Ninja the Mission Force

Aficionados of cult cinema may know the legacy of Hong Kong filmmakers Godfrey Ho and Joseph Lai. In the 1980's, these men devised a revolutionary new method of producing feature films. They discovered that, in order to make several movies for the price of one, they only needed to film minimal footage, fill the rest of the movie with footage from random unreleased or unfinished films that they happened to own, and then dub it all together somehow. This resulted in hundreds of nonsensical plots and one ticked off Richard Harrison. Pretty soon, gangster movies, spy movies, horror movies, and period pieces now had scenes of colorful ninjas sprinkled within them.

Darkmaze's Ninja the Mission Force is a comical tribute to these wonderful films.

Ed Glaser of Darkmaze Studios is the Interpol agent and ninja master Gordon, our hero. Brad Jones of The Cinema Snob fame is the sinister and evil leader of the Evil Ninja Empire, Bruce. And joining them are all your favorite stars, such as Brandon Lee, Charles Bronson, and John Travolta! They must battle it out for the Avian Ninja Warriors and their ultimate ninja power! The show is composed of a series of episodes. Each episode is like a Godfrey Ho ninja movie. There is original ninja footage filmed by Glaser and co., and there is also public domain movie footage to fill out the story and action. In order to achieve ultimate ninja power, Gordon and his friends must battle gladiators, space robots, zombies, and even dinosaurs.

The team behind Ninja the Mission Force really knows the source material, and hardcore fans of Godfrey Ho's cut-and-paste films will laugh out loud all the way through. One of IFD's stars Andy Chworowsky even makes and appearance, reprising his role as the "What's a ninja?" guy. I also recommend this show for all non Ho fans who want to see something funny and different. The complete first season can be viewed for free on ninjathemissionforce.com, so complete your ninja challenge, and watch Ninja the Mission Force today! Remember, no one can turn down a challenge.

Ed Glaser's most recent production piece is certainly my favorite of all of his work. His use of purposefully bad dubbing, but excellent editing and camera work, as well as film choice, make this an excellent watch. You can tell the man gets a great nostalgiac feel from making this, and the quality of the work suddenly shows so. Looking at the behind the scenes work, you can tell that everybody on the sets loved working on the series, and I can't wait until Season 2 where OLP's Allison Pregler, another lover of the bad movie genre, enters the fray. Undoubtedly one of the best watches on the internet you can find, with great laughs, amazing design work, and an excellent callback feel with the entire thing. Any gripes I can think of are washed away with the positives, so this gets a straight 10/10. 'Tis a must watch, when you have the time.