Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

Ninja Terminator Blu-ray Movie Review

"Only the complete Golden Ninja Warrior can give me supreme power."

Reviewed by Justin Dekker January 24, 2025

IFD and Godfrey Ho's infamous 'Ninja Terminator' returns on Blu-ray in this standard release courtesy of Neon Eagle. Starring Richard Harrison (Angel Eyes (1993)), Wong Cheng Li (Drunken Master (1978)), and Jack Lam (Chains of Gold) the film is an amalgam of new footage with Richard Harrison that adds the ninja-based action and plot edited into a 1984 Korean film titled 'The Uninvited Guest of the Star Ferry'. The often funny, sometimes perplexing, and occasionally bizarre film features numerous fight sequences resulting in a finished product that may not entirely make sense but is certainly never dull. A fair amount of supplemental material is included.

Hong Kong filmmaker Godfrey Ho is no stranger to cobbling together various bits of other films and mixing in new footage and storylines to create a new crazy-quilt feature. I've covered two such features of his relatively recently, the gruesome 'Men Behind the Sun 2: Laboratory of the Devil' and 'Men Behind the Sun 3: Narrow Escape'. He's also not averse to quickly identifying and cashing in on trends which is the case here with 1985's Ninja Terminator, made during the 1980s's obsessive ninja craze.

For the recipe of Ninja Terminator Godfrey Ho begins with The Uninvited Guest of the Star Ferry (1984), a Korean film concerned with Jack Lam (aka Im Ja-Ho) doing his best to stop Triad thugs from forcing restauranteurs out of business. His primary method of exerting his influence is a relentless stream of impressive kicks. Grabbing the moments from that film that suited him best, Ho then recruited Hollywood actor Richard Harrison, dressed him in a ninja suit, shot the ninja-related scenes, and then blended them together to create Ninja Terminator. As the film begins, a number of ninjas of the Ninja Empire meet to see the three segments of a statue called The Golden Ninja Warrior joined together, the pieces of which convey some level of magical protection to their owner. However, three of the ninjas in attendance, one of whom is Harrison, each steals a piece of the stature at the culmination of the ceremony. When one of the ninjas, Tomashi, is later found dead (with his brother quick to follow him), his sister, the lovely Machico is now a target. As Harrison (and his stunt double) fight endless waves of ninjas, Lam battles limitless groups of Triads who have captured Machico and are somehow mixed up in the search for the now missing third piece of The Golden Ninja Warrior. If this summary inadvertently managed to make the plot make sense, I apologize, because the film mostly doesn't. But the lack of an intelligible plot is not at odds with a film being able to entertain. And Ninja Terminator certainly does that.

Easily half of the joy to be found in Ninja Terminator is result in the absurdity seen in the new footage shot by Godfrey Ho. Harrison and the other ninjas wear a quantity of eyeliner seldom seen outside of a goth band. Harrison's wife, who is actually played by Harrison's wife has an epic-level breakdown after live crabs she's planning to cook escape and slowly crawl across the tiled floor of their apartment. Important messages are routinely delivered by toy robots, and one of the upper-echelon goons wears an unbelievable blonde wig. In a moment that would make Wile E. Coyote proud, the Triads are incredibly impressed by the "professor's" new bomb which is nothing more than a few sticks of C4 clumsily attached to an old-fashioned alarm clock. Those not overly distracted by the on-screen mayhem will note tracks from Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd as part of the soundtrack, songs no doubt used without permission, and in a move no one could have ever imagined, Floyd's "Echoes" (Meddle, 1971) eerily scores one of the film's two love scenes. However, the most enduring image(s) from the film has to be Harrison's deep and meaningful conversations on his Garfield phone.

The other main source of fun in Ninja Terminator is Jack Lam. His easy-going charm, quick smile, and confident swagger are an effective mix of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. As fighters go, he's got the chops here as well, easily dispatching groups of two to four opponents at a time while still pausing to pose and toss out the odd wisecrack before finishing fights. Not as elaborately staged or reliant on complex sets to spice up fights in Lee or Chan's films, most of Lam's work is done on empty streets or vacant lots. Only the occasional car or sapling provides much environmental variety. Lam, with his footage culled from the 1984 film, also serves as the romantic lead, encountering an old girlfriend who has seemingly lost her way and being smitten by the damsel in distress Machico.

Ninja Terminator Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Before the film unspools, the viewer is treated with a bit of information concerning the transfer.

"NINJA TERMINATOR is presented here from a 4K restoration of the original negative.

Due to storage issues and the general climate in Hong Kong, some damage is apparent here and there. Furthermore, these issues also affect the color of the film in some places. While many hours of work have gone into attempting to fix these problems through digital restoration and color grading, some anomalies persist.

We hope this does not affect your enjoyment of this unique and entertaining film."

With that notification in mind, many may wonder how Ninja Terminator looks. The results are honestly quite surprising. Overall, the image looks very healthy. While it does not, nor should it be expected to, approach the detail levels seen in restorations of more "important" films, films whose elements have been more properly stored and well looked after, the image on display in Godfrey Ho's Ninja Terminator does yield a fair amount of detail, with outdoor shots and the Ho-shot footage of Harrison, his wife, and his chief adversary typically faring the best. In these scenes, viewers get a better sense of facial, costume, and environmental particulars, with woods baring their grain, and lines on Harrison's face being evident. Colors are typically consistent and well-saturated, but there are moments when the outfits worn by the red ninjas skew toward magenta. This is hardly surprising as we were duly warned. Overall, the image is stable and no significant issues were detected. It should be noted that at the point in time when Jaguar Wong (or Jag-u-ar Wong depending on who's saying it) moves to defuse a bomb, the image freezes for a moment and then advances several times in repetition. This is not a playback error or issue with the source as it seems this was the intent of the filmmakers. It's the best the film has ever looked.

Ninja Terminator Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Ninja Terminator is outfitted with an English 2.0 mono audio track that is effective enough with what it needs to do. Sound effects, which for large swaths of the film, have to do with Jack Lam giving or receiving a torrent of kicks and punches may sound a bit thin when compared to modern martial arts films but is wholly appropriate and in line with other martial arts films of the era. The clang of ninjas' swords has a convincingly metallic presence, and other mundane sound effects such as car wheels on gravel roads, footfalls, and the like present with sufficient realism. Music is typically handled very well, with the Pink Floyd tracks, especially "Echoes", being a real treat. The instrumentation on this nostalgic track sounds great, even though it lacks a more substantive bottom end. The dubbed dialogue is front and center focused and is properly prioritized. There aren't any sibilance issues or other defects. It's a suitable accompaniment for the film.

Ninja Terminator Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

While not as fully-stacked as the limited release, Neon Eagle's standard release of Ninja Terminator is still accompanied by some pleasing extras.

• Ninja Master: Interview with Godfrey Ho (16.34) - Ho begins by discussing his film career which began serving as an Assistant Director at Shaw Brothers. The alignment of Richard Harrison and Joseph Lai is documented, which began with him reaching out to Lai to learn the distribution side of the business. After noting the success of American ninja films, he shares his clever idea of taking an existing film, keeping the villainous moments and characters, but replacing the heroes with American actors through careful shooting and editing. Harrison, whom he met when working as an AD for Shaw Brothers, was recruited to this picture with the promise of an all-expenses-paid vacation in Hong Kong. It was the start of Harrison's stint as an IFD star. Other topics covered are the film's bizarre props, casting Harrison's wife, the title, and the shooting schedule.

• Golden Ninja Dub: Interview with Godfrey Ho and Dubber Simon Broad. (17.04) - Ho shares that 99% of Hong Kong films were dubbed at the time Ninja Terminator was made before he and Broad cover how they did the work in a converted apartment and other places to keep costs down. Each dubber was also charged with doing voices for multiple characters in a film. Creating and editing dialogue is also discussed with each film being dubbed in four days or less.

• Ninjamania: How Ninjas Invaded the West: Interview with Chip Poggiali, co-author of "These Fists Break Bricks" (19.04) - Poggiali shares the US's ninja craze began in the early 1980s with the publication of Eric Van Lustbader's novel The Ninja. He traces the ninja influence through a classic James Bond film and various television series and comic book titles in the 1970s. He discusses ninjas seeping into numerous aspects of American culture in the 1980s, from motorcycles to role-playing games, before focusing on IFD and Ninja Terminator.

• Trailer (3.13)

• What's the Story with this Giant Multitude of Ninja Movies Starring Richard Harrison (With Chris Poggiali and Featuring Archival Comments by Richard Harrison) (8.46)(HIDDEN EXTRA) - Harrison angily laments and insists that made only one ninja film, but that the footage was used in a number of other films. He contends he never received any compensation for the films and states that they were the reason he left acting. He describes Ho and his partners as "sleazy". Poggiali refutes this to some degree but also posits how this may have been accomplished without Harrison necessarily knowing what was going on. (Note: This hidden feature is accessible by pressing the "Up" arrow key when the "Ninja Master: Interview with Godfrey Ho" menu item is highlighted, causing this feature to begin playing automatically.)

• Audio Commentary by Kenneth Boreson and Phil Gillon of the Podcast on Fire Network - (Accessible through the "Setup" menu.)

• Audio Commentary by Asian film experts Arne Venema and Mike Leeder - (Accessible through the "Setup" menu.)

Ninja Terminator Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ninja Terminator's plot doesn't really stand up to much scrutiny. Harrison's stoic and stone-faced acting isn't going to win any awards. It's not even what most if anyone would categorize as a good movie. When they were at the height of their power, it was said that there is nothing like a GWAR show. That is, perhaps, the best summation of Godfrey Ho's Ninja Terminator. Truly, there is nothing like Ninja Terminator. It's a statement that's an apt descriptor and glowing praise. What other film could hope to deliver so much ninja action, limitless street-level fights, a magical artifact, the Ninja Empire, Richard Harrison, and a veritable mountain of absurdities? Neon Eagle gives the film the royal treatment here, providing it with some much-needed TLC and including enough supplemental material to satisfy any fan. It's an excellent release and Ninja Terminator comes strongly recommended.