Ninjavember: Bionic Ninja (1986)

When the average person thinks of ninja movies, director Godfrey Ho often comes to mind. Actually, scratch that. When cult/genre movie geeks think of ninja movies, director Godfrey Ho often comes to mind. While Ho is a filmmaker who is often associated with the ninja genre, it is very rarely done so in a respectable fashion. In fact, outside of a small handful of movies, much of Ho’s work is what many would consider to be so bad it’s good, and that’s an opinion that falls firmly on the nicer end of the scale. However, it’s that so bad it’s good symmetry that makes Godfrey Ho’s work in the genre so memorable. Whether or not the average moviegoer can appreciate his brand of cinema, this notoriety is a worthy achievement in my eyes.

Outside of being behind many a ninja film during the genre’s heyday in the ‘80s, Ho is also closely associated with a specific brand of cut-and-paste filmmaking, wherein he would take footage from one film and splice it into footage from any number of other movies. In doing so, Ho effectively, or not really effectively, created a brand new movie altogether, ready to be packed up and sold under a veil of facetiousness. This leads us to Bionic Ninja, a 1986 release that pairs up footage from the 1984 Kent Cheng action/comedy, The Daring Kung Fu Refugee, with footage that Ho directed to give it that much needed ninja edge.

It’s the footage that Ho directed that does its best to drive the “storyline,” focusing on a secret agent named Tommy Foster who is sent to Hong Kong to retrieve a, and I quote, “top technical secret film.” And believe you me, there is nothing more frightening than a secret film, especially when it’s of the top technical variety. The top technical secret film was stolen by a group of KGB hired ninjas––because that’s simply how things work in Godfrey Ho’s world––so Tommy is in for the fight of his life if he wants to retrieve the top technical secret film and save the world from KGB/ninja domination. Or something like that.

While this plot sounds fairly easy to follow, making complete logistical sense even, on a whole Bionic Ninja is a jumbled mess of random scenes from a Godfrey Ho directed movie about ninjas mixed with another movie that’s not about ninjas. It only takes me about 5 minutes before I am completely lost in this flick, something that happens with a fair amount of Ho’s movies. I don’t even know why I try to comprehend what is happening on screen, because it only results in a migraine inducing level of thought not worthy of my miniscule brain power.

There are portions of Bionic Ninja where my mind goes numb in a fashion that causes my soul to exit my body, look down on my physical self, and spew judgment at my movie choice for the evening. This is partially due to the complexity of the plot (of which there isn’t any) as much as it has to do with the long scenes of unnecessary dialogue, all of which come from the portions of Bionic Ninja not directed by Ho. The entire thing clearly does not fit together, so anything that isn’t top technical secret film related only works as boring and confusing. With that said, the martial arts in the scenes taken from The Daring Kung Fu Refugee are legitimately good, and exude a level of competence unsuitable to the project as a whole.

But where The Daring Kung Fu Refugee delivers some solid martial arts action, it is the portions of Bionic Ninja that are directed by Godfrey Ho that truly make the film a reasonably entertaining watch. Despite his reputation as a cut-and-paste filmmaker, Ho certainly knows how to deliver the cheesy goods, something that he does in spades with his portion of Bionic Ninja.

This is especially true with Tommy Foster, who can often be seen wearing a yellow tank top with matching yellow sweatpants, complete with dirt stains on his backside. When Tommy’s isn’t busy trying to locate the top technical secret film, he rocks his days away training with the heart and ferocity of a lion. This results in some brilliant scenes of Tommy practicing his tumbling, fine-tuning his swordplay and working on his shuriken throwing skills, all of which are done in a public park. Because that’s completely legal.

Seeing as Bionic Ninja is a ninja film, and a bionic one at that *SPOILER* there are no bionic ninjas *SPOILER END*, the ninjas do play an integral role in the ridiculousness that the film serves up. Here are a few examples of the ninja antics found in Bionic Ninja:

• The KGB hired ninja clan (I could stop there) are led by the always elusive “White Ninja.”
• Ninjas have the ability to realistically jump cut into and out of a scene at any given moment. Ninjas take a cab.
• Ninjas take a cab without their ninja masks on, which I think defeats the purpose of being a ninja.
• Ninjas always move in synchronized motions.
• The final battle consists of the inevitable white ninja VS. red ninja, which is equal parts ridiculous and awesome.

Anyway, I think you smell what my ninja smoke bomb is cooking.

While not coming even close to being a highlight on Godfrey Ho’s filmography, Bionic Ninja is enjoyable enough for those who enjoy the filmmaker’s work. The enjoyment of the movie comes from the hilarity that Ho brought to the table, which makes me wish he had simply made an entire movie full of Tommy/top technical secret film action. If that had been the case, we might have ended up with something closer to the insanely enjoyable Undefeatable, instead of the typical hit or miss patchwork film that Ho is best known for.

This Ninjatastic review is in conjunction with NINJAVEMBER, a special ninja themed blog-a-thon hosted by the menacing yellow ninja, Karl Brezdin. Head over to the deserted island ninja training camp known as Fist of B-List to keep up with all the ninjacentric goodies to come!

Undefeatable (1994): I’ll Take My Steak Rare and With A Side of Ass

*Disclaimer!* I wrote a handful of articles for a now defunct e-zine called BthroughZ some years back, and when that site went belly up, so didn’t the reviews I wrote for it. I didn’t want to lose the articles I worked so hard to write, so over the next few months I will be reposting them here for your enjoyment.

"Out of the ring, into the fire...in a fight to the finish!" is the battle cry tagline for the 1994 Martial Arts epic, Undefeatable. Funny thing about that tag line though, is there’s only one scene with an actual boxing ring in it. But I suppose that doesn’t matter seeing as the man fighting within this ring is the almighty Stingray, a man so badass that his actual job is to kick ass and kick a lot of it.

With intense baby blues and a full bodied, shoulder length mullet, Stingray (Don Niam) is one of the most intense characters you'll ever see in a direct to DVD karate movie from 1994 starting Cynthia Rothrock. Though, being a super badass is simply not as easy as one would think. I mean, even Stingray’s own wife, Anna (Emille Davazac), is deathly afraid of him. I suppose you really can’t blame her, though. When a normal man comes home from work, a nice hot dinner waiting at the dinner table is pretty friggin awesome. Well, awesome if you're a pussy. When you're Stingray, however, you expect a nice hot piece of Anna ass when you get home from a hard day of busting heads, THEN dinner would come next. Regardless, Anna doesn't quite understand this ‘theory’ and decides that leaving her husband is a better idea than getting raped everyday at 5:22 PM.

Unfortunately for Anna, Stingray has major mama trauma issues, and leaving him just adds fuel to his unstable fire. You simply do not leave Stingray; Stingray leaves you... Dead! Now completely out of his gourd, Stingray sets out to find Anna, but his rage seems to cloud his senses, causing him to mistake any woman who shares Anna's red hair color, and floral dress fashion sense, for being his wife. Apparently, there were numerous red heads rockin' floral dresses back in the mid-90s, because Stingray finds plenty of them. And naturally, he proceeds to rape, torture, and then murder each and every one of them. What’s funny though, is that most of the women who Stingray runs into seem to be - or be with, someone who is trained in the Martial Arts. The chances are low, but in the mid-90s anything can happen. Fanny Pack popularity is my proof of that.

One of the unfortunate Anna look-alikes who happens to cross Stingray's path also happens to have a sister named Kristi, who just so happens to be played by Cynthia Rothrock, who also happens to be the toughest person to ever be in a movie called Fast Getaway. Kristi is not all too thrilled that her sister was murdered, so she goes on a quest to find and kill the man behind her death: Stingray! But before we get into all that, I’d like to take a moment to talk a little bit about Kristi's backstory. Kristi is a straight up street thug, and when she isn't waiting tables and serving lunch at her restaurant job, she's making cash busting heads and serving knuckle sandwiches in underground street fights. Furthermore, Kristi is also the only white chick in an all Asian gang called the Dragon Claws or Paws or some shit. Either way, this is one of the toughest street gangs around with all three members basically being a ‘90s version of the vicious ‘30s street gang known as the Three Stooges.

How does a good-looking white chick get into an all Asian gang? Because she got the skills to pay the bills when it comes to whopping dat ass, and much like a female version of Lionheart (Lionessheart?), Kristi makes a living by fighting in an underground fight club. Through this criminal act, Kristi meets Detective Nick DiMarco (John Miller), who hauls her to jail for her illegal underground fighting activities. Nick is a good cop and a good guy; he is also a pretty sick Martial Artist himself, which is just so crazy considering how many people are so competent at ancient fighting styles in this film. Anyway, Nick sees something in Kristi (*cough* tits *cough*); he sees that she's a good kid who is just a little lost and needs some guidance down the right path... to his pants.  

Nick's spot on thoughts about Kristi are confirmed when he learns that the living she earns by fighting is not necessarily for herself. Instead, she uses the money to pay Anna’s medical school tuition. You see, Kristi wants to see her good-natured sister do well in life and is willing to risk her life by fighting to make that happen. However, in case you might have forgotten, Stingray stung Kristi's sister and Nick happens to be the man on the case, so naturally both Nick and Kristi must come together as a team to find and destroy the menace known as Stingray! Who will end this film as the one who is most Undefeatable? That's up to the one with the most desire to be the best, or the one who can conjure up the most sweat perhaps.

Most people know of Undefeatable from the infamous “Worst and/or best fight scene ever” YouTube clips, but it's so much more than that. It's a Godfrey Ho film, who for some strange reason used his secret name of Godfrey Hall on this Hong Kong produced American action film. Godfrey Ho is infamous for making trillions of Ninja movies in the ‘80s (well, one ninja film used a trillion times). These were the kind of Ninja movies where the Ninjas were proven to be Ninjas because they would have the word Ninja embroidered on their headbands. Undefeatable is not a Ninja film, but it is a Martial Arts film, and one that many might consider to be pretty much trash.

Personally, I could not disagree more. Sure, the film is awful, the dialogue is ridiculous, the acting poor, and all the sets consist of warehouses and factories, complete with steel drums and empty cardboard boxes. With that said, it's entertaining as all hell and for so many reasons, too. Stingray drives a '84 Plymouth Voyager, just like the one my mom had! But unfortunately, my mom never wore a sleeveless jean jacket like Stingray. To go with his jacket of jean, Stingray even spray paints purple stripes down the sides of his hair, because, well, I actually have no idea why he does this but he does, and it's awesome.

While there may be a handful of awkward and, quite frankly, odd moments strewn throughout, the fight scenes are more than competent and, at times, somewhat impressively done. However, a great deal of that credit goes to the cast of well-trained Martial Artists displaying a multitude of fighting styles and techniques. Bad and cheesy Undefeatable may be, but some of these actors are very impressive, and even the sight of John Miller's huge hairy tits cannot distract me from this fact. In all seriousness, Cynthia Rothrock is no joke and is easily one of the highest-ranking female Martial Artists to grace the screen, so it’s always a joy to watch her do what she does best. I must say, however, that I have never been so jealous of the ground than when Rothrock does the splits.

Undefeatable is a mess, but unlike the kind of mess your grandma makes after too much applesauce, it’s a fun mess to spend time with. When the male leads in a film rip off their shirts just to show off their extremely oiled and firm male breasts, or a character is proven to be tough by wearing chains OVER his Champion sweatshirt, it’s a pretty good indication that you should simply let all of your inhibitions go. It's just one of those movies that is a waste of time to hate for being bad, and doing so will do nothing but make you sad inside. If you can embrace the insanity of what you are witnessing on screen, then you too may become... Undefeatable. See ya!