My Cultural Diet

IMDb lists this one as Hands of Death but Ninja Operation 7: Royal Warriors is such a better title; it really speaks to the ridiculousness that is a Godfrey Ho ninja film. Unfortunately, even with the presence of Ho regulars Richard Harrison and Mike Abbott, both of whom wear “Ninja” headbands throughout the film, there’s only the bare minimum of ninja action here. This mishmash is, instead, focused on efforts to find a cache of gold hidden by the Japanese during World War II. In keeping with Ho’s cut-and-paste aesthetic, much of Ninja Operation 7 actually comes from a 1985 Korean-Taiwanese-Thai production titled The Great Jungle Escape that was directed by Kim Jong-seong, only re-edited and re-dubbed to work with Ho’s own footage. (Interestingly, this might be the first time I wanted to see the film that Ho used for his source material. The Great Jungle Escape looks to be very much in the same vein as Jackie Chan’s Armour of God, and features some wild martial arts action.) It’s all pretty threadbare, though, and given the story’s slapdash nature, I spent much of my time figuring out the film’s soundtrack. As with his other titles, Ho liberally “borrows” for Ninja Operation 7’s music, which explains why you’ll hear cuts from Italo disco star Miko Mission, Mark Knopfler, Stewart Copeland, Art of Noise, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, and even James Horner’s score for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It’s not the worst Godfrey Ho film I’ve seen — the ridiculous dialog elicited a few chuckles and I had to make sure I wasn’t tripping when a Sheena-like character came riding in on an elephant to fight some cannibals — but it’s no Ninja Knight Thunder Fox. Unfortunately, the version currently streaming on Tubi was cut off at the edges. Every scene lacks about a fourth of its footage, which renders them even more inscrutable than they’d normally be.

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