Ninja, Phantom Heros U.S.A. (1987)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Awesome Movie

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

NINJA PHANTOM HEROES is one of the typical cut-and-paste ninja concoctions from director Godfrey Ho (hiding under his pseudonym of Bruce Lambert) and partner in crime producer Tomas Tang. As usual, there's some really goofy ninja material featuring the most wooden western actors they could find mixed in with an old Hong Kong or Taiwanese crime drama which is a real struggle to sit through. You'll be tempted to fast-forward the pasted-in movie segments just to enjoy the madness of the ninja action, complete with very basic camera FX and bizarre weaponry. I think if they took all of the various filmed ninja segments from Godfrey Ho flicks and put them into a film on their own then they'd have a masterpiece on their hands.

There are more outrageously entertaining Godfrey Ho movies than Ninja Phantom Heroes, but those who have come to appreciate the man's unique vision will find more of the same to enjoy here. Mostly cobbled from a Chinese gangster potboiler, the movie's actual ninja to non-ninja screen time ratio is pretty paltry. Even the somewhat dull segments have a usually unintentional charm, however, with more than enough silly dubbing and odd dialog to keep bad movie warriors watching.Among the highlights are a brief fight between a drunk white guy and three goofy Chinese guys; a guy throwing a cup of tea in his own face; any scene involving the characters "Baldy" and "Fatty"; gratuitous evil Chinese gangster chuckling; stick-wielding motorcyclists attacking a car; revenge accompanied by the line "You dirty rat"; and, of course, the obligatory disappear-and-go-poof ninja henchmen.Potential victims, I mean viewers, should be aware that the version of this movie available as part of Mill Creek's Ninja Assassins 10-pack, confusingly retitled Ninja Empire (also the title of a different Godfrey Ho movie), is only 78 minutes long, whereas another version apparently runs 90 minutes. Frankly, though, since most people will be glad when it's over, it probably doesn't even matter.

Yep, it's time for yet another completely nonsensical cut & paste abomination, produced by infamous hack maestro, Tomas Tang. This one also boasts the indignity of some of the most inappropriate music ever to grace an action scene; the sort of mundane arrangement one might very well expect to hear playing in a shopping centre in fact!To be entirely fair, even though the main body of the film is sadly, rather a chore to sit through, the last five or so minutes more than make up for it; Indeed, you'll hardly believe your eyes as our ninja pals battle it out with metal discs(!), a bullet firing parasol(!!) and last but not least a bizarre twirling thing which closely resembles the inner blade component of a food mixer!!! If this wasn't baffling enough, we are finally treated to a completely 'What the fu- I mean, hell?!!' ending which appears to have been tacked on for no apparent reason whatsoever! Deranged stuff indeed, but with Tang on the credits, what more could you possibly expect?

I read on a different site that this film was put together from generic stock footage of various martial arts films. I believe it! The soldiers in the Military Prison wear outfits that look like they are made of vinyl. The "ammunition dump" is indicated by a white bedsheet that has "U.S. Ammunition Dump" scrawled across it in shoe polish.With such lines as, "Maybe it's a plot to kill US"(accent on "us") and "They're throwing a party in honor of the local rich," it will leave you confused long enough to see the final "climactic" fight between the white ninja and the cameo ninja...with weapons like an umbrella that shoots fireworks, a flying percolator, and a bunch of silver-painted LP's!Somewhat hard to come by...so if you do, be sure you have beer handy.