Turkeyface reviews:"The Ninja Squad" (1984)

So what to do when you've got your hands of some grainy Asian martial-arts film with a mundane story about a young martial-arts practitioner and his attempts to protect his poor family from a nasty gang of thugs .. but what you really want to do is make yet another film with 'Ninja' in the title?

If you're Hong Kong director, Godfrey ('Undefeatable') Ho it's no problem. Simply shoot some new scenes in a park using middle-aged Caucasian actors dressed in cheap day-glow fancy dress costumes then inter-splice these with the old film redubbing the dialogue to form one cohesive story about ninjas. Nobody will be able to spot the difference, right? Well, not quite.

Leaving aside the misleading title (there is no 'squad' of ninjas anywhere in the movie) and the fact that the film quality of the two segments doesn't really match, the revised plot has our Asisn hero dubbed with a bizarre Australian accent and named 'Billy'. We learn that Billy the Ninja has trained for 10 years to become 'the ultimate ninja' under Gordon, the Master Ninja - but who's only ever shown in the new park-based footage.

After returning home, Billy finds his ninja skills won't find him a job in his village and the machine-gun toting gang (this time dubbed with incongruous Mexican accents) are demanding their protection money.

Meanwhile back in the other footage, Gordon - dressed in a shocking pink costume with huge gold 'Glitter Band' type shoulder pads - receives a challenge from 'Ivan the Red Ninja', so named because he is dressed in red ...though I thought a great missed opportunity for a Russian accent here. Ivan demands a fight with Gordon to prove he is indeed the greatest ninja ever. When Gordon declines, Ivan vows to fight and kill one top ninja a month until he changes his mind... culminating with his protégé, Billy.

So plot established, the rest of the movie switches scene seemingly at random from 'Billy vs. the gang' to Ivan fighting and knocking off one ninja after another, each wielding a different choice of weapon and resplendent in individual gaudy coloured costume - blue, yellow, even a snazzy camo-patterned blue .. and none the most inconspicuous choice for a ninja, you'd think.

After each kill Ivan triumphantly retrieves the loser's headband emblazoned with 'Nin' and 'Ja' (plus a helpful picture in-between in case you didn't get it) then strolls off across the lawn looking very pleased with himself to send it to Gordon.

It was at this point I saw a potential problem: the final ‘Ivan vs Billy’ showdown as each character is only featured in their own footage. In addition, Billy in his film displays no ninja skills at all preferring good ol' fisty-cuffs or a gun. So, will it be clever editing? Nope.

Director, Godfrey just lets the original story play out (Billy kills the whole gang but is then shot by the leader in his dying breath) while Gordon only learns of this tragedy in his parallel universe when his wind-chime falls off the tree. We can assume this always happens when a ninja disciple dies.

It seems Ivan decided not to bother with a ruck with Billy employing the gang to do his dirty work instead. A bit of a cop-out from someone out to prove he's the ultimate ninja.

So, at least we're now left with ‘Ivan vs. Gordon’ for the grand finale, right? Well, yes …but it's almost identical to the previous fights we've seen. The only difference is Gordon wins, does a back somersault and disappears with a puff up his own arse immediately followed by a jarringly abrupt 'The End' .

Bonus DVD extras: trailers of various other Ho 'Ninja' titled films.

50 pence well spent, I think.

Turkeyface: The Deep Sea of Randomness

I'm just setting this thing up at the moment so nothing to see. What do I intend to do here? I have no idea right now - but after following a few blogs recently I thought I'd give it a shot.

FAQs

What or who is Turkeyface?

'Turkeyface' was character I doodled many years back which gradually developed into an idea for a comic - think 'Leatherface' but with a butcher's apron and machette - or maybe 'Blood Freak'. The concept was to offer the character to a various artists/writers to incorporate into a short strip in any way they wished. In the end nothing ever became of it but I've become attached to the fella.

Why 'Deep Sea of Randomness'?

It's a long story so if you're really that interested, search the phrase on Google - or Reginald Cahill and Christopher Klinger. So what's a theory of physics got to do with my blog? Obviously very little.