Zombie vs. Ninja

A friend of mine and I went on a mission to find the worse movie of all time. After we watched this movie, we did not even bother to put in the other movies we rented.

A plot summary, character break down, or comments on the directing and acting would be useless. Only see this movie if to want to see something that is truly bad.

Also, do not make a mistake by thinking that this movie is bad in the way of the classic bad movies like, "Plan 9 From Outer Space". . . Zombie vs Ninja is just plain cut you eyes out, tear off your ears, smash your VCR, horrible. I am glad that this movie is not available to corrupt the DVD market.

While I agree with a lot of comments on this movie (YES it's bad, YES it's spliced together and somewhat baffling), it IS most certainly watchable. It is not 'gouge-your-eyes-out bad'. If you're a fan of old Kung fu movies, and have a sense of humour, you will probably love it. Whatever vintage Kung fu movie is featured in "Zombie Rival" it's actually pretty good, I'd like to track it down. Those scenes are enjoyable. But the newer (presumably 1980's) ninja scenes are also enjoyable - comedy gold. The outfits. The headbands. The mustaches. The dialogue.. in between sword clashes they say things like "I told you... the dragon's fire burns HOT!" Here in the UK you can get this on DVD for Five Pounds or less, under the title "Zombie Rivals". I own it on oldschool big-box rental VHS, under the title "Zombie Rival: The Super Ninja Master". The video cover has a painting of a barbarian on the front. Seriously. A barbarian.

Update: The vintage Kung Fu movie is called "Gravedigger". Yay!

I picked up a copy of this movie as I love zombie movies and ninja movies. With a title like Zombie vs Ninja, naturally I expected to see combat between zombies and ninjas. I expected this even more so after reading the description on the box which made a statement about the doors of hell being open unleashing a "zombie horde." Wow!

Imagine my horror to discover that this film is actually a composite of 1)a film about an undertaker, who happens to be able to teach his young apprentice kung fu skills, and 2)scenes that appear to have been shot for the only purpose of being inserted into this film to incorporate "ninjas" into the storyline.

The actors in the zombie story and the ninja story never appear on screen together. However, an attempt is made to make us believe they are in the same story as closeups of the actors are intercut to make it appear as if they are talking to each other.

The "zombie horde" is certainly an overstatement as we never see more than three or four zombies at once. The master keeps calling them up to train the young apprentice in kung fu skills, surely a questionable method of training at best.

The "ninjas" are probably the most hilarious thing I have ever seen. They are caucasians who wear shiny, brightly colored ninja outfits, and have names like Bert, Bob, and Ira. Uhhhh.... not exactly what you expect froma ninja movie. Their costumes appear to be made of plastic and are white, yellow, and blue, which really should make them quite visible in the forest.

The funniest thing about the ninja characters is that they wear headbands that say "ninja" or "nin ja" with japanese writing in between the two syllables. What sort of ninja - arguably the most deadly invisible assassins - wear headbands that announce who they are?! I believe they were labeled as otherwise no one watching the film would ever know they were supposed to be ninjas as their outfits do not look anything like any other ninja costume I've seen in any movie.

Also, there are two ninja forces in the film, but it is not readily apparent. I kept wondering why they were fighting and killing their own friends, until the two ninja leaders fought at which point I realized that up until then I had thought they were the same guy. I believe that the two styles of ninja headbands - "ninja" and "nin ja" were used to differentiate the two bands of ninjas.

While this has to be seen to be appreciated, the movie is really bad, but not bad enough to be enjoyable. Watch at your own risk. If you are easily confused, I advise you to stay away.

Zombie versus ninja is one of the few great hidden gems in the world of cinema today. It exceeds any expectations you may have going into a movie that is called zombie versus ninja. IF YOU ARE A FAN OF KIROSAWA, FELLINI, OR KUBRICK, then thats good for you I am too, but what was I saying about ninja versus zombie is that it is a great work and has single handedly changed the way we think about ninja zombie movies. The influence of this timeless masterpiece is abundantly obvious in such works as ninja zombie gangbangers, gold(to be released later this year), and many of the works of legendary director Grover Cleavland. If you don't like this movie it is because you simply aren't smart enough to understand it.

Excellent fights, the speed and the coordination of the last fights could rival some of those made by Bruce lee. Although the sense of humour in this movie at times is pretty grotesque, it was for me an interesting relief, from some of the lame standards of the general American action movie, which in my eyes are often a little bit to self glorifying. The "forest" ninja movie: Well, a couple of good scenes, but still not nearly as the skillful kung-fu of the "undertaker"! One wonders why anyone would think, it was a good idea too add this second movie within the movie (consequently cutting out some most likely very interesting parts of the Asian movie). The "forest" ninja story is of course pretty hard to follow, because it's difficult to distinguish between the outfits of the actors. This I could read that Kolchak25 had some problems with. The way to distinguish the rivalling sides in the "forest" is NOT by looking whether the head bands spell "ninja" or "nin ja", since the supposedly evil side both wear bands with "ninja" and "nin ja". For example the right hand of the evil ninja boss (which fights our ninja hero the second last fight in the forest-part) wears a band which spells "ninja" as do our hero. The only way to tell apart is to look at the colour of the head bands. The good guy is the only one who wears the orange colour band. This is very important to know if you are to make any sense of this movie.