THE YOUNG NINJA MUST REVEAL HIS POWER TO SURVIVE!
The fate of the Ninja Empire is at stake as the supreme master and his disciple confront Ivan the Red, a power-hungry ninja. When the police fail to help, the young disciple must reveal his amazing fighting ability to avenge his mother’s murder and save his sister. The master must face Ivan in a final duel to determine the fate of the Empire.
Watched this last night on tubi: https://tubitv.com/movies/698707/the-ninja-squad. It was on background while gaming so it was pretty confusing. Then I was trying to figure out where it was filmed and discovered:
https://letterboxd.com/film/the-ninja-squad/
So it’s basically a Burroughs-level cut-up. Both movies are bad but in different ways. The ninja scenes are B-movie-bad but the Filipino crime drama are bad in the ways resulting from a limited budget. In fact I think the Filipino crime drama is the more interesting of the two movies; I wouldn’t have minded seeing only that movie for its depictions of 1980s working-class Phillipines (as seen through an over-the-top gun-toting crime drama, of course.)
Yup, the bulk of Ho’s cinematic output consists of cut-and-paste jobs like this. These movies are kind of an obsession of mine (😉). The man has also made regular genre movies and they’re solid to almost great. Kind of surprising, considering how bad most of his cut-up ones are.
If you’re interested in Filipino movies of the '80s, check out Elwood Perez’ Silip/Daughters of Eve. Be warned though, that one is super rough to watch.