Ninja Phantom Heroes

I've seen more and more cheap Asian martial arts movies as I have periodically worked through a Mill Creek box set. It has to be said that it didn't take very long for me to realise I had very little patience for them but I have to say that by now I actively dislike them! Ninja Empire is yet another. It's a late 80's Hong Kong ninja flick directed by Godfrey Ho; who incidentally, is a director responsible for one of my actual favourite martial arts movies, the Cynthia Rothrock vehicle Undefeatable (1993) which aside from being laugh-a-minute and thoroughly entertaining, also happens to have the greatest climatic fight scene ever committed to celluloid – watch it and you'll understand.

Anyway, back to Ninja Empire. Its chock full of the usual ingredients of these things, i.e. terrible dubbing, bargain basement production values, a sleep inducing plot-line and several martial arts fight scenes. It did seem to be distinguished a little by the fact that the ninjas – for reasons I could never fathom – appear and disappear in balls of flame. There was some unintentional hilarity with some of the dialogue and the ending was sudden even by the standards of chopsocky movies; so much so, I had to rewind it to see if I had missed something but no, it just…ends! Not that that was a bad thing ultimately because I was suffering watching this. For fans of this sub-genre I am guessing there are things to enjoy here but for me it just seemed like more interminable nonsense.

I don't know what the guy was watching or smoking who commented on this before, but that isn't what this is about.

Some random publishing company got the rights to old Asain movies and decided it would be a good idea if he went to the Dollar store and bought ninja outfits to Americanize it a bit. Take half of a movie that made sense, then add in as many parts that make no sense, but have people with a strange habit of changing in and out of character.

This is possibly one of the worst things to do to your friends when they are drunk, yet one of the funniest things to make fun of. If MST3K was still going they would have a blast with this.

The movie makes no sense, you can't get any type of plot out of it, and it has random nudity. It is rather important that you not watch this movie unless you are trashed.

I read on a different site that this film was put together from generic stock footage of various martial arts films. I believe it! The soldiers in the Military Prison wear outfits that look like they are made of vinyl. The "ammunition dump" is indicated by a white bedsheet that has "U.S. Ammunition Dump" scrawled across it in shoe polish.

With such lines as, "Maybe it's a plot to kill US"(accent on "us") and "They're throwing a party in honor of the local rich," it will leave you confused long enough to see the final "climactic" fight between the white ninja and the cameo ninja...with weapons like an umbrella that shoots fireworks, a flying percolator, and a bunch of silver-painted LP's!

Somewhat hard to come by...so if you do, be sure you have beer handy.

There are more outrageously entertaining Godfrey Ho movies than Ninja Phantom Heroes, but those who have come to appreciate the man's unique vision will find more of the same to enjoy here. Mostly cobbled from a Chinese gangster potboiler, the movie's actual ninja to non-ninja screen time ratio is pretty paltry. Even the somewhat dull segments have a usually unintentional charm, however, with more than enough silly dubbing and odd dialog to keep bad movie warriors watching.

Among the highlights are a brief fight between a drunk white guy and three goofy Chinese guys; a guy throwing a cup of tea in his own face; any scene involving the characters "Baldy" and "Fatty"; gratuitous evil Chinese gangster chuckling; stick-wielding motorcyclists attacking a car; revenge accompanied by the line "You dirty rat"; and, of course, the obligatory disappear-and-go-poof ninja henchmen.

Potential victims, I mean viewers, should be aware that the version of this movie available as part of Mill Creek's Ninja Assassins 10-pack, confusingly retitled Ninja Empire (also the title of a different Godfrey Ho movie), is only 78 minutes long, whereas another version apparently runs 90 minutes. Frankly, though, since most people will be glad when it's over, it probably doesn't even matter.

My version also called "Ninja Empire" features the same cast and crew as rhobotdog's version. I believe this version is actually "Ninja Phantom Heroes." This film matches the cast and crew given in the credits. So if you get a movie called "Ninja Empire" and the credits say a Bruce Lambert(Another name Godfrey Ho goes by)film and stars Joff Houston, John Wilford, Christine Wells, Glen Carson, George Dickson, Allen Leung, Dennis Shek, Dinny Yip, and Bob Cheng. Then your actually watching "Ninja Phantom Heroes." Also the comment for "Ninja Phantom Heroes" talks about a US Ammunition Dump and a white and cameo ninja which appeared in the version I got.

Anyway, it doesn't matter much because Godfrey Ho's ninja films are all the same. Some cheesy ninja action edited into footage from canceled and terrible movies that have no relation to anything else in the move with a terrible script dubbed over it to try and make it coherent, but it ultimately fails.