| Ninja Terminator (1985) |
| DIRECTED BY GODFREY HO. STARRING RICHARD HARRISON AND BRUCE STALLION. |
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| The best martial arts films are often the least coherent, and Ninja Terminator is no exception. The plot is about as basic as they come, and is simply explained away in the first couple of minutes. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) , no-one is avenging their brothers death. |
| The plot concerns a magical gold statue that gives its owner super-human powers. It's owned by an evil ninja master with a penchant for wearing blonde womens wigs, and laughing maniacally. The statue is formed from three detachable parts. |
| Knowing full well that their cross-dressing boss isn't the most sane person to qualify for these powers, three good ninjas steal the artifact, and hightail it out of Japan for |
| Hong Kong (conveniently turning this into a ninja/kung fu flick). Their boss naturally pursues our three very uncharismatic heroes, as the whole thing degenerates into an orgy of sped-up fight scenes, disappearing ninjas, Bruce Lee lookalikes, and appallingly bad dialogue. |
| This was about as hilarious as they come. It not only featured one of the funniest over-acting wig wearing freaks in ninja movie history, but one of the most pathetic heroes in recent memory. Harry McQueen was definitely no Steve McQueen, and I found myself rolling on the floor laughing when the Evil master's messenger robots invaded Harry's pad. The robots were actually battery operated toys, and Harry felt quite threatened by them. |
| This movie also had some great dialogue. One guy examining a corpse comments: "The traces of steel in this guys back indicates that someone wanted him dead". Priceless stuff indeed. The whole movie was a highly entertaining hour and a half. Martial arts movies often bore me due to the non-stop action. The producers of Ninja Terminator threw just the right amount of ridiculous dialogue and cliche dramatics into the mix to make things interesting. It's no Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but it is a whole lot of mindless chop-socky fun. |
| Entertainment : 3 out of 4 |
| Watchability : 2.5 out of 4 |
| Overall : 2.75 out of 4 |
| Reviewed by Blake |
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