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.
