Ninja vs. Ninja (1987)

Even by cut-and-paste ninja movie standards this movie is particularly inept. Apparently all the old footage came from one film, but it’s so chopped up it feels like it’s coming from multiple different cop movies. The title should be CIA vs Ninja with the confusing plot around CIA operatives they try to jam in on top of this thing to connect the no budget cop movie with the ninja stuff. It’s not even an IFD or Filmark production so the ninjas aren’t even colourful, and the dub is lame as hell although there is some amusement in how a lot of the dialogue seems to have been made up on the spot by the approximately 2 guys doing all the voices. Quite the mess, and I feel particularly cheated as Chiang Tao (one of my favourites!) shows up part way through as a bad guy gang leader only to completely disappear for the rest of the film. My suspicion is that he was only around for some sort of opening action sequence in the original, which would be fine, but in Ninja vs. Ninja we don’t get any hint as to what happened to him. Lame.