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Trivia / DOA: Dead or Alive

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  • Box Office Bomb: DOA was indeed DOA in American cinemas, failing to make it to $500,000 and grossing just over $7.5 million worldwide, a little more than one-third its budget of $21 million.
  • Creator Killer: DOA sent director Corey Yuen's directing career to the cemetery and inflicted a fatal wound on co-writer J.F. Lawton, the latter of whom wrote just one more film.
  • Fake Nationality: Japanese ninja Ayane is played by half-Norwegian, half-Malaysian actress Natassia Malthe. The casting choice actually proved rather controversial, with series creator Tomonobu Itagaki coming out and expressing disappointment that the production hadn't cast a Japanese actress in the role.
  • Hypothetical Casting: Series creator Tomonobu Itagaki said in an interview that he wanted Aya Ueto (of Azumi fame) as Ayane and Kumiko Goto as Kasumi; with either Ryuhei Kitamura, Takashi Miike, or Yuen Woo-Ping to direct.
  • Invisible Advertising: The film's US release (which was almost a full year after its release elsewhere) was very limited, with virtually no advertising.
  • Pop Culture Urban Legends: There was a rumor that Christie’s introduction scene was originally “uncensored” with her breasts in plain sight. However, this turned out to be false, and the video showing this supposedly “uncensored” scene turned out to be an extremely well-made hoax.
  • Star-Derailing Role: This film left most of its leading ladies' careers dead in the water. Supermodel Devon Aoki previously appeared as Miho in Sin City, with her screen career sinking in 2006 when this film and Zoom tanked. She only appeared in three films afterwards before retiring in 2009 to focus on motherhood, with her appearances limited to documentary and music video appearances. Holly Valance had already established herself in her native Australia in the soap opera Neighbours before attempting to establish herself internationally with her role in DOA. Valance's screen career was intermittent afterwards as well; she hasn't starred in any screen projects since 2015. Natassia Malthe's biggest role before this film was playing in the poorly-received Elektra, with the bulk of her filmography since then comprising of Direct to Video films (including those by infamous director Uwe Boll) and Made for TV Movies. Sarah Carter stuck to TV after DOA, notably with roles in Shark, Falling Skies, and The Flash (2014). Jaime Pressly suffered from this flop the least, having already had a starring television role as Joy on My Name Is Earl and finding more success there as Jill on Mom. Her film career has withered as well, however.
  • Troubled Production: According to Jaime Pressly, the shoot was hampered by language barriers (only the 1st AD spoke English and Yuen had to communicate through intermediaries), the script was constantly being re-written, and the cast and crew weren't even allowed to see the finished film before it came out.
  • What Could Have Been:

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