Tongan Ninja (2002)

Simply Perfect

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Admirable film.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This New Zeeland movie is about a boy trained as a ninja on one of the isles of the Tongan archipelago. One he grows up he must save the girl, defeat his archnemesis and face his fears. It is a spoof of (bad) Asian kung-fu movies and sometimes is it hilarious. Most of the time, though, it is plain boring. And it is strange, because both in montage and directing, the people involved show a lot of talent. The actors are clearly having a lot of fun, too. By all means, this should have been great, but it was only marginally funny.A highlight of the movie is the presence of Jemaine Clement, one of the funny guys from Flight of the Conchords, also a writer for the movie, as the psychopathic Action Fighter. That's a bunch of laughs. Unfortunately for the movie, he is the only funny thing in it.Bottom line: Had potential, but it ultimately failed as a comedy.

Watching Tongan Ninja is like watching a movie so deliberately bad, it's good! Which is not surprising, given that the creative brains of Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie behind Flight of the Conchords, had a hand in crafting the zany scenes, crazy dialogue and mind- boggling tongue in cheek action sequences. It's like watching a kid's cartoon come alive, though it comes with a tinge of unexpected violence as well to make it more adult.The basic structure follows that of Bruce Lee's Way/Return of the Dragon, where a martial arts practitioner get sent to protect a restaurant from thugs who come asking for protection money. Sam Manu plays Sione Finau aka Tongan Ninja the titular character, whose tragic background of his father being killed by a fish haunts him into adulthood. Growing up in a Pacific island where he learns his ninja skills, he gets sent by his master to New Zealand to help a friend in need, represented by Miss Lee (Linda Tseng) whom he falls in love with.You know it's gonna be mindless fun with slapstick humour when the villains are caricatures such as Kinfe Man, Gun Man and his arch-nemesis Action Man (played by Jemaine Clement himself) with whom is under the same ninja tutelage. The fights don't take themselves seriously, as it really hammed up every cliché you can find in bad action movies. From funny character names to funny action moves coupled with cheesily bad special effects, everyone's acting is really over the top, and therein lies the fun factor when watching the movie, complete with spaghetti western styled dialogue and dubbed voices that are never in sync.What also worked here are the zany song and dance sequences, which acted as a precursor of the later collaboration between Clement and McKenzie. In fact, if you pay attention to the lyrics that are sung during these sequences, that's half the fun already as you're likely to have been chuckling along.So don't expect quality production values with polished acting. You can tell these folks had a lot of fun spoofing the genre and probably had a great time on set, and this shows up in the product in all honesty. It doesn't bite off more than it can chew, and provides for some really enjoyable entertainment.

Shot in English, and dubbed into English (because they couldn't afford location-based sound recording), Tongan Ninja sets out to be one of the worst films of all time and succeeds beautifully. Our one-dimensional hero is pitted against a variety of one-dimensional enemies, including Knife Man (who uses a knife), Gun Man (who uses a gun) and Action Fighter (who had the assistance of wire team from Lord of the Rings). It tells you something about a movie when the director's commentary features lines like "We were very lucky and had the use of the Lord of the Rings wire team for two weeks. But we had to ask them to make it look cheaper and messier, so it would match the rest of the movie." I'm a big fan of DVD special features. The 'making of' featurette features wonderful interviews with Peter Jackson and the director of Shrek, telling some very inventive lies about their admiration for this movie. The director's commentary is a wonderful insight into the labour of love that no-budget film-making can be, and the actor's commentary is a wonderful insight into actors who are deeply embarrassed to be in such a cheap movie. If you can enjoy bad action movies, this one is absolutely priceless.

What a fantastic movie, its so bad (which its trying to be) you can not help but laugh. Shot on location in good old Wellington, what kiwi (or any one else looking for a laugh) could pass up watching what should be considered a classic New Zealand movie.This movie has all the great makings of a Hong Kong martial arts B Movie, the bad dubbing, the tragic death of a family member, a mystic martial arts teacher and good guy against impossible odds.The fight scenes against the ninjas (mainly the one where Tongan ninja infiltrates the so called syndicate) are a joy to behold, its like watching that old Amiga game International Karate.