Trailer to
Ninja Hunt:
It our review of Golden Destroyers, we scribbled in furor that the movie is "an absolutely appalling film about which one should probably not write, for any description of the idiocies and awfulness that permeate every aspect of this patchwork movie cannot help but make the movie sound more entertaining than it is. Sometimes bad films are simply bad, and Golden Destroyers is an exemplary film in this regard." A statement that is easily 100% applicable to Ninja Hunt. But then, from what we have picked up along the way, it would seem that few if any Joseph Lai and/or/cum Godfrey Ho "movies" are truly worth watching as a "movie".
On the other hand, as an experience of unintentional surrealism, an experience of a total lack of cinematic talent, or anything remotely indicating a respect for the media or genre, or even an interest in attempting to create anything but the cheapest of disposable product, Ninja Hunt, like many a demented Lai/Ho pieced-together project, is a one-of-a-kind of experience that, despite the unintentional but hearty laughter it sometimes induces, verges on visual and mental torture. It is one of those movies that makes you feel truly guilty, that really gives you the depressing feeling that you are indeed wasting your life, and that if you watch crap like this it should be you who has terminal cancer instead of [put in name of your afflicted friend or family member here]. And as we all know, life is way too long.
Like too many ninja movies back in the day they were popular, Ninja Hunt is populated only by Caucasian ninjas, none of whom appear to be particularly graceful or talented in the martial arts. Likewise, the dull narrative, as to be expected from a movie less scripted than edited, offers 90 minutes of insensibility in which diverse characters separate and converge and disappear, and diverse narrative tangents are picked up and dropped or simply change, with everything continually punctuated by nonsensical fight scenes or scenes of bad dancing or women playing rock-paper-scissors in a room decorated with Playboy centerfolds.
Nothing occurs in Ninja Hunt that might enliven the "narrative" events, but often things transpire that unintentionally engender great mirth. This is in particularly true about the ninja fight scenes, with their endless slow-motion cartwheels done by men wearing fashion-faux-pas polyester ninja suits that hide their faces so that stunt men can do the cheesy gymnastics and jump about like gravity-defying spastics. As to be expected, the two big final showdowns — to tie the main two diffuse storylines together, separate showdowns occur at the same time between normalos and between Good Ninja Dickson and Bad Ninja — like any and all fights scenes before, are neither thrilling or interesting, nor well choreographed or shot.
In regard to what Ninja Hunt is ostensibly about, the disparate events and characters concern ever so faintly (as in: with the tangibility of a fart) a non-sensible plotline about a VHS containing the recipe for a special drug, DAK10, which turns those who take it into crazed killing machines. (Interestingly enough, throughout the entire movie, the drug is never actually produced or taken by anyone.) Stolen by black-clad Ninjas led by a leader dressed in a hilarious bright yellow outfit with Joan-Crawford shoulders (played by "Sruart Smith", the plan is to sell the recipe-containing VHS to the some gangsters that like to play rock-paper-scissors and do petty crimes. The CIA, in any event, sends in Ninja Dickson (a wooden and disinterested Richard Harrison) to get the VHS at all costs...
The relationship and gangster drama concerning the taxi driver Aaron (supposedly working undercover for Ninja Dickson) and street kid Billy and bordello mother Rachel (Ninja Dickson's ex, now screwing the gangster boss Campbell) and gangsters appears to be taken from an even more-obscure 1983 Taiwanese movie Cuowu de jiaobu sheng a.k.a. The Wrong Steps. The rest, meaning the stuff featuring Ninja Dickson (when not played by a disguised double), in an interview, Richard Harrison, who was known to choose his projects based on what new country the project would take him — even if it meant working for someone like Joe D'Amato, the director of Erotic Nights of the Living Dead (1980), amongst other trash, as the porno poster below reveals — when talking about his working with Ho and Lai, indirectly reveals why he looks so disinterested, if not annoyed: "I went to Hong Kong to work for them, and even though the quality of the [two] films were very poor my wife and I enjoyed Hong Kong very much, and the crew was mostly made of nice people. [...] Mr. Lai contacted a friend who was a tax man and was told I owed quite a bit of money in taxes. When I showed that my contract stated I would not be responsible for any taxes in Hong Kong, the man said it was not valid. I agreed then to do another film for Mr. Lai to pay the taxes. There was no script, only sides. Nothing made any sense [...]. Also, during this last film or films, our living conditions were not good. My first call came from Germany, telling me how bad the films were and they had only bought them because they trusted me. I have no idea how many films they made from my last filming, but some say as many as ten.* I put a lot of trust in friendship, so it hurt more than just professionally."
* Some sources say "at least twenty-four different [ninja] movies"...
Ninja Hunt is less a movie than it is a waste of celluloid, and it no way merit anyone's time, not even that of the most brain-dead ninja-movie completionist. At best, it is a 90-minute visual vomitorium produced by "filmmakers" who, like Donald Trump and the contemporary Republican party, wholeheartedly believe that P.T. Barnum was right when he said "There's a sucker born every minute," and who want to milk those suckers for as much as they can.
Don't be a sucker, watch some other Richard Harrison* movie instead...
* For those of you unfamiliar with Richard Harrison: "Born in May 1935 in Salt Lake City, Utah, actor and model Richard Harrison enjoyed a long career in films until his retirement in the 1990s. Much like his contemporary Ed Fury, Harrison started his career as a physique model in the 1950s and graced the covers of numerous magazines. The extremely handsome Harrison made his film debut in the campy science fiction effort Kronos (1957 / trailer). [...] While he was getting steady film work, Harrison's career wasn't in the fast lane. So, in 1961 he headed to Rome and became a star in a string of sword and sandal films. [...] Harrison ran with the sword and sandal genre until it died out in the mid 1960s. Unlike some of his contemporaries, he easily made the transition to other film genres, including spy films and spaghetti westerns. [drkrm gallery]" A cult name among bad-film aficionados, not to mention fans of vintage beefcake (though, unluckily, unlike Ed Fury he does not seem to have ever shown the full monty), the average Richard Harrison genre movie will entertain you, particularly his earlier stuff — but in between, be prepared for stupefying crap like Ninja Hunt.
Richard Harrison's days doing
spaghetti westerns:
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