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With the statue of the Golden Ninja Warrior, the Supreme Ninja wants to
attain absolute power over the Ninja Empire and invulnerability ... but 3
of his followers, Harry (Richard Harrison), Ben (Jonathan Wattis) and
Tomashi won't let that happen, because the Supreme Ninja is a megalomaniac
maniac, which rather excludes him from ruling the Ninja Empire. So the
three steal the statue and each takes one part with him. Tomashi is soon
killed by the minions of the Supreme Ninja, and his part of the statue
retrieved, however Ben and Harry are tougher cookies to crack ... but Ben
proves to be a baddie as well, wanting the Golden Ninja Warrior to attain
absolute power himself - and he thinks that Tomashi's part of the statue
is with his sister Machiko. So he hires gangster Tiger (Hwang Jang Lee
wearing a stupid Doris Day-like wig - don't ask) to retrieve the statue -
while Harry hires Jaguar Wong (Jack Lam) to look after Machiko.
Of course, Jaguar's men stop at nothing to get the statue (the part of
the statue that is) from Machiko - even if she doesn't have it. They even
go so far as to kidnap her and brutally torture her. But Jaguar is no
slouch either, using his martial arts skills to escape many tight spots
Tiger's men have prepared especially for him and eventually even resorting
to kidnapping Lili, the girlfriend of Victor, Tiger's right-hand man, just
to press Machiko free. But ultimately, he has to fight his way through the
ranks of Tiger's gang to free Machiko, arriving just in time to deactivate
a timebomb she's tied to. And in a fight to the death on a beach Jaguar
can finally show Tiger who's the best martial artist ...
Finally, the story culminates in a three-way Ninja battle Supreme Ninja
versus Harry versus Ben ... and Harry the good guy of course wins ...
One of the (literally) dozens of Ninja-movies that Richard Harrison
starred in for IFD Films & Arts, that consists of a newly shot
Ninja story and large chunks from another movie (the whole story about
Tiger, Jaguar and Machiko) that has nothing to do with Ninjas, but the
dialogue was tampered with enough to make a bit of sense. The
finished product - despite some quite cool fightscenes in the old movie -
is just as bad as it sounds, a very obvious and sloppily done attempt to
quickly cash in on the then current Ninja craze at the expense of quality.
So yes, it's a bad film.
That however does not mean that the film is totally unenjoyable,
in fact especially the new-shot footage is quite hilarious, with Richard
Harrison looking tired enough to not even make an attempt at acting,
either parading around in an ugly (from today's point of view) tracksuit
or wearing his camouflage-Ninja outift (with his face firmly hidden so one
can't tell he's doubled in the fight scenes. Of further interest is that
he is having a telephone in the shape of the then immensely popular
comicstrip-character Garfield ... now what better way to spell tough guy ?
And then there are those cheap miniature toy robots the Supreme Ninja uses
to deliver his messages - priceless. And of course the fact that the ninja
swords can also be used as flamethrowers. And the Ninjas can bagically
produce smokescreens out of thin air. And ... and much more to keep the
fan of so-bad-they're-good movies entertained, in fact the film's a
laug-riot, one just mustn't take it seriously.
In 1986, a sort-of-sequel to this film, Golden Ninja Warrior,
was released. If anything, that one was even funnier.
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