Ninjas. Oh Ninjas. where have you gone?

The Ultimate Ninja 1986

I have been watching ninja flicks since I was a child of seven. Ever since I heard the older (and thus cooler) kids talking about how totally sweet ninjas were (really, that's how I got into Voltron too). They could do things like run across a forest floor that was littered with dry leaves and twigs without making a sound. That's really all I remember of the conversation. But I was hooked.

Ninjas, hell yeah! I watched a lot of crappy ninja flicks as a kid. And I still have a soft spot for the genre today. This is why we are here now.

Opening splash music sounds like it was ripped off of Star Wars. Just to get that out there right off the bat. It sounds like they took two separate themes from the original trilogy and slapped them together.

And that seems to be a theme for this movie, The Ultimate Ninja.

Two movies mashed together. Two different casts. They were probably made in separate decades. Did someone say muddled? Well they should have. I don't know why they felt the need to pin these movies together. But, I don't understand the workings of the film industry.

It opens up with the leader of the Red Ninjas praying and working the forms. Notice, he's a blonde dude of possible Scandinavian origins and he's wearing a headband with a picture of a Ninja right in the middle. On one side of the Ninja are the letters NIN and the other? JA. Reminds me of the SNL commercial selling this Every time the headband was splashed across the screen, I giggled like a small child.

Red Leader then ambushed by a group of Black Ninjas. The Red Ninjas' mortal and eternal foes. Red Vrs Black. Checkers. Ants. Ninjas. This dichotomy represents a truth that is common in our lives. The Red leader is murdered and the Black Ninja Statue is taken by the Black Leader. Then comes Charles, the Second in Command of the Red Ninja Brotherhood.

Chuckles helps fight off the evil Black Ninjas, but he's too late. His master has been killed. Now he's been named the New Red Leader. Mind you, there only seem to be two Red Ninjas, they have a Master/Padawan relationship ala the Sith Jedi. He is given the task of retrieving the statue. A little plastic nick-nack with the word Ninja written across the forehead. If you collect both statues, Black and Gold, you gain Real Ultimate Super Ninja POWER! Zam!

The rest of this half is the Red Ninja slowly killing the Black Ninja's minions one at a time as they're sent to assassinate him. Finally leading up to the show-down. This seems to be more of a traditional ninja movie, one where the warriors have awesome mystical powers like invisibility, a sixth sense, and teleportation. Effin sweet!

The entire thing smacks of a short, and one that I'm hoping was intended to be in part humorous. I hope so, as it is so absurd I would like to think that the filmmakers intended the jokes to be there. I mean really, a ninja wearing a headband that said 'ninja'? That's the kind of thing I would have worn when I was 8 (I did have the Karate Kid headband of awesome at one point - came with a shirt).

Now we cut to movie number two. It's not a really ninja movie. It's a lame kung fu film. With some 'clever editing' and voice dubbing in a single scene, the two movies are spliced into one. Actually at times, until the end it seemed like they had edited together three different films.

Lame movie two has a fully Asian cast. Not sure where from. IMDB says Hong Kong, and some of the names are Chinese. But others look more Thai. Maybe it was a a collaboration in the art of FAIL.

The story goes as so. Twenty years ago the bad guy named Rodger kills the protector of a town. In the battle, he allows Rodger's children to flee. Now, twenty years later, one of the sons is finishing his kung fu training in a land far away and is intent on finding his lost siblings and avenging their father.

Rodger has since settled down to a cozy life of charging the villagers 'rent' and hanging with his bitchy wife. Most of his minions are trained in kung fu, and they're rather dickish bullies who try to have their way with the villagers. Hijynks ensue. And rather lame battle scenes where the thugs beat down on the villagers and try to rape them and what-not. This is after all what thugs do.

The main hero in town is the martial arts teacher's daughter. Mostly she's passive and unwilling to lift a finger. Then strangers start appearing in town. The first is an older dude with receding hair. His Kung fu is ok, but he gets a beat down at the hands of the Heroine, if that's what she is. Difficult to tell.

Then a big bald dude appears. He's about a head taller than the other men and he fights like the stereotypical American in these movies (he resembles an Asian Yul Brynner) basically he soaks up damage and hits hard while employing moves that would make Hulk Hogan shed a tear of joy. He appears to possess psy-powers. I guess. It's implied when he keeps pointing at his head to the sound of strange music, but they don't really seem to have much effect.

They don't explain why the strangers are about. They just show up and leave randomly.

Finally, the original hero character arrives in town. And the lame sounds of frozen meat Foley effects fill the air!

Well, you can watch the rest.

The final high point of the entire film, the unintentional hilarity aside, was the single female breast. Just the one. You really only see it from the side. Yeah, sometimes I think like a 15 year old with scrambled Skinemax.

Adventures in Bad 80s Cinema 1

Hercules - Lou Ferrigino

Well I found myself in Shopko as I was in need of toothpaste. All the
colors and flavors, I did have myself a good time all the way to at the
checkout line at the end. Well there lo and behold stood the usual
selection of $9.99 dvds. Having nothing else to do during my wait for
the old ladies in line ahead of me I decided to peruse their selection.


You've probably guessed that Hercules caught my eye. It wasn't even old
school Herc. It was the new(ish) Lou Friggno(aka the hulk) from the
early 80s. I should probably say it wasn't an it, it was a they. Yes,
two movies for 9.99 and they're Herc movies! I've seen a lot of Herc
movies, as a fairly avid fan of the MST3K, so on impulse I dropped my
$10 for this dvd. I could have asked myself "What's the worse that can
happen," But as I've said, I've watched a lot of MST3K, I already knew
the worst.

I know what you're thinkin, Lou Friggno as the Hercster? Who could turn
that down? Not me. Not me.

I will say right now, impulse items suck.

First of all there's the Mythology aspect. Now for an analogy. Imagine
a little midget dressed in Greek attire, this little one is Greek
Mythology. Now imagine three large men who are built like Lou Friggno,
and hung like mr ed, they're the director and the producers and whoever
else was involved in the making of this piece of work.

Lou 1 - Hey, look at that, I've always wanted to have sex with a midget.
Lou 2 - Me too.
Lou 3 - I like shiny things!

The midget - Hey guys...Eeep.

Well to make a long story short, no lubrication was involved and the
midget couldn't walk right for a month. You can fill in the rest
yourself and store it in your wank tank for as long as you need.


It really wasn't good. It was like potluck of Herc, Herc Cliff Notes.
If the notes were concocted by a autistic stoner child who kept on
getting suduced away by the wonderful, tasty chips that come off the
wall under the kitchen window. Thank god for this kid, because
otherwise I would have never known that Alantis was the capital city of
Thebes. Guess my grasp of history and Geography was a bit off.

Well then onto special effects. What can I say? It was the early 80s
and Disco was in it's final death throes, but sadly it wasn't dead yet,
at least not in this movie. Think the Bionic Man sound effect, but for
the deaf. They would add random flashes and shapes of color to signify
that the Hercenheimer was doing something noteworthy beyond flexing his
pecs and being all oily and confused.

Some of the idea's were fairly cool, just poorly executed. Jason and
the Argonots from how ever many decades earlier was more believable. As
was the stop motion claymation from those terrible Sinbad movies from
the 60s.

Herc ends up fighting three, count them, three different robots. I
shall repeat that last word since it bears repeating. Robots. Now to
repeat the statement one more time, Herc fights robots. I must have
fallen asleep in in my Myth classes, because I don't recall this
chapter of the stories. I know that Godzilla once fought a robot. Steve
Urkel too had a android nemesis. But Herc? They must have lost this
technology with the burning of the Library at Alexandria. To think of
all that we lost! Makes me wonder if the Egyptians had a Deathstar
floating around the Nile.

The swords and armor were made from what looked like shiny plastic.
They were of the vein of what one would expect from that era of movie
making. Gaudy and poorly thought out.

Once again, this is a movie from the early 80s, and a Herc movie to
boot. It leaves one last question. Where are the breasts? You have a
movie that had so much potential to be the fodder for late night
Cinemax addicts, and they threw it all away. The only exposed breasts
belonged to Lou, and though they were rather large, they also lacked
the soft allure of the female bosom. The entire movie is full of
fairly attractive women, and all of them scantily clad, would it been
so difficult to have them wrestle in mud? It's not like there's any
integrity left to the film anyhow.