Ninja Spotting Techniques
I have decided to review the film, Revenge of the Ninja, which was on Direct TV recently. I remember as a child desiring to watch this and finally the day came 25 years later. And let me tell you, there wasn’t a moment I wasn’t glued to the screen making sure I had a chance to practice my ninja spotting skills, and oh yes, this film puts those skills to the test!
It was like seriously broad daylight and yet these dudes in black ninja suits with red headbands could remain completely invisible to the human eye. Did I mention broad daylight? It was like the ninja suit and headband automatically made these dudes invisible, I mean seriously, I didn’t even see them either…it was oh, that’s a ninja, but then again ninja are so secretive and good at invisibility that it couldn’t possibly be a ninja–my mind must be playing tricks on me–sneaky ninja!
At least that’s what I’m thinking must have happened, cause grown men in black suits and masks totally stick out even in trees or behind bushes and garbage cans and even as they’re sneaking up on people in office buildings and hotel rooms–it was like, why even have a ninja suit? Doesn’t that automatically call attention to the fact that you’re a secretive stealthy assassin bent on killing somebody? I thought it would have been more clever to have dressed like office people or at least wore a color closer to what an office looks like–i.e. something gray…do you know what I mean?
Another thing that was so totally amazing was how effective those ninja stars are. Seriously, it was a 2 hour advertisement on all the ninja equipment you can buy at your local ninja store, kids must have been salivating–for instance, probably the funniest part of the whole movie….this dude who’s in a ninja outfit with a silver mask over his eyes–amazingly clever how this makes him be perceived as sinister and evil and how this blends into the environment of a hotel lobby, oh and one more thing, he does this creepy laugh thing that he only does when he’s wearing the mask, it sounded out of the original batman tv series or something…I think it was the ninja laugh of death for sure…any good ninjas would choke on their masks and pee their black pants…in fright for sure!
Anyhow, he is sneaking through a hotel hallway and tries to lock pick a door when a thug catches him in the hallway–this thug must have had ninja training though for even being able to see a black clad ninja in broad daylight in a brightly lit hotel hallway with amazingly red carpet which almost seemed to mask the black clad ninja with silver shiny mask–amazing art of camoflauge! Well, although this thug may have had training in ninja-spotting–btw, I think that there should be a class on ninja-spotting–coming soon. Well, one things for sure, that thug didn’t have the training to go heads to heads with real ninja skills because within seconds he was completely dispatched jumping jacks style.
I’m not even kidding, first of all, this evil ninja with the winy sinister laugh, barely even looks in the thug’s direction as he’s firing bullets and running in his general direction (maybe the evil ninja thought he really was invisible…er…invincible), well he barely looks up, just grabs this grab bag of a thing from inside his shirt (which must have been filled with all sorts of evil ninja weaponry stuff cause he just keeps reaching in for more and more)and without even any effort at all, seriously, he barely twitches in disgust at this nuisance, just tosses the contents on the floor–it didn’t look strategic at all, completely aerodynamic in execution without one bit of wasted energy, neither did it seem to the human eye to be stealthy, but who knows the mind of an assasin?
This ninja with a silver mask over his eyes nonchalantly throws a bunch of sharpened jumping jacks on the ground–again although they were bright shiny metal objects and quite large, they were amazingly invisible to the human eye or at least to the Thug’s eyes on ugly red hotel carpet. Then next to make sure his victim lands in his cunning trap–ooh how cunning can he be you ask?, he reaches into his shirt again and pulls out…you guessed it…another grab bag, but this one’s full of something round and slippery…what could this guy be up to? He throws the contents on the ground–again, nonchalantly, non-strategically and doesn’t even look in the direction of the approaching bad guy who’s only a few feet away–could it really be this simple…and I’m telling you these marbles are huge ball bearings that also just so happen to be bright and shiny.
Well lo and behold, this thug never saw what was coming. He runs straight into the trap, slips on the shiny ball bearings and yes, lands face first onto the sharpened shiny jumping jacks. You should have saw it, it was so funny. I mean, this guy lands on them face first, dead! I mean, I would have assumed some minor flesh wounds, maybe even poking out an eye or something, but dead! It was quite hilarious!
One other scene I barely made it through, there’s this old fat short woman who is very ugly and peculiar looking with lots of eye makeup, who is the mother of the good ninja who I’m frankly surprised he didn’t avoid her out of shame and fright, well she narrowly escapes death, then stumbles upon the bad ninja with the silver mask, while he’s climbing up this ladder to get to the roof–again totally in the middle of a brightly lit room, on a black ladder and in a black suit with a shiny metallic mask, but no no no no! only another ninja can spot a ninja.
Well instead of being happy with the fact she’s still alive, she decides based purely on her ninja training and cunning to fight this guy head on. It was too crazy, she sneaks up on him while he’s climbing and throws this chain that wraps around his foot, then she pulls the chain and makes the ninja fall back to the ground. I don’t know what she was thinking maybe she thought the guy might fall and break his neck and die or at least get a concussion or something, but seriously it wasn’t more than a 5 foot drop…I’m not sure, but after he fell she starts doing all these flips like she’s going to take him on.
Oh, btw, while she was flipping, it was like she became a man for a few seconds, and then as soon as she landed and you could make out her face then it was her again, those ninjas!
It doesn’t last long before she’s brutally dead, but my thought was first why did she try to trip this guy, she should have thrown a sword at him or blown some poison darts at him or something, I mean supposedly she’s a ninja,but alas, not as well trained and unfortunately expendable from the start.
She also had this ninja necklace that looked like something out of a cracker jack box with this little birdie thingie, but she kept saying that this was the family necklace of the ninja and that when she died…hint hint…it would go to her son (the good ninja), I’ll bet he could hardly wait to get the precious prize, I’m surprised he didn’t try taking her out himself just to get the ninja family necklace.
Seriously, I never saw it coming, it was the biggest surprise of the movie when she bit the dust, I actually thought she’d take the bad ninja down being that she had the upper hand and all. Wow, big surprise when she didn’t quite make the final cut.
Still, it keeps going, so after the ninja with the silver mask kills the grandma, he lo and behold, takes off his mask to assess the damage….I mean, the mask is to hid your identity right? And obviously he must have been able to see through it in order to fight in the first place. So why take it off until your home and the dastardly deed is done? Why take off the mask while you’re still in enemy territory, besides, all the good guys know who he is (without the mask) since they think he’s their friend, so if they see him in a ninja outfit they’re gonna know he’s the traitor, oh by the way, he’s also the only white guy who’s a ninja in the movie, so no one has any idea that he’s the bad guy. Plus he even has hypnotic skills so he puts this woman under hypnosis and makes her do all his dastardly deeds for him. She of course has no idea who he is either.
Well, anyhow, after he takes the mask off, the good ninja’s son just happens to appear at the top of the roof. No one even asks how did a little kid get to the top of the roof, but anyhow, he ends up being there and sees the bad ninja unmasked, uh oh, now the bad ninja will have to kill him to protect his secret identity–of course he doesn’t even blame himself for a second for using all those ninjas skills to sneak, stealth, sabotage, and kill, to all of the sudden toss it all to the wind by taking his mask off–for what?
A sweat break maybe? Maybe it was just getting a little stuffy in there, or maybe he was tired of making the winy laugh thing and just wanted to be himself for a moment. I don’t know and am not really sure.
I’m not even kidding, it just keeps going on and on like this, it was so funny. Okay, one more thing, they try to kill the kid after the hypnotized woman kidnaps him, by sticking him in the sauna…terrible, evil ninjas, what a clever way to kill someone slowly and terribly and possibly even to allow for the possibility of an escape…
Well, it turns out that the bad guys also have under their employ this guy who is Native American, has two pony tails, even these two tomahawks–not sure how the director can justify such a stereotypical role, oh…wait a minute what about all the Asians who know Martial Arts in the movie?…well they try using him against the good ninja and this Native American dude tries everything in his power to take out the good ninja, but he’s just not a trained assassin and I think the writers were a bit desperate to find parts to fill in this movie and thought, well I know this isn’t a Western, but wouldn’t it be cool to have at least one Native American who we can kill off–kinda like in the good ‘ol days with Cowboys and Indians?
After this movie, I seriously wanted to look up the nearest ninja weapons dealer and buy everything! Hahaha!
Next week I think Three Ninjas Kick Back is going to be on, I can’t wait!
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