Awww yeah! It’s freak out time with Godfrey Ho and Joseph Lai, two of the nuttiest martial arts moviemakers in the business. Give them a handful of wacky, old school kung fu movie reels, a couple of gweilo actors, and an English-dub script with at least ten references to ninjas and they can produce glittering crap from… crap. But at least it’s amusing.
For their 1985 magnum opus, Ninja Thunderbolt, Lai and Ho (I’m sure there’s a crude joke in there somewhere) take the majority of Tommy Lee’s Taiwanese martial arts actioner To Catch a Thief (1984) and splice in footage of international B-movie king Richard Harrison as a “serious crimes” division head with the alter ego of a ninja!
Lee’s original film deals with the efforts of a kung fu-fighting police detective (Don Wong) and an appropriately violent insurance agent (Yin Su-li) to bust a cold-blooded thief (Yasuaki Kurata) and the corrupt business executive he’s working for. Harrison is edited into the movie as Wong’s superior. Along with him comes an invented plot involving a secret ninja empire, to which Kurata supposedly rules.
For anyone unfamiliar with the work of Joseph Lai and IDF Films and Arts Ltd., this dubious repackaging of Asian action movies is standard procedure and they’ve built a healthy filmography of similarly oddball titles.
In this case, it’s hard to judge whether Lai’s version is any worse than the original film. For starters, the editing creates a nightmare of disjointed scenes where plotting and continuity are almost non-existent. Tommy Lee, a talented classic kung fu action director, tries to make his movie into a Jackie Chan-style stunt flick, but it’s more humorous for the wrong reasons than impressive. Mixed in with scattered kung fu action, there’s wild pyrotechnics, chase scenes on roads, stairs and ski slopes, and inconceivable car stunts. The most insane stunt has a guy perched on the side of a car that’s speeding along on two wheels.
For every somewhat impressive action scene, there is something to puzzle over or laugh at. We’re treated with pointless, gratuitous softcore sex and practically unfathomable excuses for one increasingly odd chase after another. At one point Wong’s car flips upside down on top of another speeding car. The goofiest scene sees Wong in a three-wheeled midget car being tailed by roller-skating ninja. It’s either misunderstood genius or the work of a drugged out imbecile.
On the topic of drugs, Lai adds a not-so-clever parlor trick where a dealer pulls out about a dozen joints from his mouth to give to John Ladalski. This is easily trumped by added ninja bits so stupid they defy all reason. Harrison is seen twice pulling out a glistening ninja sword from his closet, his magic closet. There’s a strange, dramatic pause as we get to bask in the glow of the all-mighty blade, his magic blade. After retrieving it a second time, Harrison is replaced by a double in ninja garb who runs to the top of some hill, only to loudly shout, “NINJA!” He is a ninja after all. A split second later Harrison is out of costume again and facing some female opponent we’ve never seen before for the movie’s colored smoke bomb-tossing finale. Both magically change into their ninja garb with a puff of smoke, magic smoke. Someone at IDF Films inhaled a little too much magic smoke if you ask me.
Now the “real” finale is a match pitting Don Wong and obscure actress Yin Su-li against Yasuaki Kurata. I can at least say this, these two male stars know their screen fighting and fans should be pleased with this bout. It’s the sparring high point of this crapfest to witness these two trading fast and powerful-looking blows. Director Tommy Lee is in familiar territory once again and for several minutes at least, all is right with the world, even if the action digresses into moments of exaggerated fantasy. Yin is a decent stunt actress, although she doesn’t compare to other ’80s fighting femmes like Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock.
Ninja Thunderbolt is a bad, bad movie that still entertains. It could almost be argued that Joseph Lai and Godfrey Ho make art from trash filmmaking. There’s a consistency to the level of absurdity that the film displays, which is only amplified by their efforts to recycle it into a gleefully inept ninja flick, complete with Arabian-style synthesizer music. I humbly bow to their skills and will now leave you with a few random ninja quotes, arranged Joseph Lai-style for your enjoyment.
by Mark Pollard
