Die Antwoord's Ninja sat down with us for a Boing Boing TV interview about the making of the robot drama CHAPPiE, directed by fellow South African Neill Blomkamp. Yo-Landi Visser co-stars in the film along with Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver, and Dev Patel.
In our conversation, Ninja speaks about how he and Yo-Landi ended up working on the $50 million artificial intelligence action flick, and the long road from Johannesburg to Transvaal artificial intelligence armaggedon. He describes working with the District 9 auteur as a dream come true.
The film is a bizarre mix of raw internet weirdness and super-high-value CGI explodey slickness. Hans Zimmer score. With Die Antwoord tracks, and Ninja annd ¥o-Landi basically playing themselves. It's wonderfully insane.
And about CHAPPiE, from the film's website:
Every child comes into the world full of promise, and none more so than Chappie: he is gifted, special, a prodigy. Like any child, Chappie will come under the influence of his surroundings – some good, some bad – and he will rely on his heart and soul to find his way in the world and become his own man. But there's one thing that makes Chappie different from anyone else: he is a robot. The first robot with the ability to think and feel for himself. His life, his story, will change the way the world looks at robots and humans forever.
CHAPPiE is released in theaters nationwide today.