Somehow my cinematic radar completely failed to register this film, which I feel certain is destined to be a classic:
Finally a movie that gets at some of the hard questions in life! If George Clooney had turned into either a ninja or a vampire in "Descendants" I could see how he'd be nominated for an Academy Award. After all, if movies can't make us think, then what good are they?
Which is where you come in to help solve this epic dilemma that has stumped philosophers throughout the ages. Which is it, and why?
I don’t know, it depends on which version of vampires you go with. Ninjas vs. Sparkly Twilight Vampires? Definitely go with the ninjas. Ninjas vs. Vampires that can only be killed by stakes in the heart, sunlight, or possibly silver? I don’t think most ninjas carry wooden stakes or silver-plated weapons, so I’m on the vampire side on this one. Since I’m not a teenage girl, I’m going with actually scary vampires, which means vampires win. Their senses are far more refined, which makes ninja stealth techniques useless, and they’d be immune to ninja weapons. Unless you have a ninja team trained specifically to take out vampires, at which I call it even odds.
All I know is that having watched Blade, a ninja-vampire would be about the baddest thing on the planet.
Um, you do know that ninjas carry katanas, right? Anyway, when all is said and done think I’m gonna have to go with vampires on this. They move faster than the human eye can follow, they’re superhumanly strong, and they suck blood. I think even a ninja would have a hard time keeping up with that. Hard to say, though.
garlic shurikens.
then a blow in the heart when the vampire is down.
that’s all i need to say.
I’m going with vampires. If a ninja defeats a vampire, it’s killed, but if a vampire defeats a ninja, he becomes a ninja-vampire. Whenever one side can replenish their ranks with their defeated enemies, they have a huge advantage. Not to mention the fact that a ninja-vampire would be pretty much undefeatable…
katana to the heart, ultra violet smoke pellets, holy water-tipped throwing stars… ninjas win
The source material for each is too widely varied to really bring in. For every super powerful vampire Mary Sue book on the market these days, there is some mystic wire-fu ninja movie. We have to base this on the philosophical basics of the archetypes.
Ninjas spend a lifetime mastering the art of killing. Vampires are normal people that are too stupid to tell the guy with the fangs and the hungry eyes to come back in the morning.
Ninjas rule, vampires suck.
Vampires have just become too mainstream and too emo. Ninjas always kick ass 😉
Wow, exactly 50/50.
Ninjas didn’t carry a true katana, they carried a cheap and poor quality sword that resembled a Wakizashi. so stop drooling over the idea of katana waving ninjas.
the traditional ninja vs Brian Stoker’s Dracula is what im looking at, and Dracula wins. the Ninja wishes it could do everything Dracula can do, walk up and down walls, move silently, command wolves/bats, and have three hot ladies as backup.
Look unless we’re talking those lame Twilight vampires who get to “sparkle” then vampires have too many advantages over ninjas. And once the a vampire turns a ninja into a vampire then the other ninjas are doomed.
Katana to the heart? LOL. It has to be a wooden stake hammered in using a grave diggers shovel with just one single strike. Otherwise you risk strengthening the vampire.
weird sitiation but Vampires would win i believe
Ninjas should win because ninjas could always make garlic shurikens or swords.
Ninja win. People keep bringing up the point that if a ninja is bitten by the vampire then the new ninja vampire kills everything, and that would be true except for one fact: if you are actually spotted long enough to let your self get bitten, then you sir, are no true ninja. Not to mention that ninja could easily find out all the information they needed to on vampires and what their strengths and weaknesses are, let us not forget that ninja are both skilled at assassination AND espionage. They are masters of killing, but also of acquiring the info they need. No true vampire can take on a true ninja.
No need for a shot to the heart, ninjas, which have a basis from the samuri, are head takers!
For the people talking about varied lore/different versions, let’s just go with the artwork Jeff gave us. We have a “classic” black-suited ninja, made famous by earily 1900’s Kabuki theatre. Expect them to be experts at concealment and infiltration, master-level martial artists, and to use a variety of weapons, including–but not limited too–smoke bombs, ninjato (shortened katanas), shuriken (throwing knives and stars), grappling hooks/chains, metal claws, poison, etc. We also have Dracula, created by Bram Stoker in 1897. “Dracula”-style vampires are created through draining the blood of a victim several times (not just biting once), can transform in animals (wolves, bats, etc.), hypnotize people, turn into mist/fog, and have inhuman speed and strength. Stoker’s version are not killed by sunlight, but it does weaken them, and they need to sleep in graveyard dirt from their birthplace and drink human blood in order to remain at full strength. Dracula’s brides were killed by destroying their hearts (yes, with wooden stakes), but Dracula himself had to be both stabbed in the heart with a knife and decapitated with a sword to be defeated.
I suggest using those criteria for the combatants, so we don’t get into too many fights about versions…
with wide range of weapon selection, either ranged or melee, plus acrobatic movement ability, ninja win for sure (of course as long as the vampire did’nt runaway using bat form)
Objection. If I may present Exhibit A: The Foot Clan. These morons are so incompetent, they could actually lose to the sparkly Twilight breed of vampires.
Ninjas are not always “kick-ass.”
Literary but not legendary correct. Bram Stoker, to me, transformed vampires from flesh-and-blood-leeches (ghouls) to some-quasi-metaphor-to-my-first-metaphysical-“period.” In Stoker’s day, Dracula was a sparkly-vampire. And Lady Bathory was his Prom Queen.
All of this, which by the way, satisfies a complaint that I had about “Being Human” (American version, Sy-Fy). Aidon dismisses his presence in daylight as “vampire evolution” which makes him weaker. It ties his character more to Bram Stoker’s tortured being with his indifference to life that does not perpetuate his own, or that of his “son” and his loves.
The legend of the Vampire outweighs the ninja for me. Westerners attribute too much to the ninja. I’ve seen American Ninjas I, II, and III. Plenty of Lee Van Cleef films (remember “The Master”… or his cameo on “Hardcastle and McCormick”).
And good call, Gero, because somehow they have to tie Aidon’s presence at the house to his “graveyard dirt.” Then again, Jewel also travels with her jar of Alaskan soil. Coincidence? Nyah, I’m going to drift to “Pieces of You.” Night, everyone.
It really does depend… Real Ninjas, as opposed to the Comic Book variety, are basically the Japanese equivalent of Hillbillies, who eventually tired of the Samurai raping their daughters, and decided to fight back, instead of meekly submit to typical Samurai behavior…
Formidable enough, on their home turf, but not really equipped or trained to hunt Vampires!
On the other hand, what kind of vampires are we talking about? Middle-Eastern Vampires turn invisible, Rocky Mountain Vampires suck your brains out by sticking their nose in your ear, and you can get rid of Mexican Vampires by offering them Bread and Meteorites…
Generally, I’ll go with Vampires, even if they’re the sparkly kind.
I loled.
The fact that this battle includes vampires means it’s taking place within a framework where magic and the supernatural exist. That in turn means it’s perfectly reasonable to assume these are Sho Kosugi-style bullet-dodging, death-touch wielding, shadow teleporting ninjas with supernatural abilities of their own. Could such a ninja defeat most vampire types in a straight up fight? Definitely. They would have vampire-like powers of their own with tons of martial arts training thrown in.
Hypothetically speaking, would Dim Mak (Death touch) work against the undead? There’s a philosophical question worth pondering
Ok, I want to clarify one thing. Dracula wasn’t killed with a wooden stake.
“But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan’s great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat. Whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris’s bowie knife plunged into the heart.
It was like a miracle, but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight.”
http://www.planetpdf.com/planetpdf/pdfs/free_ebooks/Dracula_T.pdf
Page 681
Also I don’t remember Dracula having super speed or anything like that, remember book Dracula and Hollywood Dracula are very different.
But I bet that the type of vampire portrayed on Jeff’s image is the type of vampire that needs a wooden stake to die.
Samurai carry katanas, Ninja carry ninja-to, a piercing weapon, not a decapitating one like the katana. Samurai had the right, and the duty, to basically kill non-samurai that deigned carry a katana.
In any case, a lot of you are saying that Ninja have the fighting training and the ability to gain information, via espionage, to find out about a vampire’s weaknesses. On the other hand, no one is saying “Hell, a vampire might have lived for 1000 years and have all sorts of weapons training as well as the ability to charm anyone into giving up a ninja’s home-base bring the fight to him.” Sure, if a vampire is sitting around sipping blood and just waiting for the ninja to breach his warren’s defenses, he deserves to be killed but, hey, let’s just say the vampire in question is Rome’s (The TV Show, eh, why not) Lucius Vorenus, he has dozens of lesser vampires working for him, as well as charmed humans, 2050 odd years of existence (If he’s survived this long, it ain’t some two bit ninja that will take him out) and he’s a military and tactical genius, not to mention weapon specialist without equal, who’ll be able to trap the ninja, on his own terms, whether on his home turf or on his enemies, before he brings the fight to him, and not the other way around. As for holy water dipped shuriken… those are great, but they won’t do much to a millennium old vampire carrying a roman shield and wearing banded mail armor. A Gladius to the unarmored gut swung by a man who has killed thousands of people over a thousand lifetimes wins. This is a fight people, not a “I’m a ninja so I will catch a vampire sleeping in his coffin” scenario.
um–regular people with fighting skills and background kill vampires. ‘slayer’ lore involves people born to and trained with — ninjalike skills, so the question isn’t whether a ninja would win. The question isn’t even how many fewer ninjas could kill how many more vampires. The questions are whether a ninja converted to a priest would make an even BETTER vamp killer, and whether a ninja would have the resolve, while turning, to end his vamp existence before it begins.
That’s sort of why I think vampires would win. Imagine if one of THOSE ninja were turned during the battle. Vampire-ninja would obliterate regular ninja with ease…
I would say yes. One of the ways to permanently kill is vampire is cut out its heart. According to some sources anyway. The Dim Mak would cause its heart to explode. Either way, no heart.
I voted ninjas, but I must say, a Ninja that is also a Vampire (a Ninjire?) would be absolutely amazing.
The guys at Deadliest Warrior have studied and done episodes on both of these guys – we need their computer models!
But in the end, I’d have to give it to the vampire. Yeah, you could claim that the Ninja’s could research and prepare, but the same could be said of the vampire. I mean if the ninja’s showed up, and found their family in the clutches of the vamps, they might back off. Or worse, their family converted, and they’d have to fight them. In addition to the master vampire.
And I’d say that the Vampires ‘predatory senses’ would balance out he Ninja’s stealth abilities.
Actually, there’s no physical evidence for the existence of the ninjato. The only known examples are replicas created in the 20th century.
So you’re saying that Sylvia is both a vampire and a ninja? Double-twisted strawberry licorice rope!
Ninjas. Cuz in that movie ninjas win. I know cuz I wrote it. 🙂
The votes are split exactly evenly right now. Wow.
Anyway. It’s bound to be vampires. Ninjas are vastly overrated. They’re just regular assassins, except Japanese. They didn’t even really wear the infamous black clothes, and definitely had no supernatural powers. It would go like that:
*ninja jumps through the window in an obnoxiously standing out suit that makes everyone in the room instantly notice him and yell “ninja!”*
*ninja attacks the vampire with a knife to the back*
*vampire just shrugs it off and rips the head off the ninja*
The end.
If we’re talking real-world ninjas, then we should also treat the vampires as real world vampires which means they’re goth kids in eyeliner and white makeup. Ninjas still win.
I love how, on every single one of these polls, someone, at some stage, mentions how epically amazing a combination of the two would be. An example, just off the top of my head: Godzilla/Aliens.
Why does this keep happening???? 😮