Ninja Terminator

I have seen a few ninja movies in my time. THe fabulous mafia vs. ninja and The Super Ninja instantly come to mind, but I have NEVER....EVER seen a movie like this. I've seen a few cut and splice ninja movies in my time: diamond force ninja (moments of excellence,) ninja: American warrior (moments of pure insanity) and ninja dragon (patheticly ridiculous and virtually un-watchable) but i have NEVER seen a God (godfrey ho) ninja movie like this!!!!! I'll make it plain and simple. The other reviewer had it dead on: Jaguar wong is the coolest man in history!!!! Usually these cut and splice ninja movies have great brief ninja action sequences and terrible (different movie) sub plots that are virtually un-watchable but ninja terminator (or as the title I rented it under: silver fox and ninja terminator) brings the genre to a whole new high!! THis movie makes no sense. I feel like I was just hit by a train. This is pure insanity. Two films mixed into one. Jaguar Wong vs. Some guy with the most lame ass blond wig i have ever seen mixed with footage of indestructible Ninja Master Gordon { actor RIchard Harrison (known is this film as ninja master Harry)} kicking red ninja and other ninja's butts over the possession of the golden ninja idol (the exact same lame ass plastic statue as seen in Ninja Diamond force if i'm not mistaken) The ninja action sequences between the different ninjas are amazingly top notch kung fu and NEVER and I mean NEVER underestimate the power of Jaguar Wong. He IS the coolest man in history and his kung fu does not disappoint. He NEVER gives up and beats the crap out of anyone who dares stand in his way. Even when he is tied up and has no chance of survival he....well just watch the movie.

THis is easily one of the best movies I have ever seen. Somehow while trying to quickly complete a ninja movie for profit in the eighties Godfrey Ho and friends inadvertently bring a truly unique film to the human race. If you can find it WATCH IT!!!!! If you have any interest in kung fu or so bad it's good movie making you'll LOVE this!!!!!! What the hell was that robot or Harrison's Garfield Phone?????!?!?!?! WTF!?! INSANITY!!!

Can't really tell you a lot about this one as I watched it whilst pretty drunk. I CAN say that Gordon (Richard Harrison) was beset by mysterious clouds of gas at one point - created by what looked to be a small clockwork robot - (confusing for him in the extreme I should imagine). Oh, and his girlfriend is attacked in her kitchen by vicious marauding crabs - even Gordon himself looks a little unsettled by that one. I could be wrong but I think it might be VERY good...must watch it again and find out.

A cheap looking idol that splits into three parts grants the bearer immunity to rubber swords of all kinds. But only if he holds all three parts! Actually, it works with just the one bit as demonstrated by one of the mustachioed ninjas midway through the movie which, at a stroke as lethal as any ninjas blade, completely kills the meager plot logic the film has managed to piece together by this point. At first it looks as though the entire film is just going to be people beating each other up in a mall garden but the plot does start to develop towards something like a story later on.

Meanwhile, Jaguar Wong wanders around getting involved with kidnappings and his scheming former lover. Everywhere he goes groups of three or four men attack him feebly providing intermittent filler for the already vague plot.

All this sounds quite reasonable and par for the course but there are some decidedly strange additions. The ninja master uses a cheerful garfield phone for example, the mid-level henchman wears a woman's wig without explanation and the bad guy delivers his messages via cheap kids robot toys that someone must have had to walk right up to the door and place, rendering them less in the ninja style of stealth than say slipping the note under the door.

I got a few laughs out of this movie, it's bad but in a good way. My favourite bit was the way the ninja master was able to completely hide his ninja double wife from his wife whose biggest worry in life is the crabs she's steaming for dinner escaping. Even stopping one escaping by hurling a shuriken across the room doesn't seem to arouse her suspicions!

If anybody has sat down to watch a decent Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee film and thought to themselves 'Hold on, you know what would make this better? Really bad ninja fighting that has little to do with the actual story, a story that makes absolutely no sense, and some of the most random quirkiness ever witnessed on screen, that'd make a GREAT film!' Then Ninja Terminator may be the film for them.

However, if they added to that 'Also, I'd like to see a love scene set to Pink Floyd's Echoes, twice, and perhaps a guy in a blonde wig for no reason at all'. Then 1) Ninja Terminator IS for them and 2) They have uncanny and ultra-specific pre-cognitive powers.

Ninja Terminator takes the whole 'so bad it's good' movie ethos to stratospheric levels, even beyond movies like Troll 2. What works here is the movie that Godfrey Ho is tacking his usual ninja battles onto is just about as crazy as the ninja battles themselves. I swear, there must be a kung fu fight every five minutes or so, each of them getting increasingly stranger until the penultimate fight on the beach (followed only, of course, by the bizarre ninja showdown).

Without going into specifics and spoiling things, I'll make a vague-ish list of what's nuts about this film: 1) Pink Floyd and Tangerine Dream on the soundtrack. 2)Split second ninja costume changes 3) Weird use of children's toys 4) Crabs 5) Pawning jackets 6) Random jacket changes 7) Feet that dig sand 8) Dramatic wig removal 9) etc etc...

I've watched a few of these ninja films so far, and it's by far the greatest one I've seen.

By the way, if you like actual good films, just reverse everything I've said and take it as a warning.

Goofy, fast-paced and frequently senseless action, probably partly padded out from pieces of the director's umpteen other films, as was his custom. The plot is so random I never really understood what the significance was of the golden thingie everybody was chasing after-this is just one of those movies where you accept that "the guys in red will fight the guys in blue who'll fight the guys in yellow," quickly forgetting to even wonder WHY anyone is fighting anybody. It's silly in a good way, energetic and slick on a B-grade level. At times it achieves a kind of inspired giddy absurdity that is close to trash heaven.