Ninja vs. Ninja (1987)

I can't believe that I managed to watch the majority of this "movie". As soon as it starts, all the warning bells go off. It begins with a demonstration of uh... ninja fighting prowess by a bare-chested man of African descent who strikes a pose, causing a column of smoke to blast up and he's suddenly dressed as a white ninja. The picture is clearly caught on cheap video and the music sounds like it belongs on an infomercial or industrial video. This ninja meets some other black-garbed ninjas and they fight and suddenly they are friends. At this point the entire thing is pointless.Then suddenly we're in a completely different movie, which appears to be some Hong Kong crime thriller, which appears to be better than the initial ninja movie, but it's hard to tell because everything appears to be cut out of order for the first half of the running time so that the ninjas can find their "tape". The Honk Kong crime thriller appears to be about a crime investigator and his police detective brother who encounter a serial bomber with criminal connections, but it's hard to tell because of how badly the movie was cut together with the ninja footage and then everything was very poorly re-dubbed on top of that.It's entirely clear that this film was originally the Hong Kong crime thriller and was recut to add the Caucasian and African ninjas (who are also dubbed over) for some people for the white import/export audience to relate to, since Asian cops with their guns and investigating crimes, wives and children, french toast and eggs and driving of cars are so incredibly hard to relate to. So exotic! That cop has black hair and speaks in Cantonese! Anyway, the plot of the film when recut revolves around ninjas having to acquire some tape. They fight in a way that's completely ridiculous, even considering the silly ninja stereotypes that exist. Their scenes are so poorly cut into the film that whenever they pop up, you can't help but laugh, but they take up so much screen time doing nothing that it's absolutely painful to keep watching. The original crime thriller is clearly nothing worthy of an award, but the film manages to be at its best when it's staying as far away from the added ninja nonsense as possible.This is an absolutely painful 81 minutes and it could've been somewhat bearable if it weren't for the fact that the film was recut to be generally incomprehensible. The dubbing is awful. Any scene where the ninjas appear is very awful. The sound quality is terrible and because of the way it was mish-mashed together, it's near impossible to get a solid read on the acting/direction of the central film, but from what can be seen it's mediocre at best. I can't think of a good reason to watch this because it's so bad that it just stays really really bad. And then it gets worse. There are many poor quality films out there, but this one actually made me think of many of those films with a measure of respect. At least they're moderately coherent.I guess that's the only reason to watch it: to learn to appreciate the drivel that sometimes counts of film-making. I'd rather watch all of the Friday the 13th films consecutively than watch this film in entirety again. I'd rather watch Ultraviolet, Aeon Flux and both Underworld movies followed by a Ernest Goes To... marathon than watch this "film" again. You have better things to do with your time. Like staring at the wall. Or trying to conceive of the number of toes that exist in the universe. Avoid at all cost. I watched it so that you don't have to. 1/10.

Seldom there exists such triumphs, such classics as movies like 'Ninja vs. Ninja'. Never before has a movie challenged the very edifice of modern thinking with such unflinching brutality.McCally plays Terrence, a young and ambitious pimp with a dream to become the greatest ninja ever, but all he has is his word and the money in his pocket. After being evicted in some intense cinema that perfectly shows the strife that Terrence feels as well as illustrating the the trauma experienced by evicted pimps every day. Kwong Wai is the old white master who has all but given up on life. However, it all changes when he meets Terrence. In a thought provoking scene that set the standard for all movies that followed, Terrence convinces Wai to train him to be the greatest ninja that ever lived. As Terrence continues in his training, Kwong Wai begins to learn what it means to be human again. In a tender and emotional scene that had tears streaming down my face, Kwong Wai meets Helena Bonham Carter in an uncredited role. Seeing how she reminds him of his wife (who died in a WWII concentration camp), he breaks down and cries. He calls on Terrence to help him form a relationship, only for Terrence to fall in love with her himself. This subplot comes to a sad ending when she is kidnapped by Yeung Wai Men (as themselves), a domestic hate group brought from the dead by a Ninja (Norman Chu) craving white supremacy.Finally, in a stunningly choreographed graduation fight scene, Terrence becomes a full-fledged Ninja. But it is too late. The Yeung Wai Men arrange for Helena Bonham Carter to be thrown off the tallest building in Nebraska. Terrence races there on foot, but he is too late. He arrives just in time for her to die in his arms. It is the most heartbreaking scene in the movie, where they proclaim their love for each other and talk about their future. In the last half hour of the movie, Terrence swears his revenge on every white supremacist. He captures and tortures one of the Yeung Wai Men for the location of the man known as 'Ninja'(still Norman Chu). In the surprise twist of the century, we find he has captured Kwong Wai and is holding him in Terrence's old apartment. He gets there in time to see Ninja murder Kwong Wai and then take his own life. In the end of the movie Terrence learns that the ones he loves will always be the ones who pay. This is an emotionally powerful scene that will draw out all the tears.Unfortunately, only about three people ever saw this. The movie was snubbed at the Oscars and was only released on video, but you must not pass it up. Ninja vs. Ninja gets my highest recommendation as the most important film ever made.

Compiled from footage shot for at least two and possibly three motion pictures, Ninja Vs. Ninja is a logic free melange of martial arts and cops n robbers footage. The film starts with sped up footage of an African-American (?) ninja going through the motions as bland disco music plays in the background. He then turns into a white ninja who faces off with an evil black ninja (who's actually a white guy). Cut to some other white guys chatting about some nefarious plot. Then cut to your standard issue HK actors in a crime film about a missing tape. The white and black ninja drop in and out of the other film--their footage is badly matched, needless to say--until the film's abrupt and extremely disappointing conclusion. Ninja Vs. Ninja was released on video by Ocean Shores Video, who kindly supplied the synopsis for yet another completely unrelated film on the clamshell box. Only for hardcore connoisseurs of extremely inept cinema.

Ninja vs Ninja isn't a movie. It's two or three movies edited together and combined with some short footage of Ninjas. The plot makes no sense at all because there isn't one. There are just random things happening. This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and I watch movies like this all the time. Ninja vs Ninja makes Manos: The Hands of Fate look like an Oscar winner.