Regular visitors here will notice a sudden new look and title. That's because this is now a complimentary blog to our new larger web project Vintage Ninja.



Stay tuned for more...

Well, I'll start with a question: WHY DO YOU WATCH A LOW BUDGET NINJA MOVIE?

Potential answers:

-- Bad writing and acting, but at least the fights are cool

-- Bad fights, but at least there are hotties in ninja costumes

-- Soooo bad it's good, great for a party

-- Ninja costumes and exotic weaponry at least look cool on screen

-- Maybe they'll overcome the low budget with some legit espionage and tactical martial arts...

MASK OF THE NINJA has NONE of the above. NONE!!! Shitty fights, poorly directed and shot martial arts sequences (on which the movie is leaning on like a crutch), and the cheapest possible swapmeet/eBay swords. The costuming is a fucking joke, sub KILLER ELITE, way worse than the snowboarder gear in the SHINOBI series.

Honestly, what the fuck?

Why make a ninja movie if you're not going to bother with any effort in ninja costuming or gear. Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting CASTLE OF OWLS-wear here, but a littke paint on even the cheapest foam rubber MORTAL COMBAT halloween stuff out there puts the Army/Navy store look of this piece of shit to shame.

Why make a ninja movie if you don't have a decent martial artist within earshot?

Legendary shinobi shadow skills are the only martial art you can put on screen where if you do it right, you don't even need another martial artist for a fight scene. Look at the prolonged building invasion sequences from the low-budget 80's - Sho Kosugi's the only martial artist there, everyone else is a nameless heavy waiting to become a chalk outline. He kills them off one by one with an exotic weapon or cleaver commando technique, each outdoing the last in terms of grisly gore or outre shock value.

That the huge advantage ninja flicks have over other martial arts flicks. It's impossible to pull off a liquid sword fight, a tae-kwon-do kicking rally or a karate bone-crushing session without the properly trained people taking all the hits. And they're skills not always natural to just any movie stuntman.

Sonny Chiba trained dozens of specialized stunt fighters (the Japan Action club) to take his stiff shit and make it look even more brutal on screen. Chuck Norris had his guys, Jackie and Samo and Yuen Bao worked more together than the 3 Stooges, etc. and so forth.

But if you're in a jam, and have only one guy with any sort of rub, a properly designed ninja movie is perfect. This is especially true for this contemporary-set flicks that American specialized in during the 80's craze. The whole "ancient skills unleashed on a modern world" gimmick, or the "traditionally trained Japanese master let loose on the streets of America" notion goes hand in hand. You get great shuriken vs. sub-machine gun scenes, every killing of a heavily armed guard via a 500 year old weapon reinforces hero. And you get an audience sitting on the edge of their seats wondering what goofy bladed doohickey is going to be unsheathed next, and where will this dude bury it on the next overconfident sap who challenges him.

BUT, if you have none of that, you get a pretty damn useless piece of unenjoyable exploitation. It's the modern low-budget curse.

There was a day when, if a guy lived in the Pacific Northwest, he could throw together a cheap Sasquatch costume and film a down and dirty fun-as-hell Bigfoot movie in his backyard. Nowadays, the same movie is shot DV in an Arizona parking lot with both the monster and the woods being added in from digital stock footage and composited on the level of a school project. Shit, I've seen scarecrow slasher films that didn't have a farm location to shoot in, so they put it in digitally. If you don't have a damn farm, don't make a scarecrow movie!!!

So good friends, skip this one. Although Kristy Wu is absolutely scrumptious...

MISERABLY negligent in updates here, and there's actually been news, too.

Well, here's a grocery list of cool stuff to check out:

For starters, there's now a short trailer for the live-action KAMUI film at the official website here. The far right link is to the trailer, for the kanji deficient (like myself). I love just about every permutation this property has taken in both print and animated form, and I liked the Azumi films enough to have optimism here.







Dunno who this evil-looking chick is going to be, but I'm thinking scrappy kunoichi!


MEANWHILE - we here in the US brace, some expectantly, some with a sense of dread and/or disappointment, of a new wave of 80's-model ninja flicks. It's gonna be a Kosugi-inspired year, for all the good and bad that entails.

Just released is a full trailer for the Scott Adkins vehicle NINJA - write-up and clips here.



I like Adkins a lot - UNDISPUTED II was a surprise gem and I can't wait for the third, but man does this flick look dumb. That suit is killing me, BUT, I do understand that it's going to be the year of Snake Eyes-envy, so it makes full sense in an exploitation environment. In that respect, NINJA could be the 'best' of the new ninja wave's offerings.

Despite it's budget and celeb directors and studio backing, I have a lot less hope for NINJA ASSASSIN. There's nothing worse than big money ruining what should be a low-budget easy-to-do project, and that's the vibe I keep getting.



I absolutely HATE all the flippy, high-kicking, kung-fu wire-works martial arts I'm seeing here, the weapons look overdone and stupid... feh! All the slowly leaked clips and images have been collected here. I'm thinking NINJA might just be the TOMBSTONE to NINJA ASSASSIN's WYATT EARP, or DEEP IMPACT to AMRMAGEDDON...

Then there's the already-out on DVD and airing on cable MASK OF THE NINJA (buy it here). This one's pending on my NetFlix right now... oooh, can't wait.



Gotta love that big close-up image of the $10 balaclava used to herald what I'm sure is NINE DEATHS OF THE NINJA-caliber entertainment.... And what the FUCK is Anthony Wong doing in this thing???

BUT, like I said earlier, it's probably going to end up being the year of Snake Eyes, and of course Storm Shadow.



Regardless of how much the G.I. Joe movie is probably going to be a real STREET FIGHTER-level embarrassment, there are some pretty kick-ass toys coming down the pike:



I'm trying not to be a shinobi-snob right now, but it's damn tough. It was one thing in the 80's when all we had was Golan Globus-fare - Kosugi, Dudikoff, and ilk - a time when the high-end of things was THE OCTAGON and you were still thankful for a direct-to-video AMERICAN NINJA sequel. We had no clue how badly were getting jipped of the amazingness Japan's contemporary offerings and cinema archives held.

Now, that stuff is on DVD in legion, and I find it very difficult to get excited about these retro-American flicks when I own amazing remastered versions of SAMURAI SPY and CASTLE OF OWLS.

So I'll end things with another plug for Animiego's SHINOBI NO MONO domestic releases. It's important for all of us to support this line so it continues.

**UPDATE** - NEw teaser for the below can be found here!



While a few Western ninja flicks are due in 2009, I'm way more into some home-grown Japanese fare, especially the newly teasered KAMUI live action flick. This image from the just updated official website looks dead-on to the original property:



Kamui - the ninja trying to leave the shadow life behind, but unable to ever fully find peace - has seen a few incarnations in manga and anime form. Crafted by the acclaimed creator of "Kagemaru" SANPEI SHIRATO in 1972, the original manga ran for three years, and was then resurrected in a gritty and grimmer form in 1982.



One of the first translated manga series to grace store shelves in the US was the 80's run of reprints by VIZ comics, which I HIGHLY recommend. See some pages here.



And check out these incredible capsule toys from 2007:







This 'german suplex' sort of move was a Kamui special finisher, done from the high branches of trees to the hard earth below. The notion of a ninja with a pro wrestling closer warms my heart...

HIBERNATING is the term I prefer, not 'dead' or 'dormant' or 'abandoned' or any of that shit. Have a little faith folks...

I've been hoarding tons of ninja goodness for a major site / project relaunch in early 09. In the meantime, an accidental discovery of a ton of screen caps from various ONMITSU DOSHIN TV shows brought me out of hiding. This particular incarnation of the Edo-period police dramas featured Female Convict Scorpion / Lady Snowblood herself MEIKO KAJI in full shinobi gear getting into all sorts of misadventure!



Kaji was better known for grim, dead-eyed violent sexploitation fare than the low budget formulaic chambara TV we all love, and once in a while she actually SMILED in these shows - a real departure from the women's prison lesbian gang fights that have forged her a cult following here in the US.



Best of all, she'd routinely break out the classic kunoichi mission gear! You could not ask for sexier eyes and a killer thousand yard stare. Enjoy...























Swoon...