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
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