Ninja the Protector

Richard Harrison once again finds himself in heavy mascara and camouflage ninja togs whilst being edited into a completely non ninja movie here!

Yes, Godfrey Ho strikes again and this time he has spliced some rather enjoyable ninja footage into what amounts to a somewhat odd soft porn movie!

Fair enough, the movie is certainly better than many of the other atrocities that Ho has chosen as his base for these films but it must nonetheless also rank as one of the most bizarre choices of film into which to edit in a tenuous ninja plot.

Still, it's the ninja action we want to see in this, so does our man Ho deliver the goods? Well sadly, (but as per usual in these movies) there's just not enough ninja activity on offer here which proves a genuine shame as what is present is great fun, for instance the ninja motorcycle duel! Also present and correct (but not necessarily welcome) is the abrupt ending (although there is admittedly a strange and unique charm in Ho's sudden cessation of these movies - it appears to be a trademark of his!)

Is it worth watching? For Z-grade ninja movie fans (of which I am one)of course! Everyone else would be well advised to steer clear....A Godfrey Ho film to the uninitiated may prove just too much for one's cerebral health!

I am an advocate of a category I like to refer to as the "drunken classics". If you want a film to really move you, your selection is severely limited by the few hundred great films that have been made over the years. However, if you're getting drunk before or while you're watching a film, there are literally thousands of terrible, terrible films that become enjoyable where they would otherwise be unwatchable. The prime example of this theory would be the American Ninja Series (I-IV anyway, V is still unwatchable). It was in this mindset that I picked up Ninja:The Protector and I discovered something astounding; the film can actually make time stop. The running time may be listed at 90some minutes but I swear it took a week and a half out of my life. This film is not just terrible. It is terrible, cheesy, low-budget, slow, and although it has such an incredibly innane straight out of Thundercats plot, still manages to be one of the most confusing films I've ever seen. It is my belief that what actually happened was that they took 45 minutes of stock ninja footage together with a reject 70s drama pilot and just stuck them together and put all the money into the box art in the hopes of suckering someone, anyone into renting it. Anyone who sits through this film should have the opportunity to slap anyone that was involved with it, and then be slapped themselves. I know I deserve it. Please, if my only contribution to this world is that I saved one, just one person the pain and agony of this film, my life will have been worth living. Yes, I am that shallow.

I love cheesey ninja movies. I LOVE them. The title lured me in, and the movie preceded to take away my will to live.

The first twenty minutes of this movie are solid gold. Cinematic trash at its very best. However somewhere in between the feuding twin brothers who also happen to be spies and the repeated sequences of bondage sex and violent rape, this movie made me want to die.

Imagine three of the least interesting and most melodramatic plots you can concieve, and then cram them into one movie that manages to bore, confuse and disturb all who view it, and there you have it. Nothing in this movie makes sense. Forget being believable, i couldn't UNDERSTAND it enough to pass judgment on that. I felt as if i had been drugged and then subjected to several hours of beatings and disorientation. The movie was only ninety minutes long, but i swear the hands on the clock stood still as this abomination continued to unfurl its tenticles on my mind. I will never forgive the makers of this sin.

No matter how many ninja films one sees it always looks to me like people fighting wearing pyjamas. This is particularly true in this film where the Richard Harrison character wears a natty pair of duds that look perfect for bedtime. Which makes the ninja fights he is in look silly. When he puts on his ninja suit he also looks slimmer. At least they could have had someone similar in size to Richard Harrison. He was a big boy.

The film is a hybrid of at least two others but one never knows. It could be more. The western actors are dubbed but their lip are saying the same dialogue anyway so it becomes quite surreal. The Hong Kong actors are also dubbed but one gets used to that in martial art films anyway even though their lip movements are so different. Being a hybrid the plot wavers all over the place. When a character says, "Tiger has been killed" you think, who heck is Tiger? Is my memory going or did they ever appear? A rambling plot, tame fight scenes and plain acting are not even redeemed by a couple of sex scenes as they are just as boring as the rest of the film. Not good, not good at all.

Ninja the Protector is yet another triumph for the 'versatile ninja master' Richard Harrison, and an astonishing masterclass in suspense and action that only Joseph Lai could serve up.

When faced with the tyranny of an evil ninja empire run by an overweight accountant, our hero resorts to the only weapon a ninja can when faced with certain death - a 500cc racing motorbike. In a tense scene suitably offset with the mellow strummings of Pink Floyd, Richard demonstrates some of his broad reportoire of jaw dropping action stunts that, quite rightly, put Jackie Chan's efforts in the shade.

A must for all Harrison fans, serious action junkees and devotees of films spliced together in an incredibly obvious way to shift a few copies in the West.