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The Ultimate Ninja Collection
Who can resist a free ninja star with ultimate ninja action? Not this guy. So I plunked down five hard-earned bucks at the local used bookstore and got Crash Cinema's The Ultimate Ninja Collection, a four-DVD box set that may not be the ultimate in the genre -- especially since it only really features two films -- but at least offers a bit of fun if you're into the cheesier side of martial arts cinema.
The packaging is surprisingly robust for a budget release such as this. All four DVDs are in the same clamshell case with their own spindles, which keeps them secured. There is also a cardboard sleeve that repeats the same artwork featured on the cover of the clamshell. And, yes, there is a ninja star included, but don't think you'll be dealing any death with it, as it is a cheap piece of foam that flies for about six inches after you throw it, before falling limply to the ground.
The menu screens are boring, but get the job done. Video-wise, both movies are in non-anamorphic widescreen at 720x480 resolution at 29.97 FPS. Noticeable ghosting at points to a rushed PAL to NTSC transfer. Venom of the Ninja is in a 1.85:1 ratio, while Ninja: The Final Duel is at 1.78:1. However, the video appears to have been matted from full-frame sources, leading to heads being cut off and the like. The audio is a decent sounding English dub. It is presented in stereo, but there are few effects used.
The extras consist of trailers. Ninja: The Final Duel has its' own, while the trailers on the other discs are for a seemingly random collection of other old school kung fu movies. Some of these are the original English trailers, while the rest looks to have been created in-house by Crash Cinema, since they use modern stock music and have cheesy-looking title cards inserted.
Reviews, clips, and screen captures for each film are below. The screen captures were obtained with VLC Media Player and the clips were extracted via 4VideoSoft; neither have been altered.
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Ninja Kids
Like many Chinese releases, finding out the facts behind Ninja Kids can be tough. Director Joseph Kuo kind of went a bit nuts here and shot just a smidge too much footage -- actually, about ten hours worth -- so the film was released in two versions. The first whittles everything down to one ninety-minute feature, and the second splits the footage into installments, which were then retitled depending on what company released them. The version here is called Venom of the Ninja and gets even more confusing because they are further re-edited and presented like a episodic television series. This is where things falter. Though the ninja action is fun enough and there's plenty of gratuitous nudity (the main character played by Alexander Lo Rei runs a brothel) to hold your interest, there's way too much recapping and flashbacks going on, to the point that it gets very easy to zone out until the next ninja attack or bare breast pops up.
RATING: 5 |
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Ninja: The Final Duel
This is another release where the background information is sketchy. This seems to be a similar setup to Ninja Kids, in that director Robert Tai shot a ton of footage, supposedly a whopping thirteen hours' worth. The finished product has only been released in abridged versions such as this, which some sources lists as being related to Ninja Kids, but this is not any sort of sequel, with the only common elements being Alexander Lo Rei and a copious amount of naughty bits, including a fight scene where a female assassin takes on her target in the buff. Besides that, there's also some pretty bizarre action going on, including a villainous Hare Krishna, a Shaft-inspired monk, and ninjas riding nefarious inflatable pool toys. It's this sort of stuff that makes this film cheesy, yet a bit compelling, at the same time; at the very least, this isn't your standard ninja flick.
RATING: 5 Note: a more detailed review of the movie can be found here. |
