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Ninja Strikes Back
This slice of Bruceploitation cheese is particularly brazen, not only stealing elements from the Little Dragon's filmography like Enter the Dragon wholesale, but cribbing notes and methods from other movies such as Goldfinger as well. The end result is a picture that really can't be considered good in the true cinematic sense of the word, but is a fun enough time, especially if you are primed with a few frosty adult beverages beforehand.
The thin shred of a plot has Bruce Le (who also co-directed the film) playing a character named... wait for it... Bruce who is working in Rome as a henchman for a local crime boss. Why is Bruce working in Italy? Oh, silly reader, don't trouble yourself with little details like plot realism and coherency here. At any rate, after getting out of prison, Bruce wants to go straight by helping the local cops find an ambassador's kidnapped daughter. However, Bruce's old boss won't let him go so easily, and so sends henchman number two (Hwang Jang Lee) after him. Can you guess the outcome? If you can't, might I suggest picking up some Focus Factor and scheduling a vasectomy?
At any rate, Ninja Strikes Back sets itself apart from the usual Bruceploitation fare by just being so bizarre. First off, for a movie with "ninja" in the title, there's very little of everyone's favorite black-suited assassins in here. Most of the so-called ninjas are tubby white guys who look like they barely can climb up a flight of stairs, much less dispense death under the cloak of darkness. Adding to the nuttiness are the two main ninjas, who are played by Bolo Yeung and Harold Sakata, whose body types are the total opposite of what one thinks about when the word "ninja" is brought to mind. Not only that, but Sakata's character is an unabashed ripoff of his character Oddjob from Goldfinger, down to the movie using the James Bond theme everytime he's onscreen.
Despite the low-budget and unoriginal nature of the proceedings, Ninja Strikes Back still manages to provide some decent entertainment, especially if one heads into it with a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 state of mind. Sure, the movie's poorly made, but it's never boring. And the fact that there's actually some decent fight scenes presented here as well courtesy of "bootmaster" Hwang Jang Lee (and some hilariously bad Street Fighter-esque effects) make this one of the better Z-list movies that you could pull out of the DVD bargain bin at your local dollar store. RATING: 5 This movie is available from Amazon. |
