Submitted by Lurple on 03/22/09
Godfrey Ho has been responsible for more bad movies than most people can handle. This is one of them.
Imagine gathering some drunken friends together, muting the TV, assigned characters to people, and just dubbing in your own story. Golden Ninja Invasion is like that, but it’s also 3-4 terrible films spliced together seemingly at random. In one film you have Paul, the androgynous blonde-haired blue ninja. In another you have Ritchie, a guy with a “magic” cybernetic hand. Then there are some panty-hose-mask wearing minions, a bad guy that seems to be trying to sound like James Coburn, and a plaid-wearing karate guy. That may seem like a lot to keep track of, and it is; but fear not, you won’t care about any of them.
Godfrey Ho is infamous for slapping the word “ninja” in the title of many films that feature absolutely no ninjas. You may be glad to know that ninjas actually do appear in this movie (although there are zero golden ninjas). Aside from Blue Ninja Paul you’ll have to settle for ninjas dressed in traditional black outfits. The ninjas spend most of their time fighting guys in Hawaiian shirts and disappearing in puffs of smoke for reasons I rarely understood.
One thing (the only thing?) Ho’s done right is to stick mainly with actions scenes from the various movies he used to quilt this rubbish. They’re all laughably bad but the action is nearly non-stop. Good thing too, because the dialog is atrocious. Expect random gems like a police officer receiving an anonymous tip and responding with “Don’t leave me any of your crappy anonymous messages!”
Some crazy, amusing stuff happens. People who aren’t ninjas randomly disappear in puffs of smoke, warehouse ninjas hiding in crates, and ninjas wearing wool gloves. My favorite bit involved two bad guys accidentally killing themselves with “magic ninja beans”. Paul witnesses their deaths and woodenly intones “You’re not a ninja. You can’t use the beans.”
The more you concentrate on the plot, the less the movie makes sense. Is there one plot or four plots? It doesn’t help that people sometimes call the characters by someone else’s name (for example, Paul and Ritchie both get called by the other’s name). I can’t bring myself to watch the film again to try to make sense of it, and I am sure it wouldn’t help anyway.
Golden Ninja Invasion may be one of Godfrey Ho’s least coherent films, which is a pretty stunning statement if you’re familiar with his work. Still, despite the many, many flaws I was amused by the film. Definitely not recommended unless you’re in the mood for complete trash.
