Ninja: Dragón de Acero

Well, where to start? This film is an absolute must for all Ninja movie fans. Totally outrageous in every sense, but also totally superb! Eagle, Superb! What a guy, insane sword action, brilliant dubbing combined with outright craziness does'nt even begin to describe him. My hero. He's a man on a mission and nobody will stop him, no henchman is good enough, no boss tough enough. Then you also have Boris, and Leon. Both Ninjas, caucasian of course, with bright colored outfits and little headbands that actually say "Ninja" on them, fantastic! These two have a sort of vendetta thing going and only one will live to tell! Hordes of henchmen are sent to stop Leon, but he's just too damn good. But not as good as Eagle. Along with these main characters you have some ancient mystics, monks and a little bit of romance for Eagle. There is not much more I can say to describe this gem of a movie. So I leave you with a taster of possibly the best film I have ever seen. If you see this anywhere, watch it, hire it, buy it. Whatever, just watch it.

This isn't just a bad movie; it's two movies edited together by a director notorious for wasting good fight footage by slapping it onto an unrelated plot(s). The far-more-interesting story involves a vengeance-seeking man, Eagle, who battles every manner of treachery to pay back the ruthless warlord who destroyed his family. Had Ho left it at that, he'd have had a decent movie on his hands--but no, not Ho. Instead, he cobbles onto that a laughably inept waste of celluloid involving two caucasian (French? French-Canadian?) "ninjas" (you know they are because their headbands read "Ninja!") also carrying out a vendetta, but the events leading up to that are offscreen. So what does this have to do with the other? NOTHING! But you do get to chuckle at the site of pink- and purple-clad "ninjas" (who look like dropouts from hair-dressing school) play-fighting with each other. Only the guy who made a mess of the other "Angel" series (the nonsensical trio, not the HK classics) could get by with something this atrocious. If you're a real fan of martial arts movies, don't waste your time and money on this stinker.

This film had a few particularly entertaining scenes (e.g. the eggs, as mentioned above), but more interesting to me was the soundtrack. I caught snippets of Gustav Holst's "Mars, the Bringer of War," J.S. Bach's Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor, and a 1-2 second sound clip from Pink Floyd's "Saucerful of Secrets," amidst the freaky synthesizer noodling. Also, though the caucasian actors spoke English, their lines were dubbed anyway, increasing the camp value. "My life was saved by you." Over all, the movie is only worthwhile for fans of bad martial arts movies.

This was one of the last of the cut and splice ninja movies to be made by our old friends Joseph Lai and Godfrey Ho.

Alas-genre regular Richard Harrison is no where to be seen having by this time presumably escaped his contract with the aforementioned cinematic crooks (in fact Harrison reportedly felt so sullied by his experiences with Lai and Ho and their deceitful film making techniques that he more or less retired from the industry)

In his honoured place however steps forward Pierre Kirby (who also appeared in the demented classic that is 'Zombie vs Ninja', aka 'Zombie Rival-The Super Ninja Master') who actually does many of his own stunts and martial arts.

The ninja segments in this are as usual, quite hilarious, with the protagonists milling around proudly in their brightly coloured attire and sporting headbands with the word 'ninja' emblazoned in big letters upon them. The acting/dialogue as expected, is also a hoot - is there really anyone out there who can keep a straight face as the characters in these films interact with one another?!

Added to this, the original film into which the ninja segments have been edited is also actually very good in it's own right and involves a skilled swordsman called eagle in a tale of violent retribution.

All in all this is tremendous (and somewhat insane) fun!

Godfrey Ho is no stranger to trash film-making. Full Metal Ninja is firmly within his tradition of cutting together various pieces of abandoned and unfinished films and splicing them together with cheap footage of white actors in ninja outfits fighting, often loosely, if not tangentially to the plot.

Full Metal Ninja is probably the most bald-faced when it comes to not even trying to connect the two plots together. Randomly the main star, Pierre Kirby, will appear in front of some foliage and say something like "Can you teach me your moves?" to which the subplot main character, Eagle will say "You're not ready yet," and walk away. If it sounds confusing, that's because it is - and stupid, too! But that's half the fun in these movies.

Full Metal Ninja (I love typing out that title) has Pierre Kirby fight some guys who have vague plans to control somewhere, but that's not really important. As far as Ho ninja scenes go, they're pretty standard in my opinion, and while the dub and dialog is hilarious, I'd stake Ninja Terminator, Rage of Ninja, or Ninja: Silent Assassin as having far more compelling and interesting white-ninja plots.

However, the Asian subplot is actually a fun, compelling, and -dare I say?- interesting film, in a grind-house sort of way. A yarn of revenge following a tight-lipped, stoic swordsman, Eagle, as he avenges the death of his family and abduction of his wife? Lover? at the hands of a greedy magistrate. One woman he saves from thugs starts to fall for him, but a series of unfortunate circumstances has her seeking to kill him as well. Oh the melodrama! The plot is nothing special, but there are times when the film almost approaches an emotional core or sentiment, and actually (gasp) tries to say something! Of course, the messages are "vengeance does not solve everything" and "even villains are people too" (which is done fairly well, for one of these films, at the climax), but it's nice to see something beyond the usual gangster crime drama that Ho usually resorted to. In fact, and this might be just me, I was annoyed and frustrated that certain elements of the subplot are not resolved towards the end of the film. Was it because the film was unfinished, lying in a basement when Ho and Lai found it? Or did Ho not think them important (a likely possibility)? Still, it's a shame!

All in all, Full Metal Ninja is a fun movie to watch. The musical motif of Bach's Toccata in D minor, used every time (and I mean EVERY TIME) Eagle kills someone, is hilarious in its own right because of its overuse. The ninja fights are goofy fun, the music is classic stolen-copyright music, and it's hard to go wrong with Full Metal Ninja.

I'll type it just *one* more time.

FULL METAL NINJA!