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Ninja: The Protector

AKA: Ninja Thunderbolt, To Catch a Ninja, Ninja Powerforce, Ninja Commandments, Ninja Hunt *

1986

Director: Godfrey Ho

Stars: Richard Harrison, Stuart Smith, Don Wong

I don't think any dictionary could offer up enough synonyms to describe how truly awful this film is. I've watched a lot of movies in my life -- most of them some degree of bad -- but this one ranks among the worst. The inane plot has some sort of low-rent James Bond wannabe going after a secret virus held by a group of white (as in Westerners) ninjas. At least that's what I think it's about. Almost every scene seems to introduce some new sub-plot and goes nowhere (this being one of Godfrey Ho's few original movies, I think he was setting out to just get as much footage as he could get to cut-and-paste into more films). And the fights? Poor at best -- but, then, how good could they be with a bunch of out-of-shape white guys in cheesy ninja outfits attempting to hit each other. My grandma would be more convinicing as a ninja, and probably more fun to watch.

This movie is so bad I developed a headache after the first fifteen minutes and it was torture sitting through until the end. Spare yourself some pain and skip this one.

RATING: 1

* Probably the worst thing about this movie is that it managed to turn a profit. It came out at a time when US video distributors were desperate for any product to fill store shelves, and martial arts films were almost always good renters, regardless of their quality. So Godfrey Ho and his partner in crime Joseph Lai took turns "directing" the sequels to this movie, which consisted of slightly re-editing, re-dubbing, and in a couple of cases, actually adding in some new footage -- which is why I consider the other films in the series to not be stand-alone movies, but rather, different versions of the original.

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