Diamond Ninja Force (1988)

Ninja Master Gordon (Harrison) is a cool dude who just wants to go around Hong Kong taking pictures of his girlfriend Lori (Francesca). But oh no. When an excavation on a building site reveals some bones and human remains, naturally a sinister gang of evil ninjas called the Black Ninja Clan see this as an opening to reassert their dominance, which they believe has only been impeded by good ninjas, called the Diamond Ninja Force. When members of the Black Ninja Clan murder Lori, Gordon dons his red ninja outfit and starts getting revenge one by one. Meanwhile, a family consisting of a father named George, a mother named Fanny and a son named Bobo move into a house. Because the house's original owner had some connection to the site where the bones were discovered, all manner of scary trickery is employed to frighten the family. Will the Black Ninja Clan end up ruling the world as they so desperately want? Will Bobo and his family ever move out of the haunted house? Will Gordon get revenge? All questions should be answered by the DIAMOND NINJA FORCE...It's another work of genius (????) by the master of nonsensical entertainment, Godfrey Ho. We keep going back to Ho's work because his movies, if nothing else, are original. No one else in the world makes movies like him. He provides a unique form of entertainment that only he seems to understand. Once you get used to his filmmaking style, you want more. Much like how, with Pringles potato chips, once you pop, you can't stop, here it's once you Ho, you can't...go? Well anyway you get the idea. Diamond Ninja Force is more silly fun, with all the loud, crazy dubbing, and nutty goings-on that we've all come to know and love. Do the people reading the dubbed dialogue think it makes sense? Or do they know it's crazy? Do lines like "There are no such things as ghosts. Only ghost ninjas" seem at all normal to anyone? Regardless, we should be happy no one raised any objections, because if it's zany entertainment you seek, look no further.Much like how Ninja Brothers of Blood (1988) was one-half ninja outing and one-half romantic drama, here we half a half-and-half combo of ninja-based revenge and Poltergeist (1982) or Amityville Horror (1979)-inspired supernatural haunted house hoo-hah. Harrison's enemies during his plot line are great. There's nothing more intimidating than a tubby Caucasian "ninja" prancing about on roller skates. Every single time Harrison dispatches one of the baddies, he pulls down the piece of cloth on his mask that covers the lower half of his nose and his mouth. Every time. Even after he has killed many people. Are we supposed to still be surprised it was him? Or maybe he's just trying to show that his mustache has, and always will have, dominance over theirs. Also you know Harrison is going into "ninja revenge mode" when he puts on guy-liner. So we can see his eyes are all done up anyway.Other people out there have mentioned Harrison's Garfield phone, but it's so cool: when the receiver is off the hook, his eyes open, and when the receiver is put back, they close again! Though it is somewhat incongruous when Harrison says angry threats using part of Garfield to relay the message. When he says, using the Garfield phone, "you're on my death list", does that mean he's going to kick them off the table like Garfield did to Odie? On the soundtrack front, there are more wonderfully blatant steals from popular songs - this time around musical cues are stolen from The Who's "Who Are You" and Kraftwerk's "Trans Europe Express". When the opening bars to what you think are these songs start playing either while Harrison is ninja-ing it up or a family is dealing with a haunted house, you know you're dealing with something special.While some prints are said to have an unrelated Sho Kosugi opening, many don't. The version titled Ghost Ninja certainly doesn't. Even though he was top billed on the artwork, we can safely say he was a no-Sho. We were disappointed, so avoid the version by that title. But even without the Sho intro, the movie does get off to a pumped-up opening, and takes you on another ridiculous ride as only Godfrey Ho can. Whether that's your cup of tea, only you can judge. But if you're anti-Ho, you're missing out, as far as we're concerned.

Basically a sequel to "Ninja Terminator" only Richard Harrison's character is now Ninja Master Gordon instead of Harry. Everything else is the same, from his wife (Maria Francesca) and the Golden Ninja/Goblin idol to the awkward scenes with the Garfield phone. This time however the Caucasian Ninja storyline is intermixed with an Asian knockoff of "Poltergeist". The Black Ninjas want a sacred piece of land that contains buried magic talismans that will restore their Clan's strength in an ongoing battle with the Diamond Ninjas that seem to be represented only by Master Gordon. The head badguy Kogan, who has the absolute WORST taste in clothing, enlists the aid of a Ghost Ninja who in actuality is the ghost woman that haunts the family in the separate movie to secure this plot which currently a family of three resides on. The family consists of George, Fanny and their dopey son Bobo. Yes, his name is actually Bobo. Kogan also employs various pasty white guys who resemble more Sears employees than Ninjas though fans of Godfrey Ho movies know that this is the norm. The two story lines don't mesh well at all (no surprise) as the poltergeist movie isn't really interesting at all even with its occasional nudity and masturbating ghost. Can't say I would complain with being haunted by an Asian woman that wanted to screw my brains out but hey that's just me. The few fight scenes in the Master Gordon story are quick, stale, and utterly goofy. It seems all of these Black Ninjas like to fondle pistols in public places during the daytime. Not smart. This is pretty bad even for a typical Godfrey Ho movie as there is little to no momentum from beginning to end and nowhere near as fun as "Ninja Terminator". Many of the scenes shot at night are so horribly underexposed that I had no clue what was going on, not that I cared. Even Richard Harrison looks incredibly bored filming this garbage. So stagnant that it should have been called Cubic Zirconia Ninja Force.

Sure this movie is terrible and drags a lot during the haunted house scenes but the sheer blatantly awful quality of the film is rather intriguing. The voice dubbing on the family who are living in the house is laughably awful. The film was obviously made with little effort or enthusiasm and the result is pathetic. I love the name of the family's son: Bobo. That's right Bobo. What the hell kind of name is Bobo? Have you ever heard of anyone ever being named Bobo? And when the people that provide the voice-overs deliver lines with the name Bobo as if it were a perfectly valid name I couldn't help but laugh uncontrollably! My favorite line: "Bobo! Don't tell lies!"Anyway who cares about the worthless sub plot! This Movie has the word ninja in the title and legendary film maker GODfrey Ho at the helm, so you can expect some pure adrenaline pumping ninja action to kick your ass! This movie has a fantastic opening where we see Ninja Master Gordon and his woman walking along the waterfront. They are confronted by a group of thugs who look like accountants and one of them boldly proclaims: "someone tells me your a ninja!" Woman: What are they talking about Gordon? Gordon: Nothing dear. just an old fairy tale. Some guy: I know how to find out if your a ninjer or not!" Then Gordon kicks their assesThe fighting is just absurdly bad. Some of the ninja movies i've seen have some good fighting in them but this one is bad for the most part because they use these lame overweight accountants in a lot of the action scenes and they don't know any kung fu at all and pose little threat to the invincible ninja master but There are these two Asian actors in this movie who play as stunt doubles and ninjas in a a few of these movies. I don't know there names unfortunately but one is the Leader of the golden ninja clan in ninja terminator i think. They luckily add a bit of excitement but the rest of the fighting is just Gordon effortlessly slaughtering the accountants. with the use of suriken, smoke and other amazement.Fabulous film! I hope someone is transferring these movies to DVD just so they can be purchased or rented. they're not that easy to find.

Another mix up from Godfrey Ho, and this time it´s an old Japanese (I recon..) ghost movie, or whats left of it, with new Richard Harrison scenes added afterwords, some 10-15 years later. Apparently Harrison quit the movie buisness because of all the trouble he got from Ho and his paste-up jobs.Anyway, the movie (the old one) is about a family moving into an old haunted hose. There are a dozen ghosts (some of them horny as hell), some maggots and other haunted house thingies.The new scenes with Harrison is about a wizard ghost ninja who is making up all these haunted house horrors, so he can scare the family away and get this magic ...object...so he can become the most powerful wizard ghost ninja in the world. Pretty much like it sounds like....so bad it´s good. recomended, sort of, but could induce headache and minor brain damage.