To avenge the death of his brother at the hands of Shaolin priests, a ninja master and his force of ninja travel to China to destroy Shaolin. Two Japanese monks and a black monk from Harlem join Shaolin in battling the ninja.

While by no means a classic of martial arts cinema, Ninja: The Final Duel has garnered considerable notoriety by aficionados for its gratuitous combination of excessive violence, nudity, and oddities never seen before or since.

The story is strictly low budget and is probably the film’s weakest aspect, assuming you like rubber water spiders, naked female fighters, and jive-talking Buddhist monks. Who doesn’t?!

The film opens with a great documentary style demonstration of the mystic ninja arts from the “Ninja Light Skill” to the “Water Spider Assault Team,” complete with informative text. Ninjas scale cliffs, break ice blocks, and burrow through sand like gophers. Their master brings the whole gang over to China to kill Shaolin monks in retribution for the death of his brother. Meanwhile, Alexander Lo, who plays a Japanese Buddhist monk is enduring an arduous test of his skills in order for him to also journey to Shaolin to respectfully learn from them. Interestingly, Shaolin happens to have several other guests which include two Nancy boy gwailos from California who hope to learn Shaolin kung fu and a fellow known as the “famous black monk from Harlem.” At this point, it’s not your typical kung fu movie anymore. But then again, this is Robert Tai directing and he’s been responsible for more than a few unusual or just plain bad independent films such as Ninja Death (1986) and Death Cage (1988).

After being initially rejected by the abbot of Shaolin, Alexander and his cohort happen upon the athletic Alice Tseng, who is being attacked by thugs. This leads to one of the only nude kung fu scenes ever after she’s disturbed by ninja while bathing. She definitely gets the most exploitive treatment in the film and ends up losing her head over it. The Black Monk doesn’t fair much better though. Physically, his performance is fine, but some nob gives him a jive-talking dub job. He spouts ridiculous dialogue I haven’t heard since Jim Kelly took on “Mr. Han man” in Enter the Dragon (1973). After the Black Monk is found dead, Alexander joins the Shaolin monks in battling the ninjas on land and sea.

This film is packed with loads of wild martial arts action, bad dubbing, worse acting, and even a snippet of the Ghostbusters (1984) soundtrack! Everything is improbable and its constantly thrown at you. The choreography is very animated throughout, but begins to wear thin by the end. Alexander’s last duel with the ninja chief becomes downright dull after watching ninja paddling floating, rubber spiders around in a lake. Now that’s excitement!

Ninja: The Final Duel is surely a b-movie fan’s delight for the most part. It can easily be dismissed as a banal and almost juvenile action film recycled from past films, but therein lies entertaining fodder for camp connoisseurs.

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