A Maldição Ninja

I saw this under the title "City Ninja", which makes even less sense than the title "Ninja Holocaust". Yes, there are a few ninja in this movie, but they aren't in the city, they are out in the country, where all good one-with-nature ninja types dwell. The other title, "108 Golden Killers" or some such, actually sort of applies here. The hero seems to fight at least 108 different opponents throughout the course of the movie. But really, who cares? This is a hyperactive, gonzo mess. It took a full 90 minutes to get through it. At the end of that 90 minutes, I was no wiser than before as to what the heck was supposed to be going on, or as to the moral or point of the movie.

The plot, as far as I can tell, is this: A necklace is bobbing around SE Asia (maybe Hong Kong, maybe rural Korea), and it has the number of a Swiss bank account written on it. Some underworld types want to get it, and they hire "Jimmy", a boxer/kung-fu expert, to procure it for them. So the necklace is a MacGuffin, a plot device to set in motion a nice "quest" movie, as well as a good excuse for an array of fight scenes.

This doesn't satisfy the director, though. He decided to throw in a seven-layer-salad of plot complications, detours and general irrelevancies including a weird, clumsy love triangle between Jimmy, the gang boss' mistress and a singer that involves a lot of soft-core porn (including a sex scene on a rowing machine -I hope he wiped it down after wards);dozens of odd characters (including "the bald headed gang") who pop into the movie at random and then disappear, never to be seen again; and fights that start up at the drop of a hat.

BTW Jimmy seems to vary in skill from "unstoppable Bruce Lee android clone" in some scenes to "unable to kung-fu his way out of a wet paper bag" in others. Seeing him almost get his clock cleaned in a boxing ring in one scene only to wade through an entire camp of armed ninja 20 minutes later is very confusing. And no, this isn't the kind of story where the character grows in skill as a result of his challenges; "Jimmy" simply continues to punch and kick people with varying degrees of success as the movie progresses. Although "progress" may be the wrong word.

More? The fight scene in the credits (between a Caucasian guy in a gi and black belt and 4-8 ninjas) seems to be imported from another movie entirely. The big final fight scene between Jimmy and an anonymous bruiser as he tries to rescue his girlfriend, seems to end with Jimmy getting his face kicked in, but the movie shows him walking around with his rescued girlfriend none the worse for wear just a minute later.

More? Jimmy can fight and kill 8 men at a time, but he can't wrestle a pistol away from his angry mistress and she accidentally shoots herself in the struggle. (She was holding a gun on him because he was about to leave here for the singer, and she was pregnant and upset about being abandoned. So Jimmy is a cad, along with everything else). Various tough underworld types seem to compete for the necklace, but I am blamed if I can keep them straight, or tell why we have to watch one of them shagging his mistress and why another one wears kabuki makeup.

More? The bad guys find Jimmy's girlfriend (the singer) and kidnap her (how they find her is never revealed, they just do) and then they put her on a table and...um...spin it. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a form of torture or an odd sort of fetish foreplay before the actual (inevitable) rape attempt. (Of course there is a rape attempt. It's that sort of movie).

Even more? Jimmy is lazing about on the gangleader yacht with the mistress for an afternoon of sun and sex when the yacht is boarded by another bunch of the gang (I think), including guys in frog man suits with spear guns...and Jimmy jumps overboard (leaving his pregnant mistress to fend for herself). Then Jimmy's brother, who is seemingly psychic, chooses that moment to come to the rescue in a speed boat (!!) Did I mention that Jimmy has a brother? He has a brother, who is apparently the comic relief in the movie. Anyway, the bad guys chase Jimmy and brother in their own boat, and the chief bad guy keeps telling the guy at the throttle to "go faster!". You know, because apparently all the boat driver wanted to do was to not lose ground too slowly. But Jimmy's boat is too fast, or there are too many guys on the bad guy's boat, and our heroes happily flee, again, leaving (as I said) the woman to deal with things as best she can.

Oh, and at the end of the film the chief surviving gang boss has been arrested (for no reason we can see) and finks on Jimmy so that Jimmy is arrested (for the murder of the gang wife's boss he accidentally shot, not for the 90-100 other people he killed with his bare hands in the course of the movie) and the movie just stops.

I'd like to give 'City Ninja" the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure that in its original version it was a much better film here than the weird mongoloid spazz-fest that emerged as the version I saw on the Treeline 50 movie DVD pack collection. Stupid, but fun. 3 starts out of 10.

Well first things first, the listing in question here is actually just another alternative title for the film Ninja Holocaust so don't be fooled! However, for all those who wish to read a review of this flick but can't be bothered typing in the said alternative title; fear not! - I've included the review below.

OK….let me try and shed some light on matters here….. As best as I could discern, the 'plot' involved a number of somewhat shady characters' search for a missing necklace that apparently had etched into it, the number to a Swiss bank account. Sounds simple enough? Well maybe on paper it might, but not on screen I can assure you! Containing enough sub plots to fill an average soap opera for a whole year, a veritable plethora of fight scenes (very well choreographed I might add) that break out at any given opportunity for no apparent reason whatsoever (!), a healthy dose of gratuitous nudity and sex (including one scene in which a couple are having intercourse in a boxing ring followed by on a rowing machine!) and a whole slew of characters who come and go without seeming explanation and you have one hell of a head scratching affair on your hands! But let's be honest – all this is such bloody hilarious fun! The film literally races along, not giving you time to take a breath from one energetic fight scene to another (or allowing you sufficient time to contemplate what the hell is in fact going on!) and when it eventually reaches it's abrupt ending you'll be left completely dumbfounded as to what in hell you've just sat through. Suffice to say, you won't really care as you'll be too busy nursing your stomach from laughing so hard throughout! Yes, it is indeed my honour to hereby award Ninja Holocaust/City Ninja the lofty status of a true bad movie classic! Tremendous fun from start to finish and I'm still none the wiser for what I've just sat through!

Casanova Wong stars in this gem and he lets his fists and feet (mostly feet) do the talking The fight scenes are packed with great choreography and frenetic energy. He has a great one on one with a boxer, a fight in a pool hall, sparking garage brawl, and an extended battle against ninjas and Chan Wai- Man. Casanova's Kicks are absolutely superb. The movie has a little twist at the end. The movie is let down by its frequent nudity but the back and forthness of scenes from Casanova Wong to Chan Wai- Man gives the film a flow and pattern to connect it all. Highly recommended.

Two martial arts experts are hired by gangsters to retrieve a precious item that they covet. Namely, a valuable necklace which has been split into two parts but which will reveal a Swiss Bank Account number when brought together. Different people have the different parts and with two separate teams in pursuit, needless to say, this leads to quite a lot of incident.

City Ninja is an example of the kind of low budget action movies being churned out in Hong Kong by the mid 80's. Its cheapness means this is pretty basic stuff in a lot of ways. As is mostly the way with these types of movies, the story-line is strictly by-the-numbers stuff which only really is there as a means of getting from A to B with as much martial arts action as is possible. As such, it's not especially distinctive or memorable from others in its category but will no doubt satisfy fans of this sub-genre nevertheless. I personally thought it was marginally better than average for this type of flick. The fighting scenes were pretty well executed and fairly convincing, while the odd downbeat ending appealed to me on account of its unpredictable strangeness.

Well first things first – the IMDb cast listing for this film is actually erroneous. The said listing in fact ostensibly refers to Godfrey Ho's Ninja Thunderbolt which was released the same year.

That aside and onto the film in question and - Jesus H Christ! – Where do I even begin with this one?!

OK….let me try and shed some light on matters….. As best as I could discern, the 'plot' involved a number of somewhat shady characters' search for a missing necklace that apparently had etched into it, the number to a Swiss bank account. Sounds simple enough? Well maybe on paper it might, but not on screen I can assure you!

Containing enough sub plots to fill an average soap opera for a whole year, a veritable plethora of fight scenes (very well choreographed I might add) that break out at any given opportunity for no apparent reason whatsoever (!), a healthy dose of gratuitous nudity and sex (including one scene in which a couple are having intercourse in a boxing ring followed by on a rowing machine!) and a whole slew of characters who come and go without seeming explanation and you have one hell of a head scratching affair on your hands!

But let's be honest – all this is such bloody hilarious fun!

The film literally races along, not giving you time to take a breath from one energetic fight scene to another (or allowing you sufficient time to contemplate what the hell is in fact going on!) and when it eventually reaches it's abrupt ending you'll be left completely dumbfounded as to what in hell you've just sat through. Suffice to say, you won't really care as you'll be too busy nursing your stomach from laughing so hard throughout!

Yes, it is indeed my honour to hereby award Ninja Holocaust the lofty status of a true bad movie classic! Tremendous fun from start to finish and I'm still none the wiser for what I've just sat through!