Alien vs. Ninja

ALIEN VS NINJA is a low rent sci-fi flick from Japan which basically sees a director assembling a handful of actors, taking them out to the woods and filming a series of short, brutal and ballistic fight sequences while trying to string together something resembling a plot. It's kind of like the zombie film VERSUS, yet lacking that movie's finesse and vitality, probably because the budget is a great deal lower. Instead of a plot, we get cheesy humour, even cheesier computer graphics and the dodgiest looking alien since the days of the '50s-era B-movie.

Sexy ninja Mika Hijii spends much of the running time battling the alien threat in a skin-tight PYC costume; the director ensues she's either doing the splits or flying through the air artfully at all times. The aliens are silly and kind of fun, and the hyper-kinetic action can be a hoot at times. There are touches of black comedy, like a crow plucking at a severed head's eyeball, thrown into the mix as well.

Is this a good movie? Far from it: it's dumb, plot less, predictable and clearly made on the cheap. Is it an entertaining movie? To a degree, yes; not something I'd consider watching again (it lacks the genuine B-movie intricacy of a film like CYBORG COP) but it passes the time for undemanding genre fans.

Again and again people are having trouble with flicks coming from Japan. They used to be extremely gory but the scene over there evolved too and got a bit away from the gore. Still, they deliver weird flicks with fast moving ninja's or other persons. In other words, you have to understand there way of living, I mean the Eastern philosophy, to appreciate such a flick. I've waited a few months to get my hand on an official release, finally it's out in our region. And it was worth the wait for me. I enjoyed it because it had a bit of humour and gore in it. Naturally you have to dig ninja to enjoy it. First of all, the alien will be a let down for so many people. It doesn't look like "alien" it's more based on Godzilla and sometimes it's CGI and sometimes it's a man in a suit. Even the ninja's look a bit weird, you have the macho type more busy with his hair, a coward too old to fight and a real ninja. Naturally there's a female ninja too and it's funny to see that the alien wanted to grap her breasts. There is so much fun in it that you can't take it seriously. But it clocks in under 90 minutes and that's good. The first 20 minutes is all about stupidity and comedy, after that the gore and red stuff appears. If you know that the director also was responsible for "Ninja" then you know what I mean. You love this one or you will hate it, there's no in-between.

This is another weird, wacky Japanese genre effort in the same vein as Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl and Robo-Geisha. The title says it all: a group of ancient Japanese ninja end up going claw to sword (and eventually sword to sword) with some monstrous aliens (that look suspiciously like people in moderately expensive Halloween costumes). 

There's really no more story beyond that and a hinted at love triangle between two of the male shinobi and their female counterpart. Nothing about the "aliens" is explained, they just show up and start swiping people's heads off and fiercely trying to grab boobs. Alien vs Ninja isn't as gross or ultra-violent as many similar movies can be, but it does have its moments. People get ripped in half and have little mind-controlling aliens crawl up their noses, and plenty of pink pepto bismol alien blood flows all over the place. 

AvN won't win any awards for storytelling or production values, but it's a goofy and occasionally fun way to waste some time. There are better similar movies, but genre fans should find it worthwhile.

I sat down to watch this on Netflix assuming it would be just plain awful based on the title alone. What I actually got is an low-budget poorly dubbed but ultimately very fun gore-fest of a film. Some of the action sequences actually aren't half bad and while the CGI and monster suit both are low-budget and the dubbing is just awful there is some semi-decent fight choreography. There is also a lot of humor, some intentional, some not so much.

If you sit down with low expectations you can get a lot out of this film. For one thing there's a beautiful Asian ninja to look at, a goofy rubber alien, gory ridiculous death scenes that seem like something out FEAST or a Sam Raimi flick.

Not sure how highly I'd really be willing to recommend it but you could do a lot worse, and I mean a lot worse (I'm looking at you Thankskilling).

Plot? See title.

Low budget? Yep. Filmed on digi-cam? Yes. Terrible CGI? You bet. Men in rubber suits straight out of Power Rangers? Oh man, you've seriously got to see it to believe how cool it is!

Word to the wise: if you can't appreciate flicks like The Story of Ricky, you may not like this. It's an action-comedy, the effects add to the fun, there are plenty of cool bits and if you like kung fu this should leave you pumped-up.

Watch this film!

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