My Cultural Diet

Thanks to the mystical Golden Ninja Warrior idol, the evil Ninja Empire is nigh invincible. Needless to say, when three of its members steal the idol’s pieces, the Empire is determined to retrieve the Golden Ninja Warrior and punish the traitors. Unfortunately, the bulk of Ninja Terminator has precious little to do with ninjas, mystical idols, and such. That’s because much of it’s actually footage from Kim Si-hyun’s The Uninvited Guest of the Star Ferry, a 1984 Korean film that has absolutely nothing to do with ninjas. As is his wont, director Godfrey Ho simply cut up Kim’s film, added in some random ninja scenes starring Richard Harrison, and smoothed over the rough edges with dubbing and editing. (Apparently, he did this to make Kim’s film more palatable to non-Asian audiences.) The mashup seems relatively cohesive at first, but no amount of dubbing or editing can hide the seams between the two films. Nor can the appearance of Tim Blake, Jean-Michel Jarre, and Logic System on the soundtrack. Eventually, Ninja Terminator becomes ridiculous and nonsensical in classic Godfrey Ho fashion, and I wish he’d just stuck with the Richard Harrison footage and its toy robots, cartwheeling and teleporting ninjas, oodles of eyeliner, and Garfield phones.

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