If you are watching this film, you obviously have an appreciation for ninja film. This is a good start; compared to real films, this film is atrocious. I won't waste my time going into explaining why. A similarity can be drawn with pornography; the viewer forfeits acting, plot, cinematography, whatever, for the subject matter. If you watch this film, you want to see ninjas, and that is what you get. The end fight is great, some good training scenes, and the film is enjoyably ornamented with ninja mythology. People disappearing in clouds of smoke, walking under sand, flying through the air, committing hari-kari. The film has some great ideas, and should be watched with an open mind.
6 Reviews
"No one can stop ninja!"
lost-in-limbo25 April 2008
After such a silly opening, I knew this was going to be some great (very) b-grade nin-ja hokum. Be prepared to be bemused and to cop a lot (and I mean a lot) of ninja mumbo jumbo. "Be the ninja". "masters of deception". "The way of the ninja". And this goes on. I even lost count how many times the word 'ninja' was said. Yep pretty much everything out of the ninja hand book is mentioned. There's a few novel ideas (like the disappearing in smoke act to the strange hole digging) lurking within too. I guess you already take it that what you're going to get from this bare-bones production with ninjas is something ham-fisted, tacky and disjointed. But on the other end of that spectrum it's fast paced, outrageous and undeniably entertaining. Just simply admire the graceful, cunning and liveliness of the ninja, as they pose, preach their masterful ninja ways, run around a bit in the secret ninja fashion and pose some more, but eventually spare some time to show off their skills and many different deadly and unusual weapons.
Hell this is crazy! And it gets a lot weirder and definitely downright convoluted the further along it goes. The clunky script is laughable (everyone has a plan.), the paper-thin plot is completely whacked-out (which has some ninjas stealing some secret documents (which are obviously labelled 'Classified: Top Secret') for their ninja master Kurodo to pass onto some scientists so they can create some zombie-like fighters to take over the world (don't ask me how that works?). The police are on it, and one of them gets some help from his friend as he knows of the ninja ways) and the performances are lousy. But that's part of the charm. Anyhow Ken Watanabe is such a badass! Ron Marchini is totally monotone in the lead, but surprisingly amusing. Sweeping through it is a noisy, erratic music score with an eastern tone, but still gives the air some cracking energy when the action erupted. The stunt work and choreography isn't first-rate, but it's so uncanny and cheesy. Plus it does have some decent blood splattering, and deaths. Director John Lloyd does what he can do with such little resources (wait for a whopping explosion of gigantic proportions).
Stupendous, brisk and enthusiastic trashy ninja fun.
Hell this is crazy! And it gets a lot weirder and definitely downright convoluted the further along it goes. The clunky script is laughable (everyone has a plan.), the paper-thin plot is completely whacked-out (which has some ninjas stealing some secret documents (which are obviously labelled 'Classified: Top Secret') for their ninja master Kurodo to pass onto some scientists so they can create some zombie-like fighters to take over the world (don't ask me how that works?). The police are on it, and one of them gets some help from his friend as he knows of the ninja ways) and the performances are lousy. But that's part of the charm. Anyhow Ken Watanabe is such a badass! Ron Marchini is totally monotone in the lead, but surprisingly amusing. Sweeping through it is a noisy, erratic music score with an eastern tone, but still gives the air some cracking energy when the action erupted. The stunt work and choreography isn't first-rate, but it's so uncanny and cheesy. Plus it does have some decent blood splattering, and deaths. Director John Lloyd does what he can do with such little resources (wait for a whopping explosion of gigantic proportions).
Stupendous, brisk and enthusiastic trashy ninja fun.
Bad, but not as bad as I'd have thought.
Red Dragon-223 September 2001
OK, so it's a movie my friends and I could have made in the backyard. But keeping that in mind, it's fairly good for what it is. It's entertaining in a cheesy sort of way.
You can guess the plot line--a few cops and Steve the Buff Hero set out against an army of "nin-ja!" bent on an evil scheme. Still, it wasn't *all* completely predictable...
In short, the best thing to do with this movie is to get a group of friends together, watch it, and jump in with MST3K-style comments whenever it seems appropriate.
3/10 for the movie, but hey, I had fun.
You can guess the plot line--a few cops and Steve the Buff Hero set out against an army of "nin-ja!" bent on an evil scheme. Still, it wasn't *all* completely predictable...
In short, the best thing to do with this movie is to get a group of friends together, watch it, and jump in with MST3K-style comments whenever it seems appropriate.
3/10 for the movie, but hey, I had fun.
Norwegian ninja madness
Leofwine_draca4 September 2016
Warning: Spoilers
One of a number of cheesy, low-budget ninja movies apparently made in Norway (!) to cash in on the ninja craze of the 1980s, this is a movie made for bad film lovers. This film is cheap and poorly-made from the outset. I thought the entirely misspelled credits of 18 BRONZEMEN PART II (a movie I just watched) were bad enough, but coincidentally this film's credits are even worse - white, on a white background. Have the film-makers no common sense? The barely-audible sound doesn't help much either and combines with the badly-dubbed dialogue to make an aurally-annoying movie.
This ground-breaking slice of action cinema begins as a crack team of ninjas invade a building at night, taking out the security guards with various methods - setting them on fire, tripping them with deadly marbles, you name it. Only one man has the knowledge and experience to fight the ninjas, and that's the muscular Steve, a guy we meet bodybuilding in the woods (!). Sadly his muscular activities are ruined by ninjas, who are hiding on easily-visible tree branches and fire deadly hooks into the ground. Later on they catch him jogging in the same woods (he enjoys wearing his jogging hood) and fire flaming arrows at his easily-visible bright-red tracksuited body, but sadly miss.
The rest of the formula is hidden at a country mansion, so the police (with the invaluable aid of STEVE) lay in wait. Meanwhile the bad guys plan to attack ("no-one can stop NINJA!") despite the mansion being unusually under-guarded, and a night-time kidnapping takes place. Steve manages to single-handedly capture a sword-wielding ninja himself and an exchange takes place, during which the policewoman captive is shot dead and the ninjas all escape - and when Steve gives chase, they bomb him and jump into the river to hide! Meanwhile a guy trying to be Marlon Brando in THE GODFATHER assists the whole operation and another ninja who failed commits suicide, causing his photograph to mysteriously crack and cheesy fake blood to spray from his abdomen.
After his cop friend is captured and tortured over a fire, Steve dons his ninja garb and becomes a one-man destruction force. Classic scenes follow such as when a guard pulls Steve's mask off and Steve spits needles into his eye or when he slaughters a laboratory of disgruntled scientists. You can't forget the cheap alarm clock which turns out to be an incredibly explosive bomb either. Ron Marchini is the most wooden wannabe actor I've ever seen and he's absolutely hilarious as Steve, the no-nonsense hero. It's a shame the other actors aren't up to his calibre. The finale is a fight in a quarry where the chief ninja decides to wear a plastic joke-shop Japanese Devil mask in a bid to frighten Steve off, suffice to say it doesn't work. Bad acting, poor action, repetitive music, laughable sound effects, tons of over-the-top deaths, no plot, silly dialogue, and all those darned ninjas make NINJA WARRIOR a good example of the so-bad-it's-kind-of-good film genre.
This ground-breaking slice of action cinema begins as a crack team of ninjas invade a building at night, taking out the security guards with various methods - setting them on fire, tripping them with deadly marbles, you name it. Only one man has the knowledge and experience to fight the ninjas, and that's the muscular Steve, a guy we meet bodybuilding in the woods (!). Sadly his muscular activities are ruined by ninjas, who are hiding on easily-visible tree branches and fire deadly hooks into the ground. Later on they catch him jogging in the same woods (he enjoys wearing his jogging hood) and fire flaming arrows at his easily-visible bright-red tracksuited body, but sadly miss.
The rest of the formula is hidden at a country mansion, so the police (with the invaluable aid of STEVE) lay in wait. Meanwhile the bad guys plan to attack ("no-one can stop NINJA!") despite the mansion being unusually under-guarded, and a night-time kidnapping takes place. Steve manages to single-handedly capture a sword-wielding ninja himself and an exchange takes place, during which the policewoman captive is shot dead and the ninjas all escape - and when Steve gives chase, they bomb him and jump into the river to hide! Meanwhile a guy trying to be Marlon Brando in THE GODFATHER assists the whole operation and another ninja who failed commits suicide, causing his photograph to mysteriously crack and cheesy fake blood to spray from his abdomen.
After his cop friend is captured and tortured over a fire, Steve dons his ninja garb and becomes a one-man destruction force. Classic scenes follow such as when a guard pulls Steve's mask off and Steve spits needles into his eye or when he slaughters a laboratory of disgruntled scientists. You can't forget the cheap alarm clock which turns out to be an incredibly explosive bomb either. Ron Marchini is the most wooden wannabe actor I've ever seen and he's absolutely hilarious as Steve, the no-nonsense hero. It's a shame the other actors aren't up to his calibre. The finale is a fight in a quarry where the chief ninja decides to wear a plastic joke-shop Japanese Devil mask in a bid to frighten Steve off, suffice to say it doesn't work. Bad acting, poor action, repetitive music, laughable sound effects, tons of over-the-top deaths, no plot, silly dialogue, and all those darned ninjas make NINJA WARRIOR a good example of the so-bad-it's-kind-of-good film genre.
Daft but fun!
HaemovoreRex14 December 2005
Warning: Spoilers
Ah, ninja movies
..a dream genre for B-Movie lovers!
Following the enormous success of the Cannon Film Groups ninja outings starring Sho Kosugi it was inevitable that other film companies and independent film makers alike would attempt to jump onto the bandwagon and flood the market with ninja produce of their own.
Sure enough, seemingly hundreds of titles suddenly appeared, each one trying to outdo the previous entries with evermore outlandish ninja themed shenanigans.
Virtually all had shoestring budgets, nonexistent plots, preposterous action scenes, and shall we say, somewhat less than stellar acting. However in spite of this, or indeed more appropriately, probably exactly BECAUSE of this, the films themselves more often than not held a peculiar charm (at least for B-Movie fans) The combination of low quality production values, ludicrously far fetched ninja antics, god awful scripts and a succession of bemused and/or plainly clueless actors who have had the (mis)fortune to appear in them, have all helped these movies to achieve cult film status.
In accordance with the above criteria, 'Ninja Warrior' as reviewed here, I'm pleased to say, is a highly enjoyable ride!
Low budget? Oh yes! I'd say a few hundred dollars at most looking at this! We're talking cheap with a capital 'C' Just check out our hero's high tech bomb for instance it's a small commercial alarm clock! I mean, just how much c4/semtex/nitro-glycerin or whatever can he have fitted into it to have achieved the dramatic explosive results he did?! (He blows up an entire compound!) I can only assume that in addition to being a ninja, our hero must also have been a revolutionary quantum physicist having in fact somehow discovered a way to harness and utilise antimatter or something equally esoteric as a devastating explosive.
Poor acting? Great Scott I'll say! Some of the performances here had me thinking I was watching an out and out comedy at times! Just check out the guy who plays the doctor .put it this way, I don't expect to see him collecting any Oscars anytime soon .
Demented ninja action? Yes indeed! There's ninja tunnelling, jumping to super heights and the usual disappearing in plumes of smoke antics all present and correct here!
All in all it has to be said that this film is an enjoyable (unintentional) laugh fest throughout and is as such, an entirely harmless way to spend an hour and a half of anyone's (with a sense of humour) time.
Following the enormous success of the Cannon Film Groups ninja outings starring Sho Kosugi it was inevitable that other film companies and independent film makers alike would attempt to jump onto the bandwagon and flood the market with ninja produce of their own.
Sure enough, seemingly hundreds of titles suddenly appeared, each one trying to outdo the previous entries with evermore outlandish ninja themed shenanigans.
Virtually all had shoestring budgets, nonexistent plots, preposterous action scenes, and shall we say, somewhat less than stellar acting. However in spite of this, or indeed more appropriately, probably exactly BECAUSE of this, the films themselves more often than not held a peculiar charm (at least for B-Movie fans) The combination of low quality production values, ludicrously far fetched ninja antics, god awful scripts and a succession of bemused and/or plainly clueless actors who have had the (mis)fortune to appear in them, have all helped these movies to achieve cult film status.
In accordance with the above criteria, 'Ninja Warrior' as reviewed here, I'm pleased to say, is a highly enjoyable ride!
Low budget? Oh yes! I'd say a few hundred dollars at most looking at this! We're talking cheap with a capital 'C' Just check out our hero's high tech bomb for instance it's a small commercial alarm clock! I mean, just how much c4/semtex/nitro-glycerin or whatever can he have fitted into it to have achieved the dramatic explosive results he did?! (He blows up an entire compound!) I can only assume that in addition to being a ninja, our hero must also have been a revolutionary quantum physicist having in fact somehow discovered a way to harness and utilise antimatter or something equally esoteric as a devastating explosive.
Poor acting? Great Scott I'll say! Some of the performances here had me thinking I was watching an out and out comedy at times! Just check out the guy who plays the doctor .put it this way, I don't expect to see him collecting any Oscars anytime soon .
Demented ninja action? Yes indeed! There's ninja tunnelling, jumping to super heights and the usual disappearing in plumes of smoke antics all present and correct here!
All in all it has to be said that this film is an enjoyable (unintentional) laugh fest throughout and is as such, an entirely harmless way to spend an hour and a half of anyone's (with a sense of humour) time.
Let said warriors cartwheel their way into your heart.
tarbosh2200030 December 2013
Warning: Spoilers
One-man wrecking crew and national treasure/hero Ron Marchini returns! This time he's in the Philippines fighting ninjas. There's some sort of secret scientific formula, and the baddies want it to take over the world. Lt. Kevin Washington (Vance), naturally, suspects ninjas are involved, so he goes to his friend Steve (Marchini) because he studied Martial Arts in Japan and is familiar with the ways of the ninja. Soon, bands of black-pajama'd assassins are tumbling around attempting to kill Steve. While Captain Henry Marlowe (Monty) doesn't understand or approve (they never seem to, do they?), Steve realizes that in order to defeat the ninja, he must become the ninja. Who will be victorious - the ninja...or Steve? Chalk up another winner for Marchini. Ninja Warriors is a ton of fun, with killer music, lots of ninja action, funny dubbing, and an almost-nonexistent plot that plays out like a slightly more coherent Godfrey Ho film. In many so-called "ninja" movies, the ninjas themselves don't do very much. Not so here. The ninjas are all over the place, rolling underground like Bugs Bunny (one of our favorite ninja moves), wearing gas masks, throwing stars and ball bearings, digging holes, jumping out of trees and so much more. You definitely get a lot of bang for your ninja buck, and with the mandate to make a ninja movie, director Lloyd went all out, thus ensuring that Ninja Warriors is at the top of the 80's Ninja Boom pack.
Plus there are a lot of other little winning details, such as the same framed picture of Ronald Reagan that is in EVERY office building, regardless of where it is...it's so prominent, it could have been credited as having a supporting role. Mike Monty even picks it up at one point to check it for ninja booby traps! Nick Nicholson's beard/mustache looks extra-evil here, and there's a drunk guy who sings the most amazingly soulful version of "Happy Birthday" ever committed to film. And lest we forget Ronald L. Marchini's wardrobe, featuring the greatest shorts known to man. All these little bits make Ninja Warriors a winning addition to anyone's collection.
Apparently this was part of the "Sybil Danning's Adventure Video" series, but ours did not have the Danning intro/outro, sadly. If you do pick up the VHS, try and make sure that's included, but we're not sure how to ensure that. Nevertheless, Ninja Warriors is a gem. Let said warriors cartwheel their way into your heart.
Plus there are a lot of other little winning details, such as the same framed picture of Ronald Reagan that is in EVERY office building, regardless of where it is...it's so prominent, it could have been credited as having a supporting role. Mike Monty even picks it up at one point to check it for ninja booby traps! Nick Nicholson's beard/mustache looks extra-evil here, and there's a drunk guy who sings the most amazingly soulful version of "Happy Birthday" ever committed to film. And lest we forget Ronald L. Marchini's wardrobe, featuring the greatest shorts known to man. All these little bits make Ninja Warriors a winning addition to anyone's collection.
Apparently this was part of the "Sybil Danning's Adventure Video" series, but ours did not have the Danning intro/outro, sadly. If you do pick up the VHS, try and make sure that's included, but we're not sure how to ensure that. Nevertheless, Ninja Warriors is a gem. Let said warriors cartwheel their way into your heart.
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