Ren zhe da

NINJA: FINAL DUEL packs an awful lot of zany fun into its ninety minutes running time. With its naked kung fu chicks, water spider assault teams, jive-talking black monks, ninja swastika formations, cackling bad guys and long-eyebrowed Shaolin monks, this movie sounds like a dream-come-true for fans of trash cinema; but, thanks to a complete lack of a cohesive narrative, it ends up as something of a disappointment. Whilst I am the first to admit that a strong storyline isn't always a major requirement for a martial arts film, when a film feels as disjointed as NINJA: FINAL DUEL did, then I'm gonna start deducting points!

A team of nasty ninjas plot to take over China, but are defeated by the legendary monks of the Shaolin Temple. Disgraced, the ninja leader commits Hara-kiri. After this failure, another team of fighters is gathered together for a new attack.

After he is not picked for the new team of ninjas, talented fighter Wang Chi Chung travels to China to try to learn the secrets of Shaolin martial arts. When the evil ninjas finally launch their attack, Wang Chi Chung switches allegiance and uses his skills to help defeat the Japanese invaders.

Pieced together from footage excised from a TV series, NINJA: FINAL DUEL really feels like a 'Frankenstein's monster' of a film, leaping awkwardly from one scene to another and introducing new characters at the drop of a hat. A dreadful voice-over introduces viewers to the ninjas at the beginning of the film, explaining their methods of training, but after that we are on our own; I strongly suggest forgetting about following the story and just concentrate on enjoying the crazy happenings and impressive acrobatic fight scenes.

Better still, consume several pints of lager before watching; it can only improve your viewing experience.

The kind of movie to watch on a Sunday morning! As a lover of oldschool kungfu movies, this is probably the best of the worst. Inflatable water spiders, kinetic thunderfists and tigerclaw warriors. What else do you need?!

This movie was full of very good, fast-paced Kung Fu fighting. Most of it was between Ninjas and Shaolin Monks. The presence of the Shaolin Temple in any Kung Fu movie is a good sign. I love to see ninjas in Kung Fu movies, and this movie used them wonderfully. This is a period film, that takes place devoid of any guns or modern technology. I vastly prefer period Kung Fu films to those set in present day.

Some may say I am somewhat of a Kung Fu movie expert, and the only actor that I was familiar with in this movie was Alexander Lou, of "Shaolin Versus Lama" fame (which, by the way, is an incredible movie). Lou put s forth a great performance. The fighting is largely wire-free; most wire usage is limited to ninjas jumping from trees and other minor feats. There's lots of hand-to-hand combat, as well as plenty of weapon usage, particularly sticks and swords. The best aspect of the fighting (which is a very important one within all Kung Fu movies) is the fact that they are not too far apart. People watch Kung Fu movies to see Kung Fu fighting, and 45 minutes of solid plot-development just doesn't cut it. In that department, this film keeps the momentum fairly steady.

In addition to the great fighting, this movie contained lots of very funny and amusing campiness. Any Kung Fu fanatic should understand that part of the Kung Fu movie charm is their characteristic camp-factors. This movie contains all the standards: ridiculously long facial hair/eyebrows, poorly-executed camera tricks, cliché zooms and pans. In addition to these delightful gems, the humor in this movie (be it intentional or not) goes above and beyond the call Buddha. These gems include disappearing ninjas, gimmicky cat costumes with tree-scaling claws, and ninjas with burrowing powers comparable to a mole.

If you want to be surprised by hilarity, then skip to the next paragraph. But, for those of you who are curious about the 3 funniest parts of the movie... 1) I saw an overdubbed version. There was a black Shaolin monk from Harlem in the movie, whose voice was clearly that of a skinny white guy trying to sound like Isaac Hayes. And it only made it better that he spoke in stereotypical 70s street, with lines such as "She's ash, so don't give me this trash!" and "You must be jivin'!" and met with retorts such as "The ghetto in the sky is where you're headed!", "Don't give me that rap!", and simply "You black son of a bitch!" 2) The waterspiders, which are essentially spider-shaped rafts that ninjas ride, are possibly the lease graceful and lease effective device i have ever seen a ninja use. It's hilarious to watch them paddle their spiders around as they struggle to keep up with the Shaolin Monks. 3) Nothing beats full frontal fighting. A woman is bathing when ninjas attack, so naturally she jumps out of the tub and starts Kung Fu fighting with no modesty concerning her clearly visible cooch and boobies (to both the ninjas and the audience).

In summary, I thought this movie delivered a good balance of expert fighting, and funny gimmicks. If you're looking for a moving drama, or a tear-jerking romance, then this movie is not for you. But who watches a Kung Fu movie expecting those things anyway? So, for being an authentic Kung Fu period piece that isn't afraid to be what it is, I give Ninja: The Final Duel an 8 out of 10. Not the best Kung fu movie I've ever seen, but certainly a worthy film that does the genre justice.

A rather extreme example of screw loose Chinese film-making from the 1980's. An era where HK and Taiwanese films were fast-paced, illogical exercises in frenetic film making, this one really takes the cake and sits on it.

The plot is threadbare and indecipherable at the same time. The scenes unfurl to strike the film makers fancy not to move the story along. It's really clear that the people who made this didn't care if the legendary spider boats obviously don't work or that the film is set in some sort of time warp between the 1920's or the 1980's. The American monks seem to be parodies of the Hare Krishnas that used to plague the airports and the Black Monk of Harlem is inspired by "The Last Dragon" but everything else seems to set in old China. The digging ninjas are first shown struggling with their small shovels, then suddenly they are drilling thru the ground at 50 miles per hour. The producers of the film didn't take this seriously and neither should the viewer.

The unusual nude fight scene is the first example I've seen of Taiwanese film nude kung fu that I had heard about from a friend who lived in Taiwan in the late 1980's. He had collected a number of these films which were subsequently confiscated by HK customs when he came back. Apparently these scenes were the rage for a small time in Taiwan. My friend had actually acted in one film (as a stock white bad guy) where he had to fight a heroine who practiced "Iron Chest". You can guess how that was used. The scene in this film is more of a shock then good. Most of the nude part of the fight involves the actress being flung around while she tries to cover herself with a sheet. She finally starts to fight back but the choreography seems to have been designed to cause the most amount of jiggle instead of an effective fight scene. And the jiggle isn't that good either. Eventually the actress must have said "enough" and she is suddenly clothed in a two piece bikini she somehow creates from the single sheet. The next scene she is in, she is killed off. They probably couldn't afford her anymore.

Good for a laugh with a group of friends, that's it. Except for the nude fight even my wife enjoyed the film and she doesn't like kung fu films.

Having previously heard a great deal about this film and its sizable cult following and being a big fan of ninja movies (especially really bad ones!) I was pretty eager to view this in order to see for myself what all the fuss was about.

Having now viewed the film in question I can say two things: 1) Sadly, this is a somewhat mundane, formulaic and underwhelming affair but.... 2) It does have a number of utterly hilarious scenes on offer!

The plot concerns a group of ninja who seek to destroy the inhabitants of the Shaolin Temple as an act of revenge. At the same time a skilled fighter and monk (played by Alexander Lou) has also travelled from japan to visit the temple with the wish to gain insightful Buddhist knowledge. Inevitably Lou gets tangled up in the resulting conflict and eventually finds himself fighting side by side with the Buddist monks against the ruthless stealth assassins.

As I previously said, the above plot provides nothing out of the ordinary and plays as a typical kung fu outing (although the martial arts are well staged throughout). In fact had this been all there was to the proceedings then this film would surely have been an entirely forgettable affair. However, luckily for us there are some highly memorable and hilarious scenes included that lift this film immeasurably.

One is some lines of hilarious dialogue that crop up throughout the film. Just check out the verbal exchanges when Lou takes on regular co-star Eugene Thomas....Which incidentally brings me on to another major plus in the film...some of the bizarre characters. Eugene for instance, appears as The Black Monk Of Harlem (!!!), a jive talking, peace loving (but expert fighter when called to defend himself) monk who is paying the Shaolin Temple a visit. Also of note are a comical pair of Hari Krishna westerners who are also trying to gain admittance to the Temple (and who promptly get a good beating for their troubles!)

Finally, there's some hilarious stand out scenes, most notably a feisty female fighter who, caught off guard by the ninja, is forced to fight in the buff and of course the scene that this film is most famous for, the Water Spider Attack Team! Words simply cannot describe how hilarious the sequences in which this ninja assault squad feature really are! (especially when we see them frantically paddling and kicking as their spider goes absolutely nowhere!)

To summarise, whilst in itself this isn't a great film by any means, it does nonetheless boast enough daft scenes to surely induce much mirth in any self respecting fan of bad movies......now where can I get hold of a spider inflatable?