Ninja Wars

I picked this up out of a $5 bin at Wal-Mart. It came with 8 other movies all on DVD. In the last three days, I've watched this three times. In the beginning, I got a little confused as to what was going on with all the black magic being talked about, but I got submerged deep into it soon after. The defining part of this movie is definitely when a girl gets her head cut off and just stands there spraying blood for a minute or two while a bad guy just chills next to it. Sonny Chiba was also great in this. I still haven't found Jackie Chan, but I'm sue I'll find him from watching this over and over. I recommend anybody who sees this movie in a clearance bin or laying around to get it. It's sure to please martial art, action, and b-film hilarity lovers everywhere.

Okay, it's not really a classic. In fact, few people have probably even heard of this movie. And that's probably a good thing. This movie is odd. Really odd and bad. It has so many weird plot twists (two girls, one a virgin ninja, the other a concubine, are beheaded, and their heads are reattached but switched to different bodies) and visual effects (ninjas that vomit great streams of acid, the big fat naked concubine getting it on with the blind, scarred devil monk) that a mere plot summary cannot do the movie justice. That and I'm lazy. So, go rooting around in your local mom'n pop video store's bargain bin (I got my copy from a friend who bought it at Phar-Mor when they were having a big everything must go sale), look for Ninja Wars, watch it, and be amazed.

When I found a copy of this movie at my local thrift store, I plunked down my dollar to buy it, figuring at the very least I would be getting some good ninja action. But the movie is anything but. If you are looking for a classic ninja portrayal, look elsewhere - there are only a few (very) short appearances of the men in black. They don't get to do much action, and for that matter, neither do the rest of the cast. The action, the few times that it comes, is very short and not the least bit spectacular. That's bad enough, but what's worse is that the drama portion of the movie is next to incomprehensible, and isn't able to win the sympathy of the audience for any of the characters. There are a few unintended laughs, and I will admit some of the production values are not bad, but otherwise this is one sorry "ninja" movie. You'd get a lot more enjoyment from a typical Godfrey Ho ninja movie than from this movie.

This is the funniest ninja movie I've seen...and probably the worse I've seen since American Ninja 4. In some scenes lots of women are decapitated, and they stand there for about 30 seconds...blood spurting out of their heads like a fire hydrant! There's a really stupid old man with a staff who laughs really weird, and the evil warlord sounds like Grover from Sesame Street. My favorite part is the "ninja-like" attack methods the lampshade-headed warriors in this film use. As they fight, they spew egg yolk out of their mouths at people. And were supposed to believe thats what real ninjas do??? Overall this is the strangest ninja movie possibly ever made.

Watch this movie and every time someone says "what's that?!", drink a shot of [insert your favorite hard liquor here]. You will be REALLY drunk before the movie ends. You will NEED to be really drunk to make it to the end.

The dialogue scenes in this film are so leadenly directed that it will have you screaming at the TV, "Will somebody PLEASE take less than five whole seconds to respond to someone else's line of dialogue?!" This is clearly not just a matter of bad dubbing (which, granted, in this film it is utterly atrocious), but because the director seems to think that he's Ozu or Kurosawa, forgetting that he's making a ninja movie with Sonny Chiba and Henry Sanada.

Not to sneer at Chiba or Sanada. (I adore the 'Streetfighter' series and have watched nearly all of Sonny's other films.) Nor, for that matter, ninja movies. This is a BADLY MADE ninja movie - and there's the distinction.

Oh, sure, at times the utter goofiness of some of the situation is good for more than a few laughs (acid-spewing 'devil monk'; head-switching virgin/courtesan twin sisters; spider tea kettle), but the plot is awfully convoluted (again, I'd be more than willing to allow that the godawful dubbing has likely obscured any subtleties or nuance) and bewteen the action scenes, when every other line of dialogue seems to be someone responding in amazement "what's that?!" (are you people deaf or something? clean the wax outta your ears!), you keep praying that very soon someone will again be decapitated.

And what's up with that ending? The lovers are whisked off...well, I don't want to spoil it for anyone brave enough to watch this thing, but trust me when I say that at the end of this one you'll either be scratching your head in utter befuddlement or jumping up and down, insanely babbling, "What's that?! What's that?! What's that..?!". Or you'll be passed out from too many shots of [insert favorite hard liquor].