Friday, June 18, 2010

Ninja Death

I love old traditional kung fu films. It reminds me of my youth when I watched hours and hours of Kung Fu Theater. And since I was a hormonally-riddled teen when this was airing, I secretly hoped to see a scantily clad lady or thought I might hear a swear word more harsh than “bastard”. Where has this movie been my whole life??? It has BOTH!!! And then an entire non-PC scene with derogatory homosexual comments – yes, inappropriate, but hilarious during the 1970s.

Here’s the plot: Tiger works at a whorehouse (ahhhh, feel the irony in that sentence…). The Japanese immigrants have set up a rival brothel down the street in an attempt to find a kung fu master with a plum flower tattoo on his chest. We later find out that kung fu master is Tiger. Tiger isn’t ready to take on the ninjas, mainly due to the fact that he’s never heard of them or know what they are. His master HAS heard of them and sets about training Tiger to fight them (mainly by kicking his ass repeatedly). As a baby, Tiger was taken from his mother during a ninja battle and the ninjas have returned to finish him off years later. The end of the movie stops short in preparation for Ninja Death II and Ninja Death III (yes, I own them all), so I am looking at this like the kung fu version of Lord of the Rings.

Here are some things that I learned from Ninja Death:
  • Hitting 300 pressure points will stop someone from puking
  • Suspender snap hurts kung fu masters worse than multiple punches in face
  • British overdubbed voices pronounce “ninja” like “ninjer” – I giggle every time
  • If a female ninja attacks you, she can be defeated by trying to kiss her – apparently, they’re powerless against the kissing attack. The tradeoff is that three Japanese geisha can bring down a kung fu master with giggles
  • Everytime I hear a clarinet, I’m going to be on the lookout for ninjas
  • Ninjas used to be sex machines
  • A man with long black hair that wears a long black wig looks exactly the same when he takes said wig off
  • Ninjas take baby steps when they run
  • Hugging is foreplay
  • Based on the amount of passion demonstrated by female ninjas during kissing, I hope I never kiss a female ninja
  • Beggars hold their own pretty well against a swarm of ninjas

I wouldn’t run out and buy this series but it is pretty amusing. I hope the second and third ones are equally amusing. As is typical for traditional kung fu films, the overdubbing is half of the comedy. However, halfway through the movies, the accents suddenly turn British instead of American, up to that point. There are some pretty sweet fight scenes, but there are also some awful special effects that counter the awesomeness. There isn’t much about the plot of this film that makes it stick out amongst the hoards of difficult-to-differentiate kung fu films, but like most of them, you won’t feel like you wasted your time. And for the record, this is borderline Bad Movie Night material… Also is it ninjas or ninja (similar to deer or deers)?

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