My Cultural Diet

It was well after midnight when Ninja Vengeance popped up in my Tubi recommendations and convinced me to stay up way past my bedtime with its premise of a ninja battling the KKK. And technically speaking, that is what happens in the film when an itinerant ninjutsu student — who rides into the small town of Empire, Texas on (what else?) a Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle — witnesses the Klan kill a young Black man and is subsequently framed for the crime. But as he flees into the Texas backwoods, pretty girl in tow and the Klan in hot pursuit, it quickly becomes obvious that Ninja Vengeance might be the most boring permutation of “ninja vs. the KKK” one could possibly commit to celluloid. Although its premise suggests a gritty exploitation flick, Ninja Vengeance has the look, feel, and acting quality of a made-for-public-access-TV-movie, to say nothing of its fight scenes. To be fair, I’m sure writer/director Karl Armstrong sought to expose the evils of racism, and I’m all for watching Klan members get the smackdown. Furthermore, the film features Stephen K. Hayes, a renowned martial arts instructor who brought ninjutsu to America in the ’80s and drops little nuggets of ninja wisdom throughout the film (e.g., “Your reward is spiritual growth, the opportunity to be a conscious part of the scheme of totality”). Ninja Vengeance thus possesses a certain earnestness that makes it impossible to hate and piques the curiosity as to how it was even made in the first place. That said, it’s arguably the worst ninja movie I’ve ever seen, and that includes Godfrey Ho’s filmography.

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