Since this is also kind of a “ninja month” for me, time to dwelve deep back into the cut n paste ninjaexploitation we love to discuss here so much…. or is it really this time?
I mean, the movie it’s called The Super Ninja( but you can also find it titled as “Ninja Force”), it does have a different and confirmed director name on both IMDB and the Hong Kong Movie Database, it does fit the bill of a primo subject for the “Godfrey Ho cut-n-paste” treatment… but it’s NOT mostly made out of a different yet similar Taiwanese or Korean chrime thriller, there’s no stock footage lifted.
So, did i make a mistake, assuming this was another Godfrey Ho/Joseph Lai joing when it’s a completely random, stock footage-free ninja flick from the era that just happened to exist and get paired with IFD Films International’s output of super cheap ninja regigs of older, random asian films about crime, guns, or whatever
Because it was distributed under the other company name by Ho and Lai, Filmark International… and then just watching will trigger every flight or fight response by ninja film buffs, because it looks, feels and it’s even edited like the cut-n-paste colored ninja collages, but there’s no recognizable name in the credits that would make the connections made sense and obvious.
Then i found the name “Thomas Tang” attached as producer even in the “recent” italian DVD release by Freak Video, and all made perfect sense, because that is one of Godfrey Ho many film pseudonyms, stuff like the beloved “Elton Chong”, BUT that credit was just added in the international releases because – as already said – Filmark distributed the thing.
Again, there’s a lot of misinformation on the internet on this subject, but after confronting what i could dig up with other people finding after having to dig through the mess that is ninjaxploitation films correct crediting… there’s still the small but not so small change Godfrey Ho intervened and did his usual thing, this being the final form of a Godfrey Ho cut-n-paste ninjaxploitation flick, because he finally could affort to actually shot footage of stuff that isn’t a 2 minutes fights with plastic katanas, papermacie throwing stars, random british actors, kunais and whatnote.
That and the film still feels like it was 2 different plots entirely spliced together to make a singular film (we’ll talk about that soon enough), but it might just be the awful script, and everything else leads to this just being another cheap ninja film from the 80s, fitting within the style of the director, Wuo Kun Ren, also behind Ninja Condors and Wu Tang VS Ninja.
To say nothing of a 1982’s “Five Element Ninjas”, also a movie also about “elemental ninjas”, a very late Shaw Brothers production (directed by company’s regular Chang Cheh and with most of the “Venom Mob”), done well past the company’s heyday, as they too were chasing trends regardless if they understood them or if they did gel with the company’s style of martial arts film.
But that is a review for another day. Sorry, a ninja made me lose focus by approaching a boat via a bamboo surfing board, that fiend.
So yeah, this is 90 % just a case of a similar yet unrelated cheap film being mistaken for the product of another entire company or director, you could easily have fooled people into believing it was the first Godfrey Ho ninja film with an actual budget and footage they didn’t stole.
Or maybe the first one where they stole from multiple cancelled or unreleased films.
Everything fits, from the awful “blink and miss” editing for the ninja fights, the bad camera angles (just shy of people getting cut out of the scene by the letterboxing), the stolen/lifted soundtrack (hello, Mrs, Bates), there’s even an endless sex scenes so unflattering the stereotypical “sexiphone” soundtrack gets bored well before the scene ends, and ESPECIALLY how you can slice the movie in 2 halves that do not relate to each other, they might as well be carved out from different films and explained off with the usual convenient bullshit one-sentence-explanations of “dem pigs were paid off by the evil ninjas gang”.
Because that is the convenient explanation actually used by the film.
Speaking of which, the plot.
As i said, the first half is John (Alexander Lo Rei ) taking revenge on the douchebags corrupt cops who framed him and put in him prison, and thanks the lord he’s called John, so he can feel less shame of cosplaying Rambo and doing a blatant First Blood “inspired” massacre of the bidepal pigs, the second is him going back to Hong Kong to stop the “Game Gear Shinobi” inspired evil elemental ninja from getting the secret formula. So secret it is, it doesn’t matter what it is, you mention “the formula” to ninjas in these films and they will pivot to getting it at all costs, they just can’t resist the allure of it. It’s ironically a formula to cure cocaine addiction, btw.
Also, the Five Elemental Ninjas (Fire, Water, Metal, Wood, Earth) are invincible.
Until they aren’t because the ninja master spoke some zen-o-babble to the protagonist, which replies like Ryo from Shenmue, about as incredulous at the words that came out of his master’s moustache. But bullshit said by asian man sounds profound, and we’re gonna have these pesky elemental ninja become vincible via one contrived convenience or another.
It’s pretty fun, the ninja action itself it’s more competently shot than the IDF Films standard, since Alexander Lo Rei was a martial artist with some fame to him and you can tell he trained, it’s just more competent (shame that the editing makes it almost impossible to parse its quality) and Eugene Thomas (also in Dolemite, Shaolin Dolemite and USA Ninja) is also quite fun to watch as the black cop, complete with an Axel Fowley get up, there to be…. the black cop partner/buddy, as he waits for John’s “First Blooderino” section so they can both hunt for the secret formula as ninjas against the evil elemental ninjas.
It’s just not as fun as the “classics” so bad -they’re-fuckin-amazing like Golden Ninja Warriors, Ninja Terminator, or Ninja Operation: Knight And Warrior, the one with the cocaine stuffed baguettes and Alphonse Beni, which was also the titular ninja in “Black Ninja”.
But it up there, and still there’s a LOT more energy and fun bullshit to be had and laugh at in The Super Ninja, compared to many other ninjaxploitation flicks where you can tell Ho or Lai – which i will reiterate, WERE NOT involved with this one directly (at least there’s a 90 % probability they weren’t besides just distributing the thing internationally) – weren’t even trying to mush thing things together in a way that will work more than pass as a sorta, kinda of idea of a plot,
A fun one, recommended to fans of ninjaxploitation and cheesy old ninja films overall.
Wise Cafe (International) 