Ying zi jun tuan

I'm a zen master, and there is various practises we employ in order to clear the mind of the everyday babble that all humans endure. One is to ask yourself "What is the sound of one ninja crapping?" and "If a ninja teleports in a forrest and no one is there to see it, does anyone give a crap?" Joseph Lai, Tomas Tang and Godfrey Ho were the undoubted masters at bringing this zen train of though to life, and here is a fine example.

When I say fine, you know what I mean. It's a mid-eighties ninja film (but NOT a cut and paste film), and it's pure, unfiltered, garbage. Therefore it's great! Set initially in New York (Hong Kong with the Stars and Stripes sellotaped to various walls!), we find ourselves meeting two cops, the Chinese John and the Af-Am Spencer, being chewed out by their boss for arresting the senator's son for attempted rape – turns out the chief would have been happier if they'd let him just get on with it. This has nothing to do with anything but the fight is pretty funny.

The plot itself involves John being framed for possessing drugs, escaping jail, and then trying to find out why anyone framed him in the first place. Obviously it's something to do with the drug trade but what you need to know is that there's five 'elemental ninjas' who have amazing powers (water, earth, air, fire, kebabs) that are rendered unamazing by the zero budget of the film. Watching a ninja surfing on a thin piece of bamboo or burrowing underneath sand is soothing to the soul.

So John's got to go up against these dudes while having flashbacks to his own ninja training, which includes a direct rip from the start of Enter the ninja. There's a few twists and turns but no one in their right mind would care about them. These films are all about the brain damaged action and the laughs! And speaking of brain damaging, there's this brilliant bit of editing where John slumps his head over just right when the film cuts to a scene where a door is kicked open, making it look like John smashed his head on a table.

Even better is the overlong sex scene (that John manages to have while the cops are looking for him) not only does this go on forever and THEN reveal that John hadn't yet taken his trousers off, but then the sexy music switches to some bizarre off kilter tune while the actress starts vibrating her arse all over the place. Genius.

There are many, many battles in this one, there's stolen musical cues (like Psycho), and the usual bad dubbing. No one makes films as stupid as this anymore.

Imagine a movie that took the worst clichés of 70's gangster movies, 70's kung fu movies, 70's porn, 70's cop movies, and Power Rangers, and rolled all into one absurd mess that looked as though it had been scripted by a kindergartener. This movie was easily ten times worse than that. That being said, this is every reason to see it. From the opening scene on, I don't think I stopped laughing once. Nothing made any sense, there was not a transition to be found in the movie, and the number of rape scenes per girl (5 rape scenes, only two females in the entire movie) was quite staggering. I pulled "The Super Ninja" off the rental shelf expecting to watch a hilariously bad movie, but nothing prepared me for the jaw-droppingly awful spectacle that was the Super Ninja. It was amazing.

I've seen more than a few Ninja movies over the years, but it wasn't until just yesterday that I crossed paths with "The Super Ninja" and what a trip it was.

This is an amazingly entertaining Ninjafest, there's so many things happening in this movie, it's almost as if the cast and crew collectively put together a check-list encompassing all things they thought should be in a Ninja movie and as of yet I've never seen a more entertaining title in the genre. Alexander Rei Lo may not be the best known or most charismatic star, but really delivers with his fighting skills and Kuo-Ren Wu must have been one hell of a director who really knew how to put together a thrilling Ninja movie. Hell, they even threw in a great sex scene right in the middle of movie (it can't karate chops and roundhouses all the time, right?) that's accompanied by some utterly terrific sounding vintage porn music, which gets even more terrific as she, I mean he, I mean they, I mean-I mean...the scene, as the scene reaches it's climax. Porn music connoisseurs take note. Speaking of music, this to should be mentioned, there are at least the three selections of Johns Williams' music that were "borrowed" from Star Wars and Indiana Jones and they also used a selection from Psycho. But the Chinese never steal intellectual property from the West, right? LOL!

Take note of the fight choreography and tell me that it isn't among the best you've ever seen and from a photography standpoint it was captured with an amazingly high degree of style and sophistication by the camera crew. Also my full gratitude goes to whoever did the editing, masterfully done. And if that wasn't enough the special effects are often brilliant and tremendously exciting !FISTS OF FIRE! Don't let the films ultra-generic and downright laughably juvenile title >>>THE SUPER NINJA<<< turn you off, because it was helmed by a very talented, experienced, and sophisticated crew who produced brilliant results; with the exception of the script of course...but that can easily be forgiven, because since when are these type of movies known for there writing. Since never. Speaking of dialog, the less than perfect over-dubbing (like many Asian films) makes The Super Ninja more entertaining than it otherwise would have been.

Lastly, if Ninja movies are your kind of thing, well than film buffs, THE SUPER NINJA really IS very super and totally lives up to it's goofy title and is not be missed. Period.

The Super Ninja is a great ninjafest which is very similar to The Mafia Vs Ninja, but The Super Ninja is much better. First of all, it has much more ninjas, and colourful ones. Second, Its plot is much more interesting. Third, it's cheesier than The Mafia Vs Ninja. Fourth, The fights are much better and the climax is very exciting!

The story is about John, an Asian cop who works in America with his black partner called Spenser. One day, John was caught by his fellow cops for possessing drugs that had been put in his apartment in order to set him up. However, John doesn't give up! Therefore, He has to fight against his fellow cops, drugs dealers and the five element ninjas!

I would like to add to this review some technical details such as dubbing, fights, nudity and cheese. Let's start with the dubbing, shall we? Well, its dubbing is very amusing, it's hardly synchronized and the characters have voices that hardly suit them. The fights are very entertaining and sometimes even stunning, the ninjas have great techniques, however, John fights more elegantly. About the nudity, well, there is one or two softcore scenes which add the film another aspect which manages to entertain as well. The cheese! I can certainly say that The Super Ninja has some of the cheesiest killings that I have ever seen, I am not sure if those killing have been filmed intentionally cheesy or not, one thing for sure, there is a fair share of cheese on the top of this pizza!!!

Bottom line, I recommend that every fan of ninja movies check this cheesy ninjafest because it sure has made me have some good laughs! 9/10

The eighties was a time when Ninjas were at their powerhouse peak in Hollywood, everything martial arts related was Ninja themed, I cant believe I am moved to write a review about a film that is admittedly so bad, but that badness makes it great!! This film openly defies any sense of logic and physics, in fact the biggest martial arts trick these guys all have is the ability to speed up the camera, or press reverse on the camera leading to many hilarious moments that would have been outtakes on any other film but here they made the grade!! What is awesome here is what is on obviously a zero budget these guys had the courage to try to make a very adventurous film, there are lots of great ideas here that if they had even a decent camera this might have really worked as a film, I cant say to anyone go out and get this because the chance of you finding this is virtually zero, but it left a mark on me and my mate Nav's memory, seeing it back in the eighties we both remembered it for ages and luckily came across a DVD of it, there must be something about it that made us remember it even 20 years later!!!