Verdict
Summary
Visual Vengeance has just used their Hocus Pocus to bring these two wildly wacky ninja movies to Blu-ray in a deluxe, extras-packed Blu-ray. They’ve taken time and money to present the films in the best possible transfer, with commentaries, posters, new artwork, a booklet, stickers, and more to keep you going for hours and hours. Thanks, VV! Consider me completed.
Born a Ninja (1988) Plot:
Two ninjas go to war for a secret formula.
Review:
Tanaka, a government scientist who is the only person alive who has the secret formula to a deadly germ created in a lab, is targeted by a government spook and his henchman: They want the secret sauce! Hiring outside help in a ninja named David (Patrick Largent), the government man points his finger to Tanaka, who is now on the run and protected by another ninja and his master. The good ninja is Larry (Daniel Garfield), and his master has taught him the silent and deadly art of Hocus Pocus (seriously)! Hocus Pocus enables Larry to disappear and reappear at will, turn himself into a straw man in the middle of a sword fight, and conjure shuriken stars out of thin air! Each time David meets Larry, David ends up with egg on his face, completely befuddled by Larry’s impressive skills at Hocus Pocus! Before anyone can celebrate, though, David’s boss sets Tanaka on fire, but extinguishes him before he burns to a crisp (which is insane because he literally doused him and made him drink gasoline), and Tanaka goes on the run again without a single singe on his skin or clothes. Hocus Pocus master Larry saves Tanaka, who ends up laughing himself into madness at the end.
Cobbled together from unaired TV episodes from an Asian show that never saw the light of day, Born a Ninja is a shot-on-videotape disaster piece with tons of wild ninja action (lots of jumping from trampolines and scrambling up and down trees), and anyone can see that’s it’s a horrendous piece of trash art in motion, but I can also commend it for having eye-catching action and lots of it. “Directed” by Joseph Lai and Godfrey Ho, the film has nonsensical dialogue, finger-pointing, smoke bombs, kid playgrounds that are used as action set pieces, rapid-fire zoom close-ups, and head-scratching moments that go on far longer than they should, such as a very long close-up of tires spinning for no reason at all.
Commando the Ninja (1988) Plot:
Two ninjas team up to save the world from a deadly germ from being stolen by a villain.
Review:
A Japanese scientist named Tanaka has hidden a deadly germ, and a Caucasian government spook and his fluorescent yellow-jacketed henchman accost him and demand that he give the vial of deadly goo to them so that they can ransom the world in a dastardly plot of terrorism. A ninja they hire to help them get the job done – Larry (Patrick Largent) – goes to work, not realizing that another ninja – David (Daniel Garfield) – is already on the case and is protecting Tanaka. When Larry and David cross paths (on a playground, I believe, which serves as their battleground), Larry is stunned when he realizes that David is a master of Hocus Pocus, an elusive, Taoist art of Ninjutsu. Instead of continuing their fight with each other, they bury the hatchet and go have some hibachi grill together and get to know each other. Once they’ve laid the groundwork for friendship instead of rivalry, they come to a peace agreement and decide to work together to stop Tanaka’s germ from being stolen and so as two deadly ninjas, they fight the villains and save the world.
Is Commando the Ninja a prequel, a sequel, or the same movie as Born a Ninja? With the exact same plot, same characters, same actors, and the same electronic score as the other movie, it baffled me in the same way I was baffled some 25-30 years ago when Stephen King published his two books Desperation (as Stephen King) and The Regulators (as Richard Bachman) at the same time. Both books had almost identical covers, had the same characters, but he shuffled the plot and characters around just to fool with his readers to see how they’d react. Desperation was the better book (by far), and The Regulators was the weird mutant creature made from leftovers, but it was a “novel” (wink-wink) experiment that has never been done before or since. I sort of feel the same way about Commando the Ninja because it was obviously composited with leftover footage, some new action scenes, and the exact same plot as before, and so it certainly feels like the flipside to the other movie, but with less action and more glaring errors, such as when the ninjas land on blue mattresses (oops, not supposed to see that) or when actors are suddenly replaced by other actors mid-fight (say what?!). The movie just trucks along, not caring what you think. From the same “filmmakers” as Born a Ninja.
Visual Vengeance has just used their Hocus Pocus to bring these two wildly wacky ninja movies to Blu-ray in a deluxe, extras-packed Blu-ray. They’ve taken time and money to present the films in the best possible transfer, with commentaries, posters, new artwork, a booklet, stickers, and more to keep you going for hours and hours. Thanks, VV! Consider me completed.