Bear with me. The actual movie associated with this might be Ninja Phantom Heroes, or just maybe it’s Ninja Knight Thunder Fox, perhaps it’s Ninja Empire, or very well it could be Ninja Laxative Logs Driving Corollas, Part IV. It can be none of those, all of those, or some mix of them. It could be a single coherent movie, or perhaps a Frankenstein patchwork of multiple films. The card and poster of the movie are a perfect match for many other cultures. Let’s assume it is Ninja Phantom Heroes, which I recognize to be the case, it was either produced in 1987 by the important director, or in 1990 by the US gory distributors, or perhaps in 2019 by time-traveling Zorkthons and transferred using their inter-dimensional space pod. The cast might all be ethnic Asians with voiceovers by tipsy Welshmen or Chinese-Americans with voiceovers by iеx-pat-Asian-sounding Welsh, they may be computer-generated models or puppets like those in Thunderbirds. The chances of being directed Bruce Lambert, Godfrey Ho, or maybe even Thunderbirds’ Ned Beatty are also not so slim.
At the end of the day, it truly does not make a difference, because no matter how one views its origin, Ninja Whatever Huh is the greatest movie ever produced, a supreme work of art of ninjas and ghosts and a multitude of other impressive things.
About the screen captures, they are dreadfully terrible and there is nothing I can change about it. The version I have (which is probably the only version available for public viewing) is described as being out of focus and fuzzy, which is the defining feature of substandard prints. It also does not help that there are only three to seven footage sources that are all of the varying qualities of film stock, which appears to be the norm in Hong Kong action movies. Even so, it makes for a horrible self-reviewing process. It would be like if Lucas made another Star Wars movie, but one actually put together from bits and pieces of the first six films in conjunction with American Graffiti and the Pantene commercial with the What Not to Wear girl. Surprisingly, that would be better than The Phantom Menace.
Writing a structured review on a movie like this one is essentially pointless, so I’m not even going to bother. Instead, I’ll just go through the scenes one by one and let you connect the dots yourself. So here we go.
One moment before we move on to my next point, let’s take a second to discuss the soundtrack used in this movie. I’ve never been to a Hong Kong brothel in 1973, but if I had, I feel like this is roughly what you would have heard through the broken speakers while a Malaysian woman danced topless in a cage for British diplomats on ‘business trips’. Unfortunately, that is only part of the portrayal. This could also pass as a preview for hell, softly hummed by the devil while he simultaneously jabs you with sharp objects for countless years of addiction to internet porn and being a moronic loser in the Jack in the Box lunch line (it’s a burger, not rocket science, just order the damned burger!)
Alright, Scene 1: A prison yard on some island (Philippines perhaps?). Some convicts are out collecting dirt or rocks when one is summoned to chat with the Sergeant. He has ‘715’ printed on his back, so I might as well call him that. His name is actually Ford, but it’s mentioned only once during the movie, an hour in, so I’m going to stick with 715. Jeff Houston plays this character (credited as Joff, something like Joff) who, according to the goggle people, was an 80s martial arts something (I know, I haven’t heard of him either).
Flashback now to the gunfight that occurred when 715 was captured. There was a big blonde dude who was running around like a maniac, shooting everyone. A bunch of soldiers race to head them off at the pass, submachine guns blazing, but it comes as no surprise that they can’t hit anything. After all, they are aiming at characters who have been spliced into a completely different movie. 715 is captured eventually and they haul him off in chains to a munitions dump. I know that’s what it is because they took a white bed sheet and crudely spray painted “US Army Munitions Dump” and hung it over the chainlink fence.”
Back to the present as 715, who has just been commandeered by a Sergeant who looks like an angry, drunk Vizzini. He is totally staggering. They talk about prison sentences, court martials, guns, and evil, and the Sergeant says as if he were the one being held, “I am giving you a SECOND CHANCE at FREEDOM,” modified with the dramatic pause everyone could use now and then. 715 has to go to HK, kill a bunch of ninjas, and meet with a policewoman named Christie. She is to help him out of course. Her codename is “Yellow Bird” his is “Condor,” and mine is “Crap, Where is the Remote?”
Here with the white-suited ninja training in Hong Kong, we are visiting a ninja playground cum training ground. The flashback scene has a guy with a blonde mullet. Oh no, it’s a Billy Idol hairdo but we’ll stick to the term mullet for a while. I hear Kenny Loggins in the distance. Now an elderly gentleman resonates with the ninja and bemoans the fact that crime bosses are intruding on their space. In an act of pure magic, the thin Asian man actively transforms into a muscular white man. Throughout this film, white people dominate the speaking roles, then change into masks, and then cut to Asian stunt actors with real martial arts. It’s a rather inexpensive method to compensate for the deficiencies of your lead performers.
Now, let’s wind the clock back to the year 715. After being let out of the prison, he has cleaned himself up a bit. He gets his mustache nicely trimmed and flies to Hong Kong to meet his contact. While wandering around the waterfront, he happens to meet Christie, a simple-minded woman who has, for some reason, a dazed and confused look in her eyes. It is hard to tell if this is some kind of inner conflict or if she just doesn’t know how to act. Because to be honest, she doesn’t do much apart from standing in the scenes. Contrarily, she does have a script to follow. She informs 715 that there are three Dons in the crime business in Hong Kong. These Dons want to take over the business of Billy Idol and his ninjas along with the Arab gun runners. Do you understand?
Now let’s shift to a party, that the three Dons of Hong Kong’s underworld are attending. Even though they conduct business with each other, we can consider them as sort of friends. They chat and complain about getting older while smoking cigars.
There’s also a younger fella, Allen, around and even as one of the Dons’ main henchmen, he will eventually become the hero of our movie (more on him as we go along). A single gunman shoots from the bushes and starts the party by killing a few of henchmen but on gets interrupted and driven away by Allen. The Dons individually blame each other and depart, vowing that this is the last straw and all of that.
Much like the rest of the characters who can appear for a few scenes and then disappear for the next hour, we also have the “Three Stooges”, which are three friends named Baldy, Fatty, and Meatball (This very much resembles a kung fu version of The Sandlot). Allen’s friends (that’s strange, huh) are the ones responsible for providing the comic relief that this film so strikingly begs for more than the actual writing, acting, pacing, and directing. One of the Stooge, Baldy, who is the main one, has a hooker as a girlfriend which never fails to trigger a chuckle or two, and the Other two are incredible at shrugging their shoulders and getting cold beers.
A different Don is particularly displaying poor sense in allowing his only daughter to date Allen, the henchman of one of the rival Dons. Was there no one here who watched Romeo and Juliet? The Don in fact tells Allen the border story of how along with the other 2 Dons, they made their fortune in smuggling during World War II.
Switching back to the other subplot which is certain to have been cut off from a different movie entirely a decade after the gangster movie but when 715 spots Billy Idol on the street while in Hong Kong, he starts running after him. After a bit of struggling, both of them take a break and begin to wildly wave their hands as if performing some kind of strange yoga. Abruptly, a puff of smoke engulfs the area and they are now transformed into ninjas! As this stage is set up for Asian stunt men, it is obvious that their bodies do not resemble the Western actors, but these men do an excellent job when it comes to Kung fu. The competition ends in a draw.
That’s enough of that. I am particularly interested in the picture in which one of the dons is captured during the arrival of a Chinese actor dressed in an Arab-style soft cloak and painted dark face and a crooked keffiyeh. He comes to sign a lottery contract with Don for the sale of guns for his suppressed brothers in the Middle East. By signing this multi-million dollar document single-handedly, Don is in full knowledge that he is actually stabbing the other Dons in the back and there was a consensus to do it on a joint basis. That is not going to end well for him.
When I say 715, I imagine a corridor to the reality where he is on strange gangster plots. There are numerous scenes where he is in the process of discussing the case with Christie, when all of a sudden, she mentions Idol Billy Idol. This gets him thinking about the highlighted bastard. In a fade-out flashback, we learn that back in Idol’s Chamber, Billy Idol made 715 sell guns to the VCs as an 80s pop classic which is acclaimed to be an act of treason. Unfortunately, Bobby is ineffective in being a hero, and he is quickly forgiven and forgotten by Christie. In the flashback, we see a bunch of Vietnamese soldiers trading guns from an Army depot to a Chinese man for some gold and vice versa. I swear I felt like I saw the Chinese man or even the head VC soldier before or after this scene, but I just cannot bother to rewind/fast forward to tell for sure.
At the same moment, Billy Idol has dispatched some black-clad ninjas to attack 715 and Christie while they are walking through a wooded area. 715 happens to be a Power Ranger as well because he does a Ranger Poof, and turns into the ninja again. In profile shots, 715 is in camo pajamas, which are unbuttoned at the chest revealing a huge thicket of Pennsylvania chest hair. This is very perplexing. There is a violent clash involving swords and lots of kicking and grunting, while police (if she is a policewoman) Christie, cough cough, is standing still trying not to get hit. 715’s stuntman manages to murder the ninja stuntmen, and after 715 poofs back into reality, they escape.
To watch more movies visit Fmovies
Also Watch for more movies like:
