Ninja Squad
(1987)
Reviewed by Scott Marshall
Rating: 10 Beans

rgh. My head hurts just thinking about this
movie. Apparently it also goes under the name
Ninja Death Squad, and director Tommy
Cheung made no less than 3 other movies in
1987 with the word Ninja in the title. Fortunately
he does not appear to have made any other
movies, ever.

Anyway, Ninja Squad is a very, very, VERY bad
martial arts movie about a philosophical master
of the ancient art in question, his former student
Billy, and his nemesis who challenges him to a
duel to the death. The film opens with a
younger Billy pestering the strangely blond,
caucasian Ninja master about what ninjas are,
what they do, etc. The master gravely states that
ninjas were created to do the sneaky
assassination work that samurai would not do
in ancient Japan, and so they still do today.
What the master does not explain is why his
costume is hot pink with an inverted silver
pyramid thing over his chest- much like a Power
Rangers uniform. Nor does he explain why all
ninjas these days apparently wear a headband
which says "NINJA" in big letters on it. I guess
the whole secrecy thing has gone by the
wayside: we’re here, we’re ninjas; get used to
it!

So Billy buggers off somewhere and the rest of
the movie alternates between him returning
home to what looks like a South American
village (but may actually be the Australian
outback or Thailand) and his Master’s nemesis
travelling around, killing all ninjas on his way to
a showdown with the big man.

First, Billy’s story. His sister is kidnapped by
local thugs because they refuse to pay
protection money or something. Even though
Billy is a ninja, he doesn’t wear the uniform or
headband; he picks up a machine gun and
wastes the gangsters at every opportunity. His
girlfriend’s father, who happens to be the local
banana republic police chief, warns his
daughter that "Billy is a ninja.. ever since he
came back to town there have been ninja
killings.. BAD ninja killings!"

Meanwhile, because the Blond Ninja Master did
not accept the challenge from the Red Evil
Ninja, the Red Ninja proceeds to tour the
countryside killing all of the BNM’s former
students, except Billy. Apparently killing a ninja
requires nothing more than the lightest brush of
a katana against your clothing. The Red Ninja
takes their headbands as trophies, so even if
they wake up, they can’t be ninjas anymore.

Billy eventually hunts down the gangsters in
what looks like a dockyard set from a Matt
Houston rerun, gets the drop on the head
pimp/gangster, and fills him with lead. The
cops arrive, including the chief and his
daughter, and plead with Billy to give himself up.
He agrees and comes out with his hands up;
unfortunately the gangster is not quite dead, and
he picks up a pistol and plugs Billy a few times
in the chest. Some ninja.

With Billy dead, that leaves only his Blonde
Master and the evil red guy. They meet at the
break of dawn, teleporting out of thin air in full
costume, and have a lackluster sword fight with
katanas, broad swords and other weapons that
seem to come out of nowhere. Finally the BM
does a backflip and runs the Red Ninja through.
He falls dead and the BM does another backflip,
teleporting away. The end. Literally, less than a
second later, it says "the end" and the screen
goes black, sans credits. Wow.

This is probably the worst martial arts movie I’ve
ever seen, the so-called ninjas seemed to have
no martial arts training whatsoever, and as one
person on the IMDB surmised, this is really a
standard gangster picture with ninja footage
spliced in and the whole thing redubbed.
Bonus beans for the soundtrack, which is
clearly just samples from contemporary rock
music, and I’ll bet my Playstation 2 that royalties
were never paid for Mark Knopfler’s theme from
"Local Hero" or the drum intro from the Human
League’s "Human."

The NINJA SQUAD video box is very optimistic in
its suggested retail price of $59.95 (slightly
higher in Canada). I paid 3 dollars for the thing
and I still feel ripped off. It could have at least
come with a Ninja headband!

• About Scott Marshall

• Would you like to add your own movie reviews to this site?
  Find out how!

• In Association with Amazon.Com