Ninja Thunderbolt (1984)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

NINJA THUNDERBOLT is one of the infamous cut-and-paste ninja movies churned out by Godfrey Ho in the 1980s. It features a main film which attempts to be semi-serious but which is rendered all but incoherent thanks to the re-cutting and re-dubbing, plus lots of added-on scenes of ninja fighting and random action starring main man Richard Harrison. I do get a kick out of some of these movies - NINJA TERMINATOR is a hoot and I love SCORPION THUNDERBOLT - but NINJA THUNDERBOLT is a disappointment.The original film is pretty dull and the ninja stuff even more silly than usual. Harrison falls out with his ninja buddies and runs around randomly shouting 'ninja!'. There are a lot of set-piece battles in the woods and outrageously cheesy chase scenes. Yasuaki Kurata plays a ninja (of course) and Don Wong is the 'straight' lead. See it to believe it.

If (like me) you've ever yearned to witness a ninja make crude finger gestures at pursuing police officers whilst driving a car at break neck speeds or to witness a group of ninja on roller skates frantically battering a tiny bubble car with sticks then this my friends is surely the movie for you! Yes it could only be a Godfrey Ho monstrosity....er, I mean masterpiece.These movies were not exactly coherent plot wise at the best of times so it came as doubly baffling when I sat down to watch this one and found that it was an Italian dub with no subtitles!!!!! Nonetheless, I braved the linguistic barrier to behold what appears to be some of the most random and unconnected footage ever spliced into one movie!To be honest, I doubt had I watched the movie in an English dub it would have made much difference-this film is all over the place!The police hero seems to get into a fight every five minutes or so after which a random gratuitous sex scene between some of the other characters suddenly turns up for no particular reason which is immediately followed by our hero getting involved in yet another scuffle!Richard Harrison (playing another cop/ninja) makes a drug related arrest once in a while also and has a brief ninja duel at the films climax....Yep, all in all this is a real mess!Still, having said this, some scenes such as those mentioned at the beginning of this review, do add a not inconsiderable charm to the proceedings here and there is even an opportunity to watch a young Jackie Chan in action (for about 10 seconds!!!!!)Overall: Recommended for die hard bad ninja movie lovers and Godfrey Ho fans (yes we really exist)

I have to say that this movie contains the best chase scene ever to be filmed in the history of mankind! When the main character, Mr. Harry Wong (no joke) gets into his tiny little car and is chased by ninjas wearing white rollerskates with big pink wheels. If you manage to find this one, rent it! Just beware of the 2 absolutely random and gratuities sex scenes. They kinda pop outta nowhere.All in all, it's your typical Kung Fu type movie out of Hong Kong, but with a bizarre and puzzling twist at the end. "Ninja Death!"Watch out.

This ninja-film is extremely bad and ridiculous. Besides from the fact that it is very dull and therefore hard to follow, the only good thing about it is that it's silly in a funny way (but only sometimes). I remember (OK you don't remember bad movies you saw 10 years ago, but this one was so bad that i did remember) that I rented this movie on video in the late 80's and thought I had a really exciting ninja-film to kill the evening with, but how wrong I was. (1 out of 10)