Okay, so I bought a bunch of B-movies recently, increasing my VHS load considerably.  I have no regrets.  And if there’s one thing you can count on to be B-quality, it’s ninjas.

I’m going to go ahead and post a clip of the opening of this flick, which I took it upon myself to upload.

 

It’s narrated as if it were a documentary, and for some reason has a theme from Rocky II in the background.  Because when you think ninjas, you think Rocky II.  And mud wrestling.

Immediately after we’re finally finished talking about ninjas and their absurd training methods, we switch to a kendo dojo to be introduced to our badass hero.  Since this movie has no credits, I could not double-check the spelling of his name, so from what I can guess, it’s Chen Hanwei.  For simplicity’s sake, we’ll call him Chen.

After the kendo master’s demonstration, the main heroine of the flick shows up and demands he train her.  After being told that the school doesn’t allow the training of women, she beats the crap out of the students and challenges the teacher.

She gets completely owned by the teacher, who again says he can’t go against tradition… but as a new friend, she is welcome to visit the class at any time.

The scene changes again, with some unknown girl stripping to get into a shower so she can be murdered by a ninja.

A detective investigates the murder by questioning Mr. Chen, who sort of knew the victim.  She was the latest in a long line of one-night stands he bangs on the side, and he doesn’t give a damn that his wife is standing right behind him.

We’ve got a character named Chan and a character named Chen.  Oh yeah, this won’t be confusing in the least.  What’s established here is that Chan treats his wife like crap, and his sister-in-law (kendo girl) keeps telling him off to stop being such a dick.

Anyway, off to the morgue!  The detective learns that the woman was killed by a poison apparently used exclusively by ninjas.  How that mortician knew that is anyone’s guess.

Thus begins the detective’s “ninja lead,” and he is directed to learn as much about the ways of the ninja in order to solve this case.  The detective turns to Chen, who appears to have knowledge of the workings of the ninja, and he teaches the detective what he knows about… well, we already know how ridiculous these guys are.  Strangely, he claims the ninja originated from “the ancient kingdom of Japan.”  I’ll let the awkwardness sink in for a moment.

Meanwhile, more ninja murder is afoot, as kendo girl’s business partner is killed in a pointlessly roundabout way: his chauffeur turns out to be a ninja, and his assassin takes the opportunity to… push a nail through his forehead.

Whatever works.  Strangely, the chauffeur later dies from poison gas leaking from a car.  One might think this means multiple ninja factions are at work, but… nope.  I actually have no idea why that guy died.

Chan seeks out Chen, who confirms that a calling card left for Chan indicates he has been targeted by the Iga ninja.  Chan tries to hire Chen as a bodyguard, but he refuses.  Afterwards, he mocks Chen’s hired bodyguards and beats the crap out of them, claiming they are no match for the ninja.

I don’t know why you would do that if you weren’t planning on coming back to lend your services.

Chen visits kendo girl (who, I should remind you, is Chan’s sister-in-law) because I think at this point they’ve gotten together for some reason, and kendo girl discovers a gift left by a ninja.

Oh no, a snake!  Chen, get in there and…

…okay, moving on.

One of Chan’s bodyguards is goofing off with some slut, and he takes the opportunity to pull out his gun and make as many double entendres as possible.  Then he invites the girl to go “horse riding.”  I hope he means exactly what you think:

Afterwards, they have good ol’ fashioned missionary… which is the worst position you want to be in when dealing with a kunoichi.  The girl poisons the bodyguard with a rather ingenious method where she scratches him and spreads powder in his open wounds.

Chen returns to Chan and offers his services as a bodyguard.  With the ninja apparently targeting Chan’s whole family, it’s in his best interest to stop them and prevent his girlfriend’s death.

Chan also reveals that he was trained by a former ninja who was assassinated by the Iga.

So fighting the Iga is, like, double-personal.

In the meantime, the detective hunts down a lead and raids a whorehouse because ninjas.

As it turns out… there was in fact a ninja in that whorehouse.

The ninja gets caught off guard by the detective, but he quickly hides behind a whore and uses her as a shield.  If you pay attention, sparks fly off her chest when the bullet hits, so I can only assume she’s some kind of mortal sexbot.

Back at kendo girl’s place, a kunoichi breaks in and uses her glowy eyes and a drug dart to put her under hypnosis.

Kendo girl is compelled to attack Chen while he’s taking a shower.  Somehow, in one scene she’s unarmed, and in the next scene she’s holding a HUGE FUCKING KNIFE.

Anyway, she’s easily subdued and sent to a hospital.  Chen returns to Chan’s side and averts a potential death by poisoned documents, as demonstrated by the documents killing some innocent goldfish.

He also tells everyone that the obviously-a-ninja secretary with huge glasses was a ninja, and reveals that Chan’s desk was bugged.  He puts the ninjas’ tactics to work for them by planting false information, drawing the ninja into an ambush.  And so we get to the first true encounter between the Iga and Chen.

HE BEATS THE SHIT OUT OF EVERYONE WITH TONFAS, SON!

However, almost every ninja either gets killed or commits suicide (annoyingly, this was the “harry carry” era of pronunciation…), and one ninja manages to flee.  The detective arrests Chen for allowing the ninjas to kill themselves in front of him.  YEAH, THIS MAKES PERFECT SENSE.

Meanwhile, someone else gets killed by Pro Wrestler Ninja.

This guy isn’t just a ninja that’s also a wrestler.  He’s like a mini-Hulk.  He completely shrugs off all attacks and is apparently strong enough to stop a car in motion.

Meanwhile, the detective realizes he was being a total dumbass and enlists Chen’s help to go on the offensive.

Chen and the detective attack what appears to be an abandoned house, where Chen finally has some trouble taking out Pro Wrestler Ninja.  Until he decides to take the guy down Hoth style and tying a rope around the guy’s ankles and… everything else.

A kunoichi almost takes Chen out from behind, but she gets taken out by the detective, who… shoots her.  For a ninja, that’s… that’s just kind of anticlimactic, isn’t it?

The ninja girl gets taken in and prevented from killing herself.  The detective tells Chen that the police are ready to raid the ninja base at dawn.  The ninja girl overhears this and escapes the only way she knows how:

Subtly.

She rushes to the ninja island to warn them of the attack, but that’s exactly what Chen wanted.  She led him right to their base.  The Iga chief promptly tells her how stupid she is and tells her to kill herself, so she does.

Chen fights his way through and infiltrates all the way to the big boss himself, and the man who killed his master.

I really have to comment on how fucking stupid that lit sign behind the Iga chief is.  I don’t know what it says, but I like to imagine it says something along the line of “SUPER SECRET NINJA BASE HERE!”

What follows is an entertaining back-and-forth battle, until the lights get taken out.  Then you can barely see a damn thing.  The fight ends when the Iga chief throws a short knife and takes Chen out in the exact same manner as his master…

…except since it was dark as fuck, he couldn’t see that Chen was faking.  He gets attacked from behind, and the battle continues.  Eventually, Chen gets the upper hand, forcing the Iga chief to resort to his final technique.

His final technique is acting like a cross between Curly and a crab on heroine.  It looks retarded as fuck, and Chen gives him the most appropriate WTF face ever.

This technique is successful in confusing Chen and gives the chief success for all of 10 seconds before Chen still beats the shit out of him and kills him.

Following the Iga chief’s death, Kendo Girl appears with a gun aimed at Chen, and she reveals it was her who orchestrated the hit.  Because she really REALLY hated how Chen treated her sister.  That’s worth hiring ninjas to kill people around Chen and freak him out before attempting to kill him in a roundabout manner.  Before Kendo Girl pulls the trigger, she gets shot in the shoulder by the detective.  That detective sure is great at shooting girls.

Where do we go from here?  Was it all worth it?  What did it all mean?  Well…

Waiting for credits… waiting… waiting… aaaaaand blackness and an annoying beeping noise.