Terminal Force (1989)

I was looking for something new to me to review on the site, after a spate of reviews on films that were either on our pod, or pods I'd guested on, and I saw this bad boy on Tubi. A non-ninja Richard Harrison sounded like a lot of fun, plus it was directed by Fred Olen Ray. Let's see how it did.

Terminal Force has Harrison as a disgraced cop on suspension after he killed a kid who pulled a toy gun on him. At the same time, mafia boss Johnny Ventura (John Henry Richardson) kidnaps the daughter of a guy who's going to testify against him, so Harrison's boss gets the crazy-Grinchey idea of having Harrison do it. Harrison needs to rehab his image, because he's on suspension he can work outside the rules of the force, and also because he's on suspension, he's expendable! It sounds like a win-win! He hooks up with a dancer that used to work for Ventura (Dawn Wildsmith) to try and track the girl down, but can he trust her? What about his friends on the force? Who can he trust? Beyond a bottle of Stoli, no one.

This is fantastic. It's not going to make any top ten lists or blow anyone away, but it's a solid 84 minutes of late 80s low-budget action, complete with shootings, explosions, and boobs. The opening two scenes involve a car going over a cliff, and our hero in that shot above shooting a would-be liquor store robber in front of a backdrop of 80s-era bags of chips and cans of soda. If Harrison's not going to wear a ninja costume, that's what I need. From there, it might be pretty paint-by-numbers, but it's a good paint-by-numbers, like a McDonald's cheeseburger that you put down after a long week at work, or on your way home from vacation when you're looking for something familiar. Sure, I know too well here in Philly that that cheeseburger can have a stale bun, or way too much ketchup, or get screwed up any number of other ways, which if we're extending this metaphor we can say the same about this kind of movie, it can also get screwed up any number of ways, but Ray, Harrison, and company pull it off, and we're left with the comforting cinematic equivalent of junk food, which is always fun.

This is now 17 films for Fred Olen Ray on the site, so he's close to joining Albert Pyun as the only two people with 20 or more director credits. He has a ton of stuff on places like Tubi, but I think it's his work in this late 80s/early 90s period that's my favorite. I read that the movie was shot in five days, and it's in and out in 84 minutes, but delivers everything you want in that window. Even with the padding and the plot exposition dialog, it comes off in a way that's a lot of fun that it works in spite of the fact that it goes against the rules of filmmaking. For example, in that opening scene where the car goes flying off a cliff, before that we have an old mafia boss and his lawyer talking, and while their conversation is all plot exposition, they sound hilarious--plus the boat of a Caddy they're sitting in with the covered headlights doesn't hurt--and then we get the fantastic payoff of the car going over the cliff. After that, it's an extended scene of Harrison going into a liquor store and the clerk giving him a hard time about limes. It's all padding, but it's also fun to watch Richard Harrison disheveled and arguing about limes. And then we get the payoff of the robbery. The money now is in Christmas movies and Lifetime thrillers, so that's what he makes, but when the money was in stuff like this, Ray was great at it, and this film is another example of that.

This is our third Richard Harrison film on the site, but his first non-ninja movie. He's really funny here, which works in Ray's offbeat style in a way I wasn't expecting--I mean I guess I shouldn't have based my opinion on him off of two Godfrey Ho ninja movies where he's not only been dubbed, but dubbed with new lines. It would've been nice if Harrison got to speak to someone on a Garfield phone, but the film could be forgiven for not giving us that gem. While this is only his third film, as we near October and our Hall of Fame inductions, he has to be a consideration. Sure, over a dozen of his films are ninja movies Godfrey Ho made without his permission, but he also made a ton of stuff like this that had nothing to do with ninjas, and he's a low-budget star who started before the video store and cable age, and bridged us into that from the grindhouse low-budget theater age. Truly one of the greats, and we see that more here than in his Godfrey Ho ninja movies.

We've gone over all the ways that these late 80s/early 90s DTV actioners are superior to their modern counterparts. Some things the modern movie can't help, like the nostalgia for the 80s soda cans and bags of chips, or the Cadillac boat with covers on the headlights. Often too, when movies try to go back in time they screw it up, so I'd rather they don't try to recreate the aesthetic. Some though they do have control over, like making sure the two actors having a plot exposition conversation are fun to listen to--though again, there was something of an "of the period" quality they had that gave them a nostalgia edge in this that a Texas Battle and a son of Wayne Gretzky couldn't pull off. But the biggest one might be John Henry Richardson. He was fantastic chewing the scenery as baddie Johnny Ventura. How hard is it to get him to be your mob boss baddie? I get that there are certain realities that make creating modern DTV flicks tougher than it was 35 years ago, but casting John Henry Richardson isn't one of them.

Finally, I'd like to use this penultimate paragraph to spotlight the late 80s doughy mullet guy. You see him there above, squinting through full cheeks, the kind of cheeks aging women today pay a lot of money for, but at that time, especially for a guy, they were seen as a negative. You also have the light amount of mulletude in the back, not a lot of party, maybe enough for a few people over on a Sunday to watch the Rams game with some cheese and crackers and light beers. Now you're probably asking, "Matt, what's the difference between this kind of guy, and the Pork Roast?" The Pork Roast is meatier, you buy him at the store by the pound and roast him in the oven over low heat with some root vegetables. The late 80s doughy mullet guy is softer, a bread loaf that doesn't have a firm crust. Millennials made sourdough bread out of him during the pandemic and posted the results on social media. Guys like Fred Olen Ray and Jim Wynorski were great at using these guys, they found them all over LA, on their way back from In-N-Out Burger with their dinner in a bag. "Hey, you wanna be in a movie?" "What do I have to do?" "Nothing, just stand there with a gun, we'll take care of the rest." "Sure, I got nothing else going on today!" Here's to you late 80s doughy mullet guy, you were one of the great ones.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing you can find this on Tubi and a bunch of other free streamers here in the States. If you've got 90s minutes burning a hole in your pocket, you could do a lot worse than this one. Maybe they don't make 'em like this anymore, but we can still stream them.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100764

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

Ninja Strike Force (1988)

I can't believe, but this is actually the first time we've done a ninja film since I've been back from hiatus. We've actually done a non-ninja Godfrey Ho film before this, which is even crazier. This was one that I covered in a podcast with Jon Cross of the After Movie Diner, Miscellaneous Plumbing Fixtures, and Cross Talk, in part because he does a great Ninjavember celebration on AMD, which is something I really enjoy. Now the question is, did we enjoy this one?

Ninja Strike Force is another Godfrey Ho mash-up of an old film with some new ninja footage. In this one, ninja mainstay Richard Harrison (sans 'stache) is back, and needs to figure out how to beat the black ninja now that said black ninja has the sword of catastrophe. He knows of one man, who has forsaken his ninja past, but he has the answer. That man is in the other part of the mash-up, living in poverty and trying to make things work with his buddy and the developmentally delayed boy they've taken in. Can Harrison get the answers he needs before the black ninja kills all the ninjas?

I don't want to give it away, but the answer is "yes... kinda." And really, does it matter? From the moment this thing starts, you see white credits on a white background, meaning you don't see the credits. That's a warning, like if you don't think this is your kinda movie, pull the plug now instead of asking for your temporal refund after. For me, this delivered on that Godfrey Ho mash-up level. I don't know if I could do three of these back-to-back in a night, but mixed in with some other ninja flicks, like American Ninja 2 or Rage of Honor, it is a great addition to those as a different kind of ninja flick. Besides, how can you go wrong with those great headbands that say "ninja" on them?

When Jon was on, he quoted a Den of Geek article about Godfrey Ho's films. Here's what it said:

It isn’t really about whether these films as good or bad – they’re so far outside of what constitutes regular filmmaking that value judgements feel redundant. I think, deep down, especially as film grows arguably ‘safer’ by the year, some of us just crave a little cinematic anarchy.

I feel like that really sums up what these Godfrey Ho films are about. He takes these old films he got the rights to, and splices in scenes from two ninja movies he shot with Richard Harrison, to make twenty movies. To me there's nothing more gonzo or nothing that gets to the spirit of DTV more than this. I think the problem is, everyone thinks they're being ripped off, right? We're so jaded by seeing Seagal on the tin and we get the movie home and he's in it for twenty minutes and can't bother to do his reverse shots or overdubs. When we view it in the modern DTV light, Godfrey Ho's ninja films feel like he's trying to get one over on us. If we divorce ourselves from that though, there's something different going on here. This would be like if Keoni Waxman shot one movie with Seagal, and turned it into ten by splicing it into old telenovelas he got the rights to and dubbed the actors over to make his own stories. But again, we're so jaded, we'd only buy that if Waxman or the distributors sold it to us as something ironic. There's been a shifting of how we see movies like these recently though, and I think for me at least, that makes these even that much more fun.

Richard Harrison is the mainstay that these movies are most known for. The way he tells it, Ho asked him to shoot two ninja movies, and from those two he made 20, splicing them in with the old films he got the rights to. This is only the second one we've covered here, the other being Ninja: Silent Assassin. This won't be the last, that's for sure, but in going through Harrison's prodigious IMDb bio, there's a lot more beyond the Godfrey Ho flicks to look at. On that score, perhaps he has a point that Ho damaged his career with the way he made Harrison the star of many more ninja flicks than just the two he signed on for, because we now really know him for these more than anything else. We'll see if we can rectify that for you Mr. Harrison.

I went back to that Ninja: Silent Assassin review to see how I made sense of what I was seeing with Godfrey Ho that first time. I didn't get why we wasted so much time with the other story, why it wasn't just all ninjas. I had some understanding that this was how Ho made movies, but it didn't really make sense. Seeing this one, knowing what I was in for, I got it a little more. I think the big thing was Ho merged these two even better--there were scenes where we thought Harrison was actually talking with the star of the older movie--so I could appreciate the work that went into this project more. I have to be honest with myself: if Jean-Luc Godard had made this movie, I would have loved what he did and lauded it as genius, so at least on that level I have to appreciate what Ho is doing with these.

The situation with Richard Harrison also speaks to a point about Ho's films, and that is that you really can't do a film like this in the modern Hollywood system, in part because SAG would kill you if you did to one of their members what Ho does to Harrison and the people in the other films. The closest thing I can think to it is the second Swordsman movie, where they used footage of Lamas from the first one, then spliced it with new actors. And we also see in DTV where footage is borrowed from another movie and cut into the new one, like Agent Red using footage from Storm Catcher. But the idea that Ben Affleck could shoot Jersey Girl with Kevin Smith, and then Smith use that to make 20 more movies that he splices with old 60s B-movies, all of which Affleck has no say in what happens in them, sounds both fantastic and something I would totally understand if Affleck were pissed about it. It means that the anarchy that is Ho is something that probably exists in his space, sui generis, and not something we can replicate now. (Though considering Smith and Affleck are friends, maybe he would have been amenable to that...)

And with that, I wrap this up. While this is on Tubi, it's worth checking out. We all could use a little "cinematic anarchy" in our lives, and no one serves it up better than Ho. You can also check out the podcast to see what Jon and I thought about it, and thanks again to Jon for coming on, it was a great time as always!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199846

Ninja: Silent Assassin (1987)

I don't remember how this one first came across my radar. It's a Godfrey Ho ninja flick, does it matter? A buddy hooked me up with a copy of his VHS, which is what I used for this review.

Ninja: Silent Assassin is the classic Godfrey Ho mash up of a Hong Kong flick with local actors spliced together with a Hong Kong ninja flick with Western actors. This time we have a cop in France-- also a ninja-- whose wife is killed in an attempt on his life-- by other ninjas, led by a drug lord, also a ninja. He follows them to Hong Kong where another crime lord-- and another ninja as well-- joins forces with the drug lord, while our hero joins forces with the local cop-- as luck would have it, also a ninja-- who has been pursuing the local crime lord. The other story line is loosely connected to that one-- or not at all--, where a dude named Tiger, supposedly working for the local crime lord, kills a dude's dad in order to take over a labor union. Now this dude is after Tiger and won't stop until he's done.



This so easily could've been so awesomely bad it's good, but so much of it is taken up with bad, monotonous, poorly dubbed dialog that often explains things five or six times that we only needed to hear once, if at all. That's a shame, because the ninja fights are downright hilarious. I mean, flips, smoke, teleportation, throwing stars, plus hilarious changes into ninja gear from street clothes. Even better, they ganked the Miami Vice theme song-- literally! I don't mean it sounded like it, it was it! And then you had the ninjas in these suits with bandannas that had the word "ninja" written on them in this script that made it look like they were workers at the Ninja Theme Park and Resort. Ugh! Why bore us with bad dialog crap when you have so much fun in in your damn movie!

There weren't any big stars to report, but definitely some major B-movie actors that are known to far braver souls than I who live in the Z-grade Italian and Hong Kong zones. Foremost among them is Richard Harrison-- not to be confused with Richard Harris-- an Italian schlock cinema mainstay who looks like Honeycutt from M*A*S*H* and plays the local Hong Kong cop/ninja. Then there's Cameroon's own Alphonse Beni, who plays the French cop/ninja. Finally, for fans of Ho's Hong Kong ninja flicks, Aussie/Brit mainstay Stuart Smith plays the drug lord/ninja.



Okay, maybe that's not everyone. Do you recognize this guy? That's right, character actor Paulo Tocha. You're probably more used to seeing him bald and with tattoos as opposed to cheap suit and an IROC-Z owner-style mullet. It looks like, according to imdb, he got his start over in Hong Kong doing flicks like this. Good for him, he had to start somewhere, and now he's in bad Van Damme flicks like In Hell.

One thing I didn't exactly get was the splicing of the two films. In no way did they feel at all like they were connected. Would it really have been so hard to just do more scenes of ninjas flipping? I guess not monetarily. I have to imagine this technique is revered by a lot of DTV film makers, considering how many we've seen that have taken entire sequences out of previous films: I'm looking at you Agent Red and that sequence you ripped from Storm Catcher. Godfrey Ho eat your heart out.



You might not exactly be able to see the poster on the wall behind the police chief, but it is of a woman goofily tied up with the message "This can happen to you", I guess telling women they need to be careful about who they let in their house. Isn't the police station the last place you'd want a poster like that? I mean, if the woman is at the police station, isn't it too late to take that advice? She's already found out the hard way that she needs to be more careful about who she lets into her place, all that poster is is an ill-placed I told you so.

This is available for an inflated price used on VHS from Amazon. It's not one of those that's so awesomely bad that you need to fork over that kind of dough. I'd just take a mental image of that cover shot above, and see if you spot it in a VHS bargain bin.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199865/