Film Review: Legend of The Shadowy Ninja: The Ninja Dragon (1990)

 Genre; Ninjasploitation. 

  Schoolgirl Shinobu Shindo is proclaimed head of her Yakuza family and as such, receives a family heirloom: A little bell on a necklace that summons three mysterious ninja sworn to protect her clan.  

  Meanwhile a pair of  ruthless killers are knocking off Yakuza bigwigs in brutal and messy fashion.  

  Gee, I wonder if those Ninja Defenders are going to be needed anytime soon. 

 Last night I watched 1917, which is a superb piece of film making on almost every level and I absolutely loved it. 

 "Legend... " is not a superb piece of film-making, or even a particularly good film but I still enjoyed it, albeit for vastly different reasons. 

 The acting is variable in the sense that everybody either emotes with all the intensity of damp cardboard or mugs ferociously to camera. At one point I became worried that one guy was going to be injured by his own flailing eyebrows.  

  The special effects are distinctly low budget but as seems to be common with this sort of Asian film, are definitely memorable. I couldn't help being impressed - sort of - by the guy getting his face peeled off like a bit of chicken skin on a drumstick. Then there's the monster at the end. 

 Yes that's right. A film  about warring Yakuza that already has mystic ninja in it, then ramps things up even more with rubber monsters. If I just say that this whole thing was created by Go "I am the Stan Lee of  exploitation manga" Nagai then it might make more sense. 

   Really, this is a live action anime right down to the OTT, hot-blooded speechifying. Accept that and everything makes more sense. 

  The big bonus for me was having a pair of  Joshi Puroresu superstars in supporting roles. You get Mayumi Ozaki being chillingly effective as "Female Killer" while Cutey Suzuki is on the side of good as a Ninja Defender. Naturally they square off in an epic martial-arts battle...um... a surprisingly technical wrestling match that goes on for quite a while. It's a strange interlude in a movie that isn't short of strange moments anyway. 

Despite the low-budget, the shonky effects, dodgy acting and a story that they might have made up as they went along, I found myself enjoying "Legend of the Shadowy Ninja." because it's so entertainingly daft that you just end up going along with it.   If you like the schlockier end of Asian cinema, this might be for you. 

WARNING: Do not confuse this film with the 1986 Godfrey Ho  cut n' shut effort "Ninja Dragon" which is an unwatchable trainwreck and doesn't have any lady wrestlers in it. 

Screenshot time.

Shinobu gets pensive.  "If I'm the star of this film how come I don't do anything remotely useful?"

 Look at me! I'm the comic relief. Aren't you lucky.

 This shot is cool and you know it. 

 

Ninja Defenders Assemble. 

Dude, you're breaking the Bro Code big time. 

 That's not how a gun works.

Suddenly  Yakuza, hundreds of them.  

Yakuza Assassin v Mystic Ninja in some extreme hugging!

 

That's All Folks!

 

 

 

 

Cheapo DVD Review: Azumi 2 - Death or Love

Part 10 of my CEX DVD marathon and today we are watching a movie that I totally didn't buy because the cover had a Japanese girl brandishing a sword. I wanted to see it for the...cinematography...and the other thing.

  Assassins Azumi and Nagara are on a quest to bring peace to Japan, mainly by killing troublemaking warlords. There's just one left to deal with. Masayuki Sanada, who is getting ready to start a war.

 Joining forces with another female ninja and a motley collection of former brigands, to complete her mission Azumi has to face Sanada's army and his own, personal force of Ninjas.

 It would probably have helped if I'd seen the first Azumi movie. Correction, it would definitely have helped. 

Azumi 2 takes off where the first film left off, with our ninja twosome still determined to complete their assignment.  Which means that we're dropped into the middle of events and expected to get ourselves up to speed with who these people are and why they want to go here and kill this person.  

 There's some flashbacks, mainly to let us know that Azumi is still a bit traumatised by certain events from the last film. Said flashbacks being a bit hamfisted in my opinion - do we really need an overextended sequence of  a deceased friend smiling and saying "Azumi" to establish that our heroine had a bit of a thing for him? 

  I also thought it was a bit weird that Azumi isn't the most interesting character in her own film. Villainess Lady Kunyo was a lot more fun to watch and it's a shame that their eventual showdown was so disappointing. 

 Then there's the Kabuki painted brigand whose name escapes me. Going by the bits he's in, I think I'd have liked to see a whole film about him. 

 By contrast Azumi seems a bit flat. Maybe that's just me.  

  Moving on to the action sequences - the reason I picked up the DVD in the first place -  they're OK but could have been better. In true Ninja fashion, Sanada's crew have their own slightly preposterous gimmick but put up a surprisingly poor fight against Azumi and her team. 

 The best fight in the entire film is Azumi's showdown in a bamboo thicket against an opponent who weaves a net of razorsharp wires. It's got some real (ahem) tension to it and is definitely the high point of the film. By contrast the climax is a bit of a letdown. 

 It starts well, with Azumi literally taking on an entire army but then people decide to start talking instead and the momentum drops off. By the time the final duel rolls around I'd almost lost interest.

How much did I pay for this: £1

Was it worth it?  Debatable. I thought Azumi 2 could have been better, frankly. I didn't hate it, but I wasn't impressed either. 

For some reason nobody has ever managed to do a decent, non-anime Ninja movie. Azumi 2 doesn't change that. 

Cheapo DVD Reiew: Ninja Zombies (2011)

 "Dameon, a young slacker geek, begins having nightmare - flashes from the life of a samurai and a sword that could raise the dead. When undead ninjas start attacking his friends, he discovers that the samurai was his ancestor, the sword is real, and he is the only one who cane save the world from a Ninja Zombie Apocalypse.
Featuring a hilarious performance by Lloyd Kaufman ("Toxic Avenger" & Troma President)"

Ninja Zombies should have been fun. 

  It describes itself as "Shaun Of The Dead Meets Buffy The Vampire Slayer"  and while I thought that was probably aiming a bit too high, I was still expecting an hour or so's entertainment.

  Even if Ninja Zombies failed as a NinZomCom, I might still get an "Alien vs Ninja" style parade of cheese and quality stupid. 

 Wrong on both counts. Ninja zombies isn't a fun ride, nor is it an entertaining trainwreck - more like getting stuck outside Milton Keynes for 3 hours because of a signal failure.   

 The basic idea is decent, but the execution is sadly lacking. One of the perils of 21st Century DVD buying is that anybody with a working knowledge of graphics can whip up a decent cover. Making a film  requires a little more, sadly.  

 More money would have been a good start. Ninja Zombies is so low-budget it's painful and comes across like somebody got his mates together to make a film one weekend.

 There's the other big problem. The acting is strictly "Youtube short" standard and not enough to carry a full film. I do feel bad saying that because somewhere out there is a group of people who put a lot of effort into this but at the end of the day, I really struggled with the film and that's not how it's supposed to work. 

 There's a few hints at what could have been - some of the lines are reasonably witty but not witty enough.

As for the cameo by Lloyd Kaufman, he was trying to make up for everybody else's flat delivery by hamming it up like Jim Carrey on speed so that goes about as well as you'd expect. 

 How much did I pay for this: £1

Was it worth it?  No. Ninja Zombies is not even close to living up to the promise of the title. Fact is, this film is dull.  Avoid.

  But then it gets really odd. After an hour or so of boredom, the credits feature a music video that is actually kinda entertaining. Check it out.  

That's all folk