We clearly have a case of cut and paste cinema with movie. People that are familiar with films that came out of Hong Kong during the 1980s with the word "ninja" in the title know all to well this technique. Basically, for those of you who don't know, cut and paste cinema is where a director takes 1 or more existing movies that have never been released to the public, and combine them with some new footage that is shot by that director. You can imagine the continuity errors, and overall lack of coherence that these movies possess. Often times seeing the characters "interact" with each other is hysterical. You get nothing more than two people, in clearly different rooms, speaking in sentence fragments in a feeble attempt to push the plot along.
Godfrey Ho was a major contributor to this genre, and it seemed that every movie that he churned out to the public had the word "ninja" in the title. In fact, Richard Harrison, the American actor, credits Ho with destroying his career by recycling the Harrison footage over and over again. That is why if you look at Richard Harrison's IMDB page, you will see a ton of titles that begin with "Ninja..."
We begin Ninja Vs Ninja with a white ninja and a black ninja practicing some ninja stuff in a field, and then running alongside walls. The black (or white, depending upon which way you see it), Thompson, is capable of crawling underground. What a stupid ninja. His name is Thompson, and he crawls? This ninja was robbed.
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| Modern Ninja running along side walls. |
The black (or white) ninja is capable of creating multiple hims, and he can throw Chinese stars. That's more like it. This ninja must have had rich parents or something, because he gets all of the cool abilities. You won't catch this dude crawling around.
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| So many hims. |
Apparently they're friends because they discuss not seeing each other around. They probably don't see each other because they're ninjas. Are they seriously expecting to run into each other at TGI Friday's?
We know what we're getting into with opening dialog such as:
White Ninja - "I use ninjiutsu to get money. I'd do anything for money."
Thompson- "You joined this international crime ring, no doubt for the money."
We're only in this for 2 minutes and 52 seconds, and already it's implausible.
That ends our opening sequence, and seeing as how the rest is a jumbled mess of non-linear edits, nonsensical dialog, and subplots that don't involve the ninjas, and are obviously there just take up time, I'll give you the basic story.
We have a Hong Kong CIA agent(?) chasing down a drug kingpin, Fatso. There are two white men talking about some tapes that were stolen, and Fatso is involved. Bear in mind that Fatso and these men are from two completely different movies, so their only interaction is over the telephone. Fatso has an indestructible nephew, and a psychotic son that is obsessed with a local T.V. personality. The agent has to fight the indestructible nephew, and kill Fatso's son, who is killing people, and is holding the agents son hostage. The reason that I can't give more of the story, is because it's just a series of subplots that don't develope into anything that is worth mentioning. I don't give more story because there is not possible way that I can.
The acting is sub par, the story is sub parer, and the only redeeming qualities are for the 4 minutes that the ninjas are on screen. Actually, both of these movies may have been ok if they weren't spliced together. Picture The Terminator and Alien being edited together to create one crappy story. It'd be a stupid movie, and that's what this is.
You can watch Ninja Vs Ninja below. You may need the Divx converter.
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