsworth.

Sega said the companies hope the "Shinobi" movie will find box office success like "Super Mario Bros".

In March, Nintendo announced that the red-capped Italian plumber will hit the silver screen again in 2026.

Nintendo is also working on a live-action film of another hugely successful franchise, "The Legend of Zelda", together with Sony, maker of the rival PlayStation console.

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Entertainment

In Their 80s, These South Korean Women Learned Reading and Rap

Park Jeom-sun, 82, leader of Suni and the Seven Princesses, adjusts her hat in a mirror during the opening ceremony of the Korean alphabet, "Hangeul Week" at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Park Jeom-sun, 82, leader of Suni and the Seven Princesses, adjusts her hat in a mirror during the opening ceremony of the Korean alphabet, "Hangeul Week" at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
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In Their 80s, These South Korean Women Learned Reading and Rap

Park Jeom-sun, 82, leader of Suni and the Seven Princesses, adjusts her hat in a mirror during the opening ceremony of the Korean alphabet, "Hangeul Week" at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Park Jeom-sun, 82, leader of Suni and the Seven Princesses, adjusts her hat in a mirror during the opening ceremony of the Korean alphabet, "Hangeul Week" at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Wearing an oversized bucket hat, silver chains and a black Miu Miu shirt, 82-year-old Park Jeom-sun gesticulates, her voice rising and falling with staccato lines about growing chili peppers, cucumbers and eggplants.
Park, nicknamed Suni, was flanked by seven longtime friends who repeated her moves and her lines. Together, they're Suni and the Seven Princesses, South Korea 's latest octogenarian sensation. With an average age of 85, they're probably the oldest rap group in the country, The Associated Press said.
Born at a time when women were often marginalized in education, Park and her friends were among a group of older adults learning how to read and write the Korean alphabet, hangeul, at a community center in their farming village in South Korea’s rural southeast.
They were having so much fun that they started dabbling with poetry. They began writing and performing rap in summer last year.
Suni and the Seven Princesses enjoy nationwide fame, appearing in commercials and going viral on social media. South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo sent them a congratulatory message last month on their first anniversary, praising their passion for learning.
At a road near their community center in Chilgok on Thursday, Park and her friends were rehearsing for a performance Friday evening in the capital, Seoul, where they were invited to open an event celebrating hangeul heritage.
“Picking chili peppers at the pepper field, picking cucumbers at the cucumber field, picking eggplants at the eggplant field, picking zucchini at the zucchini field!” the group rapped along with Park. "We’re back home now and it feels so good!”
Park said the group usually practices two or three times a week, more if they're preparing for a show.
On Friday, hundreds of people applauded and cheered, and then the group lined up for a photo with South Korean Culture Minister Yu In Chon.
Park talked about the joy of learning to read, saying she can now “go to the bank, ride the bus and go anywhere” she wants without someone helping her.
“During and after the Korean War, I couldn’t study because of the social atmosphere, but I started learning hangeul in 2016,” Park said, referring to the devastating war between North and South Korea from 1950 to 1953. “Being introduced to rap while learning hangeul has made me feel better, and I thought it would help me stay healthy and avoid dementia.”
Kang Hye-eun, Park’s 29-year-old granddaughter and a local healthcare worker who helps older adults, said she was proud to see her grandmother on television and in viral videos.
“It’s amazing that she got to know hangeul like this and has started to rap,” she said.