Following their split from Shaw Brothers and director Chang Cheh, Venoms Mob stars Chiang Sheng, Lu Feng and Philip Kwok returned to Taiwan to shoot this independent kung fu actioner with special appearances by superstar Ti Lung and Japanese martial arts sensation Yasuaki Kurata. Borrowing heavily from Chang’s classics THE FIVE VENOMS and FIVE ELEMENT NINJAS, NINJA IN THE DEADLY TRAP pits ninjas against Chinese kung fu with heavy emphasis on exaggerated, Chinese-influenced ninja and Taiwanese opera action. As Kwok’s first and only directorial effort, the film is roughly assembled with a sluggish, hour-long build up to a fight-filled third act featuring excellent form from the Venoms stars yet a disappointing final match-up against Kurata that pales in comparison to his excellent ninjitsu performance in Lau Kar-leung’s HEROES OF THE EAST.
The film takes place during the Ming Dynasty as China’s coastal regions are menaced by Japanese pirates. Ti Lung plays a Ming general who successfully quells the pirate incursions. As a result, he becomes the target of Japanese ninjas ordered to assassinate him by their leader, played by Kurata.
Oddly, the English-dubbed audio track gives Kurata’s character a Chinese name and he’s the only Japanese actor in the film. It doesn’t matter though as he isn’t present for most of the film. Like many low-budget kung fu movies, this one primarily brings in the guest villain at the tale-end of the film.
The general’s son is sent on a mission to find a martial arts master with knowledge of the ninjitsu arts. He is found despite efforts by the ninjas to stop the meeting and he hands over a rare ninjitsu manual. THE FIVE VENOMS influence comes into play as the master explains that he trained three students in different aspects of ninjitsu, yet these students have never met. The master gruesomely gives up his life – by getting chopped in half – to allow the general’s son to escape from the ninjas and find the three men in order to recruit them to guard the general.
Playing the three Chinese ninjitsu specialists are our Venoms stars. Chiang Sheng plays a master of light step and acrobatics. Lu Feng, in one of his few heroic roles, portrays a master at fashioning and wielding weapons. Kwok is an unarmed and stealth specialist, in addition to choreographing the action and directing the entire film. It’s no wonder that after this tiring project, made worse by not having the support of a studio like Shaw Brothers, Kwok gave up on his film directing career and returned to Hong Kong where he stuck to fight choreography.
Corny Cantonese-style comedic fight sequences follow as the general’s son tracks down the three fighters, one by one, and each gets into a skirmish with locals.
Act two borrows from FIVE ELEMENT NINJAS by setting up a scenario where the ninjas infiltrate the general’s home by posing as a guard, cook and servant. Meanwhile, the newly recruited Venoms team also poses as house staff to wait for the ninjas to reveal themselves. Apparently, the general was having some serious staffing and security issues for six new hires to be able to infiltrate the household in what appears to be a matter of a day or two. The film drags at this point with Kwok unable to manage this bland espionage in anything but a rudimentary fashion.
Finally, the ninjas make their move and the fun begins as the Venoms stars each take on one of the assassins. The best of these exchanges takes place between Lu Feng and a ninja posing as a guard. Lu ends up using a small, circular metal plate with a sharpened edge as a weapon and the ninja uses hand claws and foot spikes. The ninja performs some very cool moves, which unfortunately is somewhat rare in this film as Kwok tends to rely too much on conventional shapes sparring the rest of the time. Such is the case with Chiang’s battle with a ninja cook who merely wields a knife. At this point we see Ti Lung perform his only action when he also briefly engages the assassin but it’s a forgettable exchange.
Kwok’s encounter with a kunoichi, or female ninja, is slightly more interesting but doesn’t really establish what makes his character’s skill so great. All he does is trick her into opening a box of acidic powder that burns her face. Whoopee doo. She dons some finger claws, starts leaping around the room and is clearly heavily doubled by a male stuntman through most of the fight.
The film eventually strays into Robert Tai/Chang Cheh territory with the introduction of brightly colored and revealing Nancy boy costumes for the leads and ninjas in shiny golden outfits. Before segueing into a pitched battle with Kurata, we get green tree ninjas, obligatory tunneling ninjas, and a couple random guys with spear and guan dao.
By this point it’s clear Kwok is out of time, out of money, out of ideas, and probably out of patience. The film really peaked 20 minutes earlier and is only going downhill. The arrival of Yasuaki Kurata in a kimono to challenge the three Venoms should be the film’s highlight but becomes a short, almost anticlimactic battle. Kurata, who is one of the finest all-around screen fighters in the world, is dispatched far too easily with too little fanfare by the Venoms.
If not for the performances of Chiang, Lu Feng and Kwok, NINJA IN THE DEADLY TRAP would be little more than another tired Taiwanese knockoff of better Hong Kong kung fu productions. As such, it’s still inferior to Chang Cheh’s similar FIVE ELEMENT NINJAS and suggests that the Venoms stars needed Chang more than he needed them. Neither camp did as well on their own thereafter except for Kwok who got a new lease on his career by choreographing action for hits like A CHINESE GHOST STORY and John Woo’s HARD BOILED. Even without recognizable faces, save for Lo Meng, and with production that was about as cheesy-looking as any Chang Cheh film, FIVE ELEMENT NINJAS is structured better with tighter pacing, more distinctive action sequences and less wasteful plot filler than this ripoff. However, it’s still superior to a lot of the ninja flicks of the 1980s that were released by Cannon Films and IFD Films and is worth tracking down by Venoms fans interested in seeing more of what these stars did outside of working at Shaw Brothers.
On a side note, it isn’t particularly clear when this movie was released. Older sources cite 1983, which would make sense when looking at the filmographies of both the Venoms Mob and Chang Cheh. However, other newer sources online, including the Hong Kong Film Archive, cite 1981 which would put the film ahead of Chang’s FIVE ELEMENT NINJAS. I find this unlikely considering how much NINJA IN THE DEADLY TRAP appears to mimic Chang’s film. Interestingly, this project does appear similar to another famous falling out between kung fu moviemakers Jackie Chan and Lau Kar-leung on DRUNKEN MASTER II. Creative differences caused Lau to leave late in the production and he went out and tried to make his own similar movie which turned out to be the highly inferior DRUNKEN MASTER III. Like break-ups among rock band members, squabbles in the film industry rarely produce good results.
NINJA IN THE DEADLY TRAP was released on VHS in 1985 by Ocean Shores and on DVD in 2002 by Tai Seng.
by Mark PollardRelated Topics:
Chiang Sheng • Genre: Kung Fu • Genre: Shapes • Lu Feng • ninja • Ninja in the Deadly Trap (1983) • Philip Kwok • Ti Lung • Venoms Mob • Yasuaki Kurata
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