The Ninja Mission

There are movies that are so bad they actually turn out to be good. They're just hilarious and entertaining. This movie is even worse than that. It's so bad it's not even "good because it's bad". Avoid it at all cost! I have never said this about a movie, since just about all movies appeal to at least someone. Whe it comes to "The Ninja Mission", I can't think of a single person that would enjoy it. And I know some weird people. Hey, I AM one.

When I talk about movies, specifically bad movies, I always mention "Ninja Mission". My friend wanted to see it and neither my brother nor I wanted to see it. But my friend begged and promised to pay for our ticket if we didn't like it. As we were leaving the theater without prompting or any words said reached for his wallet and reimbursed us for the movie.

You know a movie is bad when straight teen age boys roll their eye when the cute actress takes off her shirt and think "not even this can save the movie". :-) Yes it is that bad. Yes it was out of the theater in my neighborhood in one day.

You've been fouled and beaten up in submission by my harsh statements about "femme fatale" / "guns n' gals" movies! Now comes another breed in disappointing rediscoveries: ninja movies! Many of these I've seen before, and let me tell you, they aren't all that's cracked up to be! They usually don't stick to the point. This, among all others, suffers from no originality! What's a ninja got to do with preventing a nuclear holocaust in Russia? And isn't this supposed to be a "martial arts" movie, too? Does plenty of gunfire sound like an incredible action movie to you? Is blood the number one reason to love this to death? Will you waste some of your hard-earned cash over a lady singing in her see-through tank top? The answers to these important questions are found in THE NINJA MISSION, which should be in the martial arts section of your video store. For even more nonsense ninja fun, try checking out those Godfrey Ho movies put out by Trans World. You get what you deserve, and that's a promise! Recommended only for hardcore ninja addicts!

The story here, which takes place during the cold war, concerns a Russian scientist trying to defect to the west (via Sweden) with his top secret formula which, so we're led to believe could potentially shift the balance of power to the Russians if they were able to decipher it.

As it turns out, the altruistic and benevolent old scientist who has dreams of his formula making the world a better place, is tricked by the Russians who, via a staged rescue attempt, convince the naive old chap that he has in fact been flown into Sweden where he can complete his work in safety. Predictably riled by the situation however, the CIA resolve to send in a squad of Swedish Ninja (!) to retrieve him from behind enemy lines.

Will these daring masters of death be successful in their mission? Hmmm, well you'll have to watch to find out.

What can I say? Well for starters, this film is certainly noteworthy in that it was the first ever Swedish Ninja film to be released to a world wide audience. It's actually admittedly very refreshing to see a European take on the Ninja genre and the differences in their portrayal from the American and Oriental representations of these stealth assassins in other films. Here they are portrayed more like the SAS than some of the mystical/magical and virtually indestructible warriors in other ninja fare. In fact, not giving too much away but the ninja in this film are shown to suffer human fallibility's just like any other combat soldier. The film must also claim the accolade as probably the goriest ninja movie I have ever watched (in the full uncut version at least) with a fair bit of the old red stuff a'flying throughout (often in glorious slow motion), again, a very welcome aspect indeed.

However, even with the above in mind, the film has to be said to be a sadly average affair overall with far too little ninja action on offer. The martial arts are very poorly executed throughout and as it happens the ninja themselves mostly resolve to utilising semi automatic weapons to take care of business.....a somewhat odd and noisy choice for these supposed masters of stealth perhaps?

I've read a lot of reviews praising this for being a 'bad' movie as in the 'so bad it's actually good' variety. I have to disagree though. OK so the film is no masterpiece on any level but the film makers were certainly not incompetent (as is a director of such similar fodder as Godfrey Ho for instance) and obviously put a lot of effort into this for which they should be commended. It just sadly fails to enthral as they would have hoped for which is a real shame.

I just watched this film on DVD. It was actually worse than I thought... But let me explain: At first I thought this was going to be a horrible movie, yes. But in an Ed Wood kind of way: It's so horrible it's actually incredible! But this movie isn't. It could have been, but it isn't. But it's still quite "enjoyable" (mind you, it's still horrible).

The dialoge and acting is bad, bad, bad. Remember that. It's really horrible. But it's quite funny in some scenes, because of that! Some scenes almost make it to 'Ed Wood Status'. But those aren't that many. Instead, we are graced with an endless amount of pointless action scenes. The finale, for example, has Ninja firing at an endless amount of guards. The whole thing is just ninja firing at guards, for ten minutes or so! Fun. Not.

Those kind of action scenes are abundant in this film: Ninja/Agents firing at various russian guards and slaughtering them in the thousands. For several minutes... Makes the film quite boring.

Ok, so let's get going on the "plot": A russian scientist, who is working on something that might tip the scale in the russians favour, wants to defect to the western world. But the russians don't want that, obviously, so they send in their agents to try and stop him. But the CIA are allied with the NINJA so, they are up for the task to rescue him at all cost! Yes!

The plot is extremely silly, yet the movie handles it with extreme seriousness. This, of course, grants us some Ed Wood moments, as I have explained. But those few moments are not enough to save this film from boredom, of the action scenes.

I'm not going to review every single aspect of this film, as I use to, as you can imagine: They're all extremely low budget.

Ok, so final verdict: 4. 3 for the Ed Wood moments and 1 for the action! Blerg!