The Ultimate Ninja
(aka Warrior Revenge)
1986; directed by Godfrey Ho

Even by IFD Films and Godfrey Ho's lax standards when it comes to cheeseball 1980's ninja films, their 1986 effort The Ultimate Ninja is anything but "ultimate". Disjointed and confusing -- and most damningly of all -- just plain deadly dull to slog through, this is one release that will have you wishing for scenes of Richard Harrison on a Garfield phone just so you could have something to laugh at.

After learning how Godfrey Ho used footage from him in over a dozen movies, Richard Harrison refused to work with the director again, and so Ho brought in various replacements for the white-boy ninja roles in his cut and paste messterpieces. This time out, we have Stuart Smith and Bruce Baron, who play the head of two rival ninja clans. Of course, as anyone who has seen a Godfrey Ho ninja movie will know, even though both Smith and Baron have the martial arts moves of a Wal-Mart greeter on a heavy dose of Sonata, the audience can still tell they're ninjas because they wear the mandatory headbands emblazoned with "NINJA" on them.

Anyway, the clans each control an ancient artifact, and if the two pieces come together, the clan that holds them will rule the ninja world. Or some such twaddle. The red clan, with is led by Baron, holds the "Golden Ninja Warrior" (the same statue used in Ninja Terminator and probably a dozen other Godfrey Ho movies) while Smith's black clan has a ninja action figure. Yes, I'm serious. This movie is so incredibly low-budget and slap-dash, they went and repainted a GI Joe Snake Eyes figure. Actually, they probably couldn't even afford that and just used some sort of knockoff like you would find at the dollar store under the name GI Jose.

Most of the actual ninja mischief, which is not all that interesting to begin with, is put to the side for the majority of the movie, as Ho employs footage from some terrible Thai actioner about a dullard who learns kung fu to protect his village. There are a couple of clumsy attempts to integrate the different sources, but, as a whole, it is not surprisingly very convincing at all. By the time Smith and Baron have their climatic confrontation under a picnic pagoda at a park, you'll be more than ready to hit the eject button as to not further sully your DVD player.

RATING: 3