Ninja Vengeance

Watched this on Netflix. Useless acting, terrible dialogue, stupid story - I would have rated it zero if that was allowed. It is also badly edited and very poor quality. The story isn't even original. I watched it in the hope there's would be some decent fight sequences but my local judo club could stage more realistic scenes.

Now, when I sat down here in 2025 to watch the 1993 movie "Ninja Vengeance" for the first time ever, I have to admit that I harbored little expectations. Why? Well, the majority of the ninja movies that I remembered fondly from my childhood in the early 1980s weren't really as good as I remembered them to be, as I have revisited them over the years.

"Ninja Vengeance" was a ninja movie without any actual ninjas in it. That was a massive mistake from writers Karl Armstrong and Carrie Armstrong to do.

The storyline in the movie was pretty straightforward, and it was every bit as campy as you would expect a ninja movie to be, so that at least counted for something.

The dialogue in the movie was pretty wooden and terrible. And the acting performances weren't exactly stellar.

I was not familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list, but that was hardly a surprise.

There was surprisingly little fighting and martial arts in the movie. And I have to say that I didn't for moment believe that leading actor Craig Boyett was trained in the arts of Ninjitsu.

If you enjoy ninja movies, then "Ninja Vengeance" is not really worth spending 87 minutes on watching.

My rating of director Karl Armstrong's 1993 movie "Ninja Vengeance" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

The on-line comedy review company - Red letter media watched this film with a group of people and found it so bad that it wasn't even funny. I then managed to find the film and watch it myself and I'm afraid I must concur. The story is supposedly about a ninja fighting members of the KKK, which sounds really hilariously awesome. The one thing is though - that it isn't in the slightest cool at all. It's just him running away a lot. And then he gets beaten up numerous times and then the girl shoots someone with a shotgun. He's not really a ninja at all. It only shows he is one in flashbacks. Redlettermedia after watching it, dropped a cinder block on it and smashed it to pieces. I wish I could have done the same. I think that's all I have to say...

Yes, this is a B movie, no question. But what the other reviewers don't get is that this movie features authentic ninjutsu. It features Stephen K. Hayes, the man who brought ninjutsu to the west. The techniques are actually ninjutsu, instead of some flashy movie-friendly dance steps like you would see in a Sho Kosugi movie of the same era. I can see why this wouldn't impress viewers used to seeing pretty-boy actors dangling from invisible wires and doing the splits and the cha-cha-cha, but this movie is a must-see for any student of Bujinkan ninpo taijutsu. It's great for us to see effective fighting techniques instead of Broadway dance steps. For authenticity alone I give this a 7 out of 10.

The plot, dialog and acting are horrible. Why can't a movie be made about the south without featuring the Ku Klux Klan? I guess that's what New York and Hollywood writers think about when they think about the South, but it's as tiresome now as it was tiresome in the late 80s when this movie was made.

The plot. Yes, so many technical aspects of this movie go wanting - dialog, editing, direction, etc. Even with all its weaknesses relative to your average Hollywood blockbuster, this movie stands out - and the direction may be partly responsible - in one big way: It feels real. The constantly twisting plot, the constant self-questioning by the main character, the mixture of decisions based on principles and passion - even if clouded by a script that needs work - the many unusual features of the production actually add up to a story worth watching.

In fact, the editing, along with the cinematography and clumsy-seeming acting, help give the film its real-life feel. So maybe it's better than it might seem at first glance.

This film depicts a human realism that doesn't shout out at us - we have to look beyond the expectations we might have about a movie called "Ninga Vengeance" to see it.