The Brawl Busters (1978)

 

Director: Kim Jeong-Yong

Screenplay: Richard Hung

Cast: Il-shik Jang, Yong-seok Kang, Yeong-ran Seo, Moo-Wung Choe, Mu-Seong Kwak, Debbie Ling, Chung-Il Nam, In-Ha Yoon

Ephemeral Waves

 

Starring "Black Jack Chan", the more notable detail for myself in the credits is Joseph Lai (and to a lesser extent Tomas Tang), a delightful appearance to witness in the credits alongside the familiar type of English dub voice acting here which I have only found with Godfrey Ho films. It was a pleasing surprise to return to this world of Joseph Lai, even if this is clearly a South Korean martial arts film he has taken and re-appropriated for an English speaking audience, as much an influence on Ho's infamous cut-and-paste ninja films and a sharp reminder that both, before the likes of Ninja Terminator (1985), had their names on a glut of martial arts films, in this particular case a South Korean entry from director Kim Jeong-Yong. Rather than a film about a 'Jack Chan', likely in mind to Jackie Chan's growing success, this is a film from a prolific filmmaker who spent a great deal of time in martial arts cinema as much as producing one-off curiosities like War Of The God Monsters (1985), a Korean kaiju movie that now immediately stands out as an enticing film to witness.

This like many of any country of origin has a very familiar premise - an evil leader, very good at martial arts, had a family slain over a priceless sword their patriarch won but he felt was rightly his, the only survivor a female baby who, rescued by a Buddhist monk, is out for revenge as the head of an all-female assassination group. A mysterious male martial artist, who makes his entrance catching darts in the air holes of his flute, is tagging along behind her as an ally. It is like many of these films, not just other Joseph Lai productions, so this film's level of unpredictability is a habit of martial arts cinema I am glad exists. This, even with the casual swearing per the Lai production formula of their English dubs, has its own energy, which does also help with the few things which do feel less well in terms of telling a simple story. It is a bit convoluted at first, causing confusion unnecessarily when our female lead, is pictured as a villain contrasted by a son willing to avenge a slain father of one of her targets, despite the later having been a baddie and his son a minor henchman in the end. Our lead does as well, sadly, gets maligned in n her own film to the male lead, so it is to Brawl Buster's virtues that it has a frenzied energy to make up for its imperfections. It even pulls off the "it was all a dream" segment for the lead villain, dreaming of killing the female assassin with his bedroom trap mechanisms, including one of a few times a net confounds a person, which is among its gleefully creative moments for what is a story and plot seen many times before. Especially for something not as perfectly explained as it is should be, factoring in that this English dub from the Joseph Lai group probably took liberties with the source material, this is a huge virtue.

You can see this in even the minor henchmen having their idiosyncratic special moves, a trope which has carried through martial arts from Shaw Brothers to a South Korean production like this thankfully. Tornado feet and extending sleeve attacks, razor male ponytail whips, steel claws (which look like oven mitts with foil claws to be honest), and even crushing spike trap set pieces are among the cavalcade of idiosyncratic pieces to this, to the point I see these martial arts films and realise video games were clearly inspired by these types of films. Even beyond the likes of Kung Fu Master (1984) by Irem just being martial arts stories adapted into a new medium, it is with how bosses in arcade games were clearly following the concept of escalation of each villain has their own idiosyncratic abilities. Hell, even the habit found just in Joseph Lai films like this, but other martial arts movies, of two heroes needing to team together to fight one main villain, which could be seen as unfair and is contrasted by Western films having one-on-one brawls, evokes how multiplayer co-operative games, like scrolling beat-em-ups, cane have players teaming together to actually get to the end of the game.

This comparison is apt as, baring the disappointment that our female lead, and her bevy of four female assassin assistants as the leads as promised in the beginning, a lot of the appeal of The Brawl Busters is that same cathartic unpredictability. The martial arts is solid, and our female protagonist still gets to be a strong character in terms of fighting skill, so a film like this is worthwhile if you have a taste for these type of productions. That is important as being able to split these obscurer martial arts films from each other, and able to appreciate them for their quirks, is different from watching some of the most acclaimed of this genre who have their own auras. As someone who went beyond those ninja films to binging multiple films in succession from this earlier Godfrey Ho-Joseph Lai martial arts films, I can attested to both how one should not try to do that, but also that even lower tier cheesy films like this can show their moments and personalities that, even if it is a scene or something silly, make them rewarding. The Brawl Busters you can appreciate for its bugnuts imagination and the level of creativity to any work like this even if not one of the acclaimed ones.

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.

Ninja Terminator (1985)

 

Director: Godfrey Ho

Screenplay: AAV Creative Unit, Godfrey Ho and Warren See

Cast: Richard Harrison as Ninja Master Harry; Jang-Lee Hwang as Tiger; Jack Lam as Jaguar Wong

An Abstract List Candidate

 

Yes, that's my ninja star.

I once binged on Godfrey Ho like a mad man once, acquiring a large quantity of his films on second hand DVD, even the "straight" martial arts films his name was put onto let alone the films he was notorious for. A Hong Kong born director, those notorious films, including Ninja Terminator, were his "cut-and-paste" ninja films. They are not the only part of his filmography - he directed martial arts films and even worked with Cynthia Rothrock - but they are his most infamous work with Ninja Terminator one of the most well known. When I first reviewed this film on a blog - back in January 1^st 2012 - the film had a 4.4 rating on the Internet Movie Database, and as I blog this time the score has climbed to 4.6 as of the 12th March 2021. Ho's legacy is marked with this notoriety, and internet cult status, for said films.

Ho's career with the ninja films are tied to producer Joseph Lai, and his video production company called IFD, these films now are a cultural artefact which are fascinating to look back onto, especially when they managed to be successful with said films . Ninjas became popular, with the Israeli cousins and film moguls Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus began a string of films on ninjas like Enter the Ninja (1981), and a fictionalised form of the Japanese mercenary came to be of note. Lai and Ho acquired martial arts films, even unfinished ones, from around Asian and spliced in new footage with Western actors like Richard Harrison (even non-actors) in costume store ninja costumes and churned them out. Like its own perplexing web of narrative, the ninja films due to how many were made, where Richard Harrison only shot footage for a few only to end up in far more, and that they have reoccurring themes have a perverse Borgian lunacy to them if anyone was mad enough to watch them all.

In this one, three ninjas (including Richard Harrison) steal from their ‘Ninja Empire’ the pieces of the Golden Ninja Warrior, an artefact that can turn your body and arms into living shields able to deflect even sword blades, crafted from a prop which looks like a nifty gift store present. Yes, there is a weakness to this artefact I am not surprised is never brought up in the film, that one’s legs could still be lopped off from under you regardless by a sword, but such a powerful McGuffin kickstarts the ball rolling. The Ninja Empire is on the hunt for the individuals responsible for its theft and one of the three ninja thieves is killed, leaving Harrison’s Ninja Master Harry fighting for good, while his conspirator within the two years that have past is leading a crime syndicate and wants to claim the remaining pieces. From here, the new footage is spliced with a film acquired to cut into this one, through scenes of characters calling others from an entirely different source by phone, including Harry with his infamous Garfield telephone which closes its eyes when the receiver is put down.

Through his second in command - who dresses in a white suit and a lovely blonde curled wig - and his own set of minions, the syndicate goes after the surviving sister of the murdered ninja to claim her piece of the Golden Ninja Warrior. To protect her, Harry sends in his own man Jaguar Wong (Jack Lam), a suave and skilled fighter who intends to help her and generally undermine the actions of the syndicate with his fist. It is fascinating to watch Ho and Lai's work nowadays again as experiments in trying to create new material with mostly old work, an experiment which even becomes nearly meta as, in another infamous aspect, the Ninja Empire send toy robots to give characters warnings, including video tapes which use footage from pre-existing films shown on television screens. Godfrey Ho, alongside his producer Joseph Lai, is infamous for this run of ninja films which take pre-existing films and re-edit them, intercutting new scenes of ninja combat and Richard Harrison, to weave together  new narratives using the English dubbing script and some blatant editing techniques. It was done mainly to capitalise on the bludgeoning obsession with ninjas in American culture in the 1980s, so you can view this as a questionable practice as well as ramshackle to the extreme. Nowadays however, this cinema is now an artefact of an old era, as even the time when these films managed to get on DVD, and shipped in the United States and Britain, is now the past alone in the eighties when they were first commissioned.

Time now allows you to learn the film spliced in is Uninvited Guest (1984), a South Korean production, and that the film gets away with a lot of borrow music, not least a Japanese band Logic System. Even if something I am amazed never got them into trouble, especially when they were pinching from Pink Floyd too for this film, the soundtracks in hindsight were always awesome from these films when they worked. How these films have not occurred the wrath of the original musicians, especially since they have been released on DVD unlike rip-off films that have borrowed music too, I have no idea. No one care, no one knows about their existence, or Roger Waters really adored cut-and-paste ninja films. We will never know.

They are accidently, if blundering through the experiments, demonstrations of the ‘Montage of Attractions’ theory that Sergei E. Eisenstein, the legendary director of Battleship Potemkin (1925), had developed. Eisenstein believed that by juxtaposing two single images together in a specific way would have a certain effect on the viewer, and that it could be used in different ways to have significant power to them. This is seen at it best with Lev Kuleshov’s experiment known as the Kuleshov Effect, where the same image of Tsarist actor Ivan Mosjoukine was spliced together alternately with an image of a plate of soup, a person in a coffin, and a young girl playing, each version having a drastic change in effect on the viewer in each combination. By utter accident, in an attempt by Ho and Joseph Lai to take unfinished and obscure films from South Korea, Taiwan etc. they ended up practicing the same methods Soviet filmmakers perfected to make numerous films over the eighties and early nineties even if for financial reasons. It does not completely work, as much because the pleasures fans of these films have is also the seams being visible, but the illusion is a curious experiment, especially as they did not just use martial arts films, but at least one softcore soap opera set in the fashion industry as well that was remade into Ninja The Protector (1986).

Admittedly, Ninja Terminator does have one huge flaw, even in context of this series of films, that the source film is not as energetic as it could have been. Clearly a film focused more on a conventional crime genre, where a villainous minion has to cut off his finger or that this film has to weave in a drug deal Jaguar Wong hijacks, the ninja material for the most part of the more memorable content for good reason. There is so absurdity, like a female lead being threatened with a ticking clock out of a cartoon, or a final fight with the blonde wigged villain on the beach, where sand proves a weapon in immobilising a person, but this is one of the films Lai and Ho used which is less distinct than the ninja footage. With a plot that, because of two different sets of footage being spliced together, doesn’t really make sense, the film ends up being an abstracted version of these sorts of c-level movies. The tiers of each side face other but do not interact with members of their own side in other tiers, outside the moments when they are connected together by editing of course, and fights break out about almost every five minutes. Nothing is seen as ill-advised production decisions either. No one raised an issue about toy motorised robots being the messengers of death for the Ninja Empire, walking into rooms under the veil of ominous smoke or getting stuck on the raised doorway, but its charming and hilarious to see especially when the robots boom with the voices foreboding doom on those who trespassed against them.

Everything that transpires in the film either undermines conventions of plotting, such as having a henchman of the villains get his own prolonged sex scene, or all the tangents of the life of Master Ninja Harry and his wife being witnessed, such as her trying to cook crabs or her career in the fashion industry, making up for the fact most viewers would find this a nightmare to sit through. Any moment it seems to slog through the minutes is undermined by the fact that something interesting is going to happen, as much now because the world here of Hong Kong is now a lost one. Ho would retire from cinema in the late nineties, and whilst not really connected to the fact Hong Kong would go back to China after 1997, there is something more profound now in seeing the city in this film, even if there is one scene where a post card or an image was clearly used to establish locations.

Godfrey Ho and Joseph Lai, while they could be taken to task for their idea of generating as many films they could sell from existing materials, at least, when their creations succeeded, made movies that are entertaining, and used pre-existing materials that had something inherently watchable about them for any viewer even if they were trash. Even the ninja sequences, with stunt actors clearly doing the fighting in the cheap ninja suits for the likes of Richard Harrison, are competent and have skilled performers involved so that, despite most ninja fights in Ho’s films consisting of flips and repeated sword clash sounds, they have something of worth even over some martial arts films made out of Asia, where non-martial artists are hired and have to be covered over in editing.

The real disappointment, if any, is not the final product, as these films were an acquired taste even when they developed an ironic enjoyment or even had legitimate fans. The issue is that, particularly with Ninja Terminator, it does not have the same impact as for my younger self that it once had. It does feel like a Frankenstein stitch job, and suffers from a result, able to see the original source film awkwardly fit the new frame. It is neither particularly abstract either, but I feel as much of this is from the choice of source film as I suspect, one day, one of these cut-and-paste ninja films I will reintroduce myself to or learn of will be legitimately weird to see. Instead, this one was even quaint to see, something charming in its wonky nature even in terms of the English dubbing, where Asian characters all have English names like Victor, all if most rarely threatening, and a comical and excessive use of swearing used. With this film, generic tropes are cut to shred like an unfortunate watermelon Richard Harrison practices on with his katana and is repeated again later in the film to compensate for the lack of a second training montage, and in terms of a climax, one involving the trademark of these films of coloured smoke bombs and back flips between three ninjas definitely makes up for the failings, even if I am fully aware of this film's many setbacks.

Abstract Spectrum: Erratic/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None