Ninja, the Violent Sorceror (1987)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Thanks for the memories!

Excellent but underrated film

A Masterpiece!

How bad is this movie? The voice over actors are listed as the actual stars. Those actually in the film are listed as uncredited. I am not sure what Director Godfrey Ho was thinking with this mess. Just because you have script, doesn't mean you should use it.

Myer, the world's greatest gambler, takes his own life after losing a game of cards against Barker, The Gambling King, who uses the magic of evil Taoist Collins in order to cheat. After talking to the spirit of Rose (Myer's dead wife), Myer's brother Roger swears revenge, training as a ninja and teaming up with old friend Ken to tackle the Taoist and his hopping vampires. Meanwhile, Myer's son Leslie seeks out alcoholic ex-gambler James Webber, the only man who can beat Barker, who enlists the help of his pals Lily, Anna and Ricky.This early '80s effort from prolific director Godfrey Ho is a total mess, a sloppy cut and paste job pieced together from a couple of old movies, with new footage shot to try and make some sense out of proceedings. It doesn't work, the result being a bewildering mix of hopping vampires, teleporting ninjas, Taoist magic, gambling, kung fu, ghosts, and alcoholism. If God of Gamblers was thrown into a blender with Mr. Vampire, Drunken Master and several Taiwanese ninja films, the result would be a bit like this—never boring, but completely confusing.4.5 out of 10, rounded up to 5 for a brief spot of female nudity (always welcome) and for Barker somehow faking suicide—revolver to the head—in front of a room full of people.

NINJA, THE VIOLENT SORCEROR is a typically madcap film from Filmark, once again the brainchild of man-child Godfrey Ho. Here, he writes and directs under two different pseudonyms - impressive! The film sees Ho up to his old cut and paste antics once more, this time liberally stealing footage from the obscure Taiwanese gambling movie THE STUNNING GAMBLING. The ripped-off footage is about rival gamblers cheating each other and getting up to all kinds of tricks but it's dull when compared to the newly-shot footage from Ho.IMDb lists this film's release date as 1982, but 1987 would be a better date. You just have to listen to the music cues stolen from THE TERMINATOR to know that 1982 is the wrong year. Ho saw that hopping vampires and ninjas were big business at the Southeast Asian box office, so he decided to have the two fight for this production! Random actors fight ninjas, random actors fight hopping vampires, and occasionally ninjas fight hopping vampires. It's incredibly low budget and all rather inept, and how much you enjoy it depends on how much you enjoy trashy cinema.Another interesting part of this production is Ho's willingness to cast uncredited former stars, an odd choice given that the English names listed in the film's credits are all made up. Angela Mao and Danny Lee are listed, but when they appear is anyone's guess. Ku Feng has a split second cameo but where Ho got the footage from I have no idea. The one actor who does make his mark is former Venom actor Lu Feng, playing the villain of the piece. He doesn't get to fight here (which is a mad omission) but he does get a fair bit of screen time and looks cool with his moustache. Baking him up is another veteran Shaw Brothers villain, Chiang Tao, playing the hopping vampire priest. You'll recognise those cheekbones anywhere...

Godfrey Ho launches yet another assault on all that is decent with this jaw dropping tale of vampires, ghosts, suicide, gambling, alcohol addiction and last but not least, ninja! Yes, as you can probably well imagine from the above description - logic is not exactly evident in abundance in this flick! Highlights on offer include: Some reality defying dice-fu(!), some acrobatic esoteric incantations(!), hopping former gambling addict vampires(!) and nifty martial arts aplenty! Sadly though, despite it's demented (cut & paste) premise the films implementation isn't perhaps as much fun as it may initially sound and does tend to drag somewhat throughout.Still, for fellow bad movie lovers, you'll be hard pressed to find many other flicks as downright crazy as this!