Bionic Ninja

Bionic Ninja

1974 – Hong Kong

Director – Tim Ashby (Godfrey Ho)

Alpha Video Distributors, Inc., 1996, VHS

Purchased on the name alone, I found this title while looking for a cheap copy of Robo-Ninja, an as yet unfulfilled search. Produced by notorious Thomas Tang whoever the hell that happens to be at the moment, it was directed once again by Godfrey Ho and that, along with the inclusion of the word “ninja” in the title virtually guarantees racially segregated cut-and-paste nonsensical garbage.

Sure enough some white guys in crappy ninja outfits scramble around goofily alongside some Asian guys who never appear in the same shots. Thank god for all those convenient telephone conversations that make it so much easier to pass crucial plot threads between completely unacquainted overdubbed actors.

The asian guys have a fight on the road and some of them steal a “top technical secret film” from a lone overwhelmed courier. At this, the white guys send their top CIA agent Tommy to Hong Kong to recover the film from the thugs. But, on top of this the ninjas not only want, but don’t have the film, and they also hate the CIA.

Sorry Tommy, the ninjas hate you.

So in the course of this triangular duel are a series of disconnected fight and intimidation scenes with Asian cops, heavies and street punks, with the ninja rearing up once in a while to remind what this film is half called. The gangly courier though seems to be the primary suspect of all involved and is repeatedly harassed by the various parties.

CIA too, due to his natural enmity with all things clandestine, hence ninjas, is also harassed on his morning whistling-practice/stroll. After fighting them off, an Asian cop standing nearby(!) jumps in with the information that the ninja are KGB drones controlled by a master ninja.

More disconnected and ridiculous fighting and fist shaking menace occur with every other shot seeming to introduce new characters, it doesn’t help that they all have generic Anglo names and dress so similarly dumb. Nonetheless the stolen music is actually pretty cool but again so odd that it’s impossible to pretend I can really follow along with this.

CIA visits his own ninja master and is given an ancient montage training manual which he puts to use while the cops and heavies hack away at eachother with knives and hatchets and blunt dialogue until finally worn down, their section of the movie concludes.
That leaves only a little ninja fight to put those montage skills to the test and recover the top-technical-secret-film, which appears to be as close as we’re going to get to anything “bionic”.

Looks like French to me.