Ninja Busters

Came out the same year as Ghostbusters, hence the title. You have to be in the right mood to watch a movie this bad., it makes Chuck Norris' worst film look like Oscar movie of the year, so bad, it's good, but only barely.

Ninja Busters is a super rare ninja movie. It's a buddy movie about two douche bags who can't get laid and then join a martial arts club. Then they uncover a drug deal gone bad and they battle the stupid ninjas..... blah blah blah. Don't expect blood and gore or dismemberment like you normally would in a ninja movie. This is a family film. Well sort of. Though it lacks the bloody violence that makes any normal person complacent, it is a rather entertaining piece of $#!+. The buddy crap works, the fights are fun and it has charm and cute $#!+! The end.

I stumbled upon the 1984 movie "Ninja Busters" here in 2021. And never having seen it or even heard about it, of course I sat down to watch it. Especially since I was a kid during the 1980s, so I watched a bunch of those good, old, cheesy ninja movies from the 1980s. So of course I had to watch "Ninja Busters" as well.

And while "Ninja Busters" is watchable, I must admit that I was expecting it a bit more in the comedy department, since the movie was listed as being an action comedy. There were odd bits and pieces of attempted comedy here and there, but nothing that made me laugh.

The storyline is pretty straight forward, although rather simplistic. But I suppose that writers Sid Campbell and William C. Martell made an appropriate enough movie for 1984.

As for the action in the movie, well it was archetypical 1980s cheese. Of course it was. And that is what made the movie watchable and bearable to sit through.

The acting in the movie was lukewarm, dubious at times, but it was adequate enough for a movie such as this, I suppose. At least it felt consistent with the tone of the movie and the way it was portrayed on the screen.

Then there is the action sequences. Yeah, I am sure that they looked great back in 1984, but in 2021 then it was just a tad too staged and rigidly choreographed, lacking the fluidity of natural movements during fighting. Well, it was watchable and enjoyable enough, but don't go expecting a grand spectacle of martial arts here.

All in all, "Ninja Busters" is enjoyable enough for what it turned out to be, a mediocre mid-1980s cheesy action comedy. My rating of director Paul Kyriazi's 1984 movie lands on a mediocre five out of ten stars.

I've only seen one other Paul Kyriazi movie to date -- Death Machines -- and that film felt like it ran out of money halfway through (I'm fairly certain it did). This movie, on the other hand, starts out as a goofball buddy comedy and ends with three successive ninja vs. karate fights with dozens of extras and stuntmen. What a difference a budget makes. A good screenplay helps too: martial artist Sid Campbell in a self-penned role as a lovable klutz, is quite good for a non-actor. He's rockin' a Sonny Bono/Ringo Starr vibe here that I dug. There is some unintentional comedy here (as in a lot of b-movies), but much of the intentional comedy lands surprisingly well (a rarity in my experience with b-movies). Featuring such unique delights as hot tub dojos, breakdance-fu, mustache-and-turtleneck-fu, ninjas in scrapyards, ninjas in aerobics studios, and ninjas in Latin dance clubs. Coming soon to Blu-Ray via Exhumed Films. Mark two down on the Kyriazi filmography for me, and he's 1-1. Up next: "The Weapons of Death ," "One Way Out," and "Omega Cop."

Recently I've been watching a lot of so-bad-they're-good movies with mixed results, however it must be said that Ninja Busters is pure gold. Go online and read about the recent re-discovery of this film as it's a compelling story. I'll skip the plot as you can seek this out for yourself. All I really have to say is this movie really works. It's generally funny when it's supposed to be, it's very funny when it's not supposed to be, and has a plot that doesn't go off the rails leaving you wondering what the heck is happening. BONUS the movie contains an army of ninjas-for-hire who are made out to be badasses by a dragon lady who manages her ninja bodyguard agency. A crime lord somehow gets duped into hiring them but in the first all-out brawl it seems clear that these are the WORST g*ddamned ninjas EVER! These guys obviously have day jobs and then hardcore phone-it-in during ninja practice after work. So crime lord gets scammed, but somehow never realizes that his army of ninjas is getting trampled, at one point, by a lady with a white belt in karate. For those of you unfamiliar to martial arts, that's like your three-year-old beating you in an arm wrestling match. By the end of the movie no heros go down but like 60 ninjas are in ICU or dead. Suffice it to say it's rad, and the most enjoyable example of relatively family friendly WTF-ery i've seen in some time. Get a copy today because this is something you have to see with your buddies over a few beers more than once!