Super Ninja Review - Jabootu's Bad Movie DimensionAnother popular proposal was to search through the works of one Joseph Lai. In the ‘80s, Hong Kong producer/director Lai came up with a scheme to feed the then seemingly insatiable appetite for ninja-oriented fare from American video store patrons. (The ‘80s was such a great decade for cheesy movies.) Ninja movies became a popular offshoot of the decade’s generally popular martial arts genre following the landmark success of the Shogun TV mini-series. Aside from the films provided by Lai and Kusogi, Cannon kicked in not only with such pictures as Ninja III, but the weirdly long-running American Ninja series.
Lai’s ingenious solution to this situation firmly earned him a place amongst such other all-time schlockmavens as Sam Arkoff, Roger Corman and William Castle. His idea was to obtain the rights to as many cheap Chinese movies as he could. These were, as appropriate to his plans, typically crime pictures and thrillers. (But not always. See the hilarious Ninja Commandments, built around an extraordinarily weird and downbeat family drama.) Lai would then film new ninja-themed material, featuring American ‘actors’ like the ubiquitous Richard Harrison. This would then be spliced into the existing film as a barely – if at all – connected subplot. Thus, bam, in short order any film could be turned into a ‘ninja’ movie.
Lai’s other great talent was to give the resultant ‘films’ irresistible titles as they flooded the American video market. These included Blazing Ninja, To Catch a Ninja, Full Metal Ninja, Cobra vs. Ninja (this the year after Sylvester Stallone’s Cobra came out), Bionic Ninja (!), Zombie vs. Ninja, and so on. He must have also attracted good sales with films sporting the word ‘Thunderbolt,’ since at least five of his video releases featured that term. Lai’s ninja movies are also identifiable in other ways. For instance, his ninjas tend to be not only oddly Caucasian but to sport headbands that actually have the word "NINJA" printed on them. This is enough to get one laughing right there.
