Ninja Terminator (1985)

You won't be disappointed!

That was an excellent one.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

First an observation and that is evidently Chinese women in the 1980's didn't shave their pits or at least that's what I saw in Ninja Terminator, twice.Now that I got that off my mind what about the movie, well it's simple with "Ninja Terminator" you can expect an action-film that bares all the hallmarks of director Godfrey Ho - it is completely typical of his work and a fine representation of his ninja-movie-mastery of the 80's. This flick is really busy with the kick, punch and yell formula, as there must be at least a dozen fight scenes (often crudely edited, bringing extra laughs) crammed into 88 minutes worth of movie and unlike "The Ultimate Ninja" (a totally incoherent cut n' paste job) this movie is more coherent, having some semblance of logical thought behind it and like in most movies, it has only one plot to follow, which is contrary to what's seen in The Ultimate Ninja. Do to incompetence and a total lack of taste (i.e., insipid dialog, garish synthesizer scores, the ripping-off of popular movie titles: Ninja TERMINATOR) Ho's films are always a hootin' good time at the movies and a true treasure trove of trash-cinema.With Ninja Terminator top-billing deceptively goes to Richard Harrison, but in reality it's much more of a Jack Lam (as "Jaguar Wong") movie, owning to the fact that he has three times more screen time. Jack Lam (of Japanese descent if I'm not mistaken) is a kickin' machine and first-rate martial artist, who seems to be a natural in front of the camera, as he unfailing exudes confidence (to the point of arrogance) whenever and wherever he finds himself and in scene after scene he easily defeats his opponents with his superior mastery of the martial arts; often seen casually chewing gum, while flashing a series cocky smirks/smiles as he's kicking the crap out of his opponents and afterwards he'll typically cap the moment with a sarcastic quip. I for one just hope that Jack has his feet insured, because he's Busy with em'. The fight choreography this time around is top-notch, if not a bit repetitive, which is all but unavoidable with more then a dozen fights breaking out.The plot once again revolves around this small golden statuette known as the "golden ninja warrior" (that breaks down into three separate pieces) which as before, has been stolen and whoever possesses the whole statue will be the mightiest ninja in the land - or in other words will have supremacy among ninjas. Like all of Godfrey Ho's ninja-flicks the cheese-factor is simply off-the-charts, some scenes more so then some others, for example the scenes that laughably involve 8-inch tall battery-powered toys (i.e. Transformer knock-offs for the oriental market) with flashing lights, delivering "or else" messages and later on the very same toys are seen delivering VHS tapes... this is how Mr. Ho chose to advance the movies plot... only in the 80's. Besides how could you not take seriously an off-brand Transformer figurine whose message is: "Traitor, listen. - You have just three days - to return - the golden ninja warrior - to our master. - Hear & obey."As with his films of that era all the actors voices are dubbed-over, but the words for once actually come close to matching their lip-movements, but I'm not sure I like that, I prefer the dialog to be as out-of-synch as possible - just for humors sake. As with these terrible films of Ho, the sound is always extremely shrill and is loaded with either terrible sounding synthesizer music or music taken from other movies (such as John Barry's music from "The Deep") and of course it wouldn't be right without over-doing it with the sound-effects, because after all when someone kicks or punches air it makes a loud swooshing noise, right? The movie ends with a trio of ninjas duking it out over ownership of the "golden ninja warrior" on some sea cliffs over-looking a harbor. In this final fight an orgy of ninja gimmickry unfolds, a whirlwind of action where the ninja elite pull-out every trick in their bag. This scene ends in a flurry of spectacular nin-jastic high jinks and then all of the sudden "BOOM"!The End.These truly are great terrible movies. For the uninitiated if it's second-rate ninja flicks you seek, go with the obvious choice, Mr. Ho's 80's out-put is the true cream of the crop of the genre. Start the drum roll "Godfrey Ho's Ninja-Schlock-Theater" presents (add ANY title of the DOZENS he cranked out in the 80's AND 90's - "Ninja Knight Thunder Fox" being the tackiest of them all).Keep your ears open, in the middle of the movie you'll hear the word "ninja" pronounced "ningur" on at least three occasions. Also take note of the goofy Garfield phone - one could not and should not ever take these movies seriously - but they are fun. It's my wish that there was a huge Godfrey Ho ninja-flick box-set (of 25 discs or more) out on the market. Make it happen Ho-Man.

All the ingredients to make this film are wrong. Everything about it is wrong, terrible, poorly directed, badly written, poorly shot and poorly acted. By some miraculous reason that defies logic, it works on a fantastic scale.The only way to make sense of this film is to fill your fridge up with crap beer and get a few like-minded friends around for a roller- coaster ride of giggles. It falls firmly into the category of 'so bad it is good'and lands on the top of the pile. Also, I couldn't really tell you what it is about. It just seems like a pastiche of ninja nonsense for you to gobble up and enjoy.Other reviewers have given a few minor spoilers for this film but it's best to enjoy the absurdities of this film as a complete surprise. You will get maximum laugh quality that way. Anyway, off to the shop you go and fill a bag full of beer and call your chums.

Quite simply, Godfrey Ho spent all the film budget on crack, and proceeded to smoke it all while making this film. But I'm glad he did. The combination of off-screen action (due to a doped-up cameraman) and dialogue quite obviously written by a schizophrenic means that this film is a must-see. Not only will you be blown away by the dazzling special effects - at one point the blokes are throwing squash balls/powerful explosives at each other - but the costume department really raises the bar for film makers everywhere with the camouflage onesie. If you aren't aroused by Jaguar Wong's little sniggers, the many moments where certain characters look like they just jizzed in their pants, or by the scary forest growing in the armpits of Lily - then you just aren't smoking on that pipe hard enough. Watch it.

Ninja Terminator is one of my favourite ninja films because it's so entertaining, the effects are fun to watch especially when the Ninja's shoot fire and smoke out and when they vanish in normal clothes then appear in their Ninja outfit. The fight scenes are good, I love that sound effect they use when they punch someone, also the Ninja fight scenes are good too especially near the end when the three Ninja's fight each other for the Golden Ninja Warrior. The plot for Ninja Terminator is that three Ninja's steel the three pieces of the Golden Ninja Warrior, a statue that makes a Ninja invincible. A Ninja then kills one of them and then returns the statue to his boss, Ninja Harry who has one of the pieces tells one of his men to protect the Ninja's sister and find out what's happened, so the main plot is him fighting of people trying to find out who's responsible and save the sister that later gets kidnapped while the other plot sees Ninja Harry trying to get the other two pieces of the Golden Ninja Warrior and soon being challenged to take on the two Ninja's that have the other two pieces of the Golden Ninja Warrior.Ninja Terminator is a great low budget Ninja movie that has to be seen. 10/10