Ninja Dragon (1986)

 

Director: Godfrey Ho

Screenplay: AAV Creative Unit and Godfrey Ho

Cast: Richard Harrison as Ninja Master Gordon; Paulo Tocha as Paul; Pierre Tremblay as Pierre; Chung Tien Shih; Jean Tang; Tien Miao; Hsieh Wang

Canon Fodder

 

Benjamin-chan, that sort of thing went out with the ark.

Whilst Ninja Terminator is a more infamous film, and has the more compellingly weird content, there was a time I liked Ninja Dragon more even if surprisingly drier in comparison, owned back in the days when not only these films were second DVDs which got their own martial arts section in second hand stores, but that two sided DVDs were commonplace. The reason, to immediately get to the point, is that when Godfrey Ho and his producer at a time Joseph Lai started buying up pre-existing and even unfinished Asian films, and cutting them together with newly filmed footage for the eighties ninja craze,  Ninja Dragon's source material would have been fascinating to see as it was originally.

They used some odd choices, not just martial arts films but a variety of genres for stranger results, but Hei juan tao (1982), the source film, would be interesting for me to see as it was intended. Immediately, as a Taiwanese production, this is from the final years of the Taiwanese black cinema movement, genre films from the country which could vary between films with legitimate political themes and/or pure exploitation, Hei juan tao showing this with the nude scenes it has. In fact, with the knowledge of the movement, and seeing the down-to-earth film here being used, the ninja footage does feel exemplary in its bright and gaudy nature. It does even add charm due to this odd juxtaposition of tones now as a result, from seeing it crammed in, set up from a truly international poker game where ninja master where Ninja Master Gordon (Richard Harrison) will have to deal with

In fact, the ninja footage really does feel exemplary adding to the charm of seeing it crammed in, set up from a truly international poker game where Ninja Master Gordon (Richard Harrison) will have to deal with gang leader Paul (Paulo Tocha) attempting to take over in power and wealth among their peers, cutting to the original source film. The leader of a gang called the Black Tigers, Ronald, is murdered on Paul's orders by his group and his henchman Mr. Fox, with his oldest daughter Phoenix taking over with a figure called Dragon the aloft man at her side. With the other group attempting to bump them off, from trying to kill Dragon with his door booby trapped with a rifle or kidnapping Phoenix's younger sister Fanny, Dragon will have to help from moles and turncoats in their own group too wishing to help Mr. Fox and Paul. As with all Ho ninja films, the two worlds are disconnected, even if they cut to close ups to Harrison's face and splice them in to footage talking to the main actor of the original film, or have Paulo Tocha spliced in shooting the heads off flowers for target practice with his own minions.

Ninja Dragon is a drier viewing experience but it has its charm, even in something that is inherently part of these films in their contraction, such as the dubbing and writing of new dialogue to make this all have "sense", characters in these films with quasi-English accents from the then-British commonwealth Hong Kong having their own weird charm, and English language names and a tendency for calling people "bastards" to go along with this. The one major difference here with this film is that Hei juan tao was not even a martial arts picture, instead a crime narrative where conflicts were resolved with guns and shooting people, meaning that the ninjas involved and all being (mostly) Western white men is surreal to consider as a juxtaposition. In fact this film even takes this aspect of these films, which were churned out by Lai and Ho at the time each year, to an added subjective tone in that the Ninja Masters live in their own heightened world of politics and high tier intrigue, only pushing pawns outside their own worlds with phone calls.

Enough is to be found in the source material itself that does have some unintentional humour, such as the fact (when it happens twice) that people will bash their own skulls in on rock (or gravestones) to kill themselves rather than be taken prisoner, but this is one of the most straightforward and sombre narratives to latch ninjas upon. It does change how to view the film as, even with some of its broader moments, it is much more grounded then some of the stranger films. It even has more subplots and narrative complexity then others, which adds a great deal, such as Paul's gang having a mole kindly helping the Black Tigers or the figure of Benny, at first the comedic foil trying to woo Phoenix, even in something misguided as hiring goons to pretend to threaten her for a fake rescue, only to become a creepy whose involvement in the narrative adds an unexpected turn. That this is a Taiwanese film, from a crop of genre films that were made before the Taiwan government cracked down on them and the Taiwanese New Wave of art films came to be, now adds a greater weight as, for all the ones which were just pulp, this has their grounded and gritty tone even in its action, the matter-of-factness of the confrontations and ploys by the gangs standing out now for me.

Even the great music choices "borrowed" from other sources are deep cuts, as the main theme for this film, at least the ninja training sequences with Richard Harrison, is from the anime film called The Dagger of Kamui (1985), a sadly obscure theatrical anime by the veteran director Rintaro which was befittingly a period ninja epic.  This film Ninja Dragon, surprisingly, even has an unexpected twist which shows the source film used was a bit more creative, a wedding reception leading to a tragedy and a bleak ending even if Ho includes a ninja battle to leave the film patrons happy. That even that ninja fight has its own charm, set among urban Hong Kong and still having talented martial artists in the ridiculous ninja costumes fight, shows that this is one of the times Ho's weird logic with Joseph Lai to make these films, whilst still an awkward creation, almost makes sense when it works as here. This is definitely a film you visit later into your obsession with Godfrey Ho, as you do not get as much as the absurd lunacy that made these cut-and-paste ninja films notorious. It was one of the first I ever saw, and did leave a good impression, but I will admit that, if you were to even to attempt to argue for these films, this was one of the many he and Joseph Lai churned out should be one of the later ones to visit. It is, however, one of the ones which I can argue is legitimately entertaining though too, and I am only arguing for seeing later as, whilst more accessible, you need to understand the weird world of these films by jumping on a Ninja Terminator, then seeing how these films could have almost seemed a sane concept when one like this actually works.