rottingcarrot

Believe it or not Bruce Lee vs. Ninja in fact does not only not star Bruce lee it doesn't even star any ninjas! So if it doesn't have Bruce lee or ninjas than what does it have? Well...there is a guy with a kitten on his shoulder and a few guys with white sacs on their heads. I know that doesn't sound too impressive and it isn't (unless your a cat enthusiast like me) but this movie does star the legendary Leigh lo as the villain and features the adequate kung fu of Bruce Le.

I'm not even going to try to explain the plot to you because I don't remember what the hell was happening but I do remember the fighting to be entertaining and plentiful. Bruce Le gets a lot of bad press because people get angry once they realize the movie they rented didn't actually star Bruce lee, but Bruce Le really has pretty good kung fu and was a decent fight choreographer. Of course his acting is dreadful but that's part of his charm.

My main criticism for this movie is: the box art for the DVD has a big picture of Bruce Le angrily firing an M16 assault rifle but he never has an assault rifle in the movie! WTF! Bruce Le shooting ninjas with an M16, now that would be entertainment!

I've seen parts II and III of the ninja death series and as far as I can tell I haven't missed anything essential from the plot. The plot has something to do with a guy named tiger played by the always exciting Alexander lou who is fighting ninjas. I'm not sure why he's fighting them but there are three guys from a different time period who were taught ninja arts in japan since they were kids and then they fight. One gets his eyes gouged out. Another teaches tiger kung fu and then he punches himself in the head and he dies. This was a very dramatic scene which had me in tears.

But I was soon cheered up by some of the best ninja fight scenes i've ever witnessed! The fight choreography in this film is absolutely top notch, fast and accurate fighting! THe head evil ninja with the twin hammers wearing the gold suit should win every award at the academy awards. His kung fu is fabulous and His acting (along with the poorest quality English dubbing i've ever heard) is hilarious! In fact everyones acting in this is hilarious. Alexander lou shows just how bad an actor he can be in nonsensical love scenes that make them very funny to watch! If you like crazy Chinese kung fu movies you'll love this, if not, the fight scenes are still worth the admission.

This cut and splice crap fest features a few brief ninja battles between painfully long scenes from a boring Wang Yu film from the seventies.

Jimmy Wang Yu is normally a pleasure to watch in such films as return of the one armed swordsman, the Chinese boxer series and master of the flying guillotine to name a few but this movie ( a modern day crime "thriller" ) is just a low budget, low concept snooze fest with boring, uninspired fight scenes. Wang yu was far from a kung fu expert in real life but with the right fight choreographers and actors working with him along with his acting and directing skills Wang Yu was a great action hero. Here Wang yu just looks like some guy who gets in brawls with other guys. In other words the kung fu blows.

But who cares about the filler. The footage you want to see is Stuart smith as some CIA guy or maybe just some jogger (they don't explain it too well) who is trying to destroy the camouflage ninja and his gang of black ninjas who are trying to get the documents for the K 19 nuclear missile for Buck, the leader of the Chinese mafia.

Unfortunately most of the footage with stuart smith is just there to move the plot along and there aren't many ninja fight scenes but a few of the scenes are stuart smith classics. There's this scene thats just a close up shot of smith jogging with weights in his hands and this expression on his face that's supposed to show how hard he's training I guess but he looks like he's experiencing excruciating pain. Another great scene with smith is him training in his red ninja costume and this bird flies by so he cuts its head off and then poses with this look of great accomplishment on his face.

The actual ninja fight scenes with smiths red ninja body double are actually really good. Nice sword play. Smith even does a couple action sequences himself that are a breath of fresh air after the boring wang yu fight scenes.

Anyway this is worth watching if you have a high tolerance or a love for totally inept film-making. If you rent this expecting a legitimate action movie I pity you. You'd be better off watching Snake eater 2.