Boris Heshman Its called The Ninja Squad...where's the ninja squad in this film? All we see are individual ninjas cruising round fighting each other, because they've got nothing else to do besides meditate and wave their swords around to the same individual sound effect. Then again I bought this film for a pound; so what do you expect? We see the protagonist, Billy, being trained as a young boy to become the world's greatest ninja. After several shots of generic ninja training Billy has become a grown man and an ultimate ninja! Then he starts complaining about how he can't get a job, as there's little work for ninjas in his hometown. Its an unwritten rule that ninja's financial issues aren't addressed in ninja films, but maybe director Godfrey Ho was trying to kick some realism into the formula. If he did, it fell flat on its face with the dubbed Australian and Texas accents against the faces of people clearly from an Asian background. But at least Billy is inconspicuous. His fellow ninjas parade round in what looks like cheap, camp, fancy dress, with a headband bearing the title'ninja', just to clarify. Its terrible. This is why I love this film and you have to watch it!!!

str0ntiumd0g ****WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!****Oh boy what can I say about this movie. It killed me to watch this, both because it is awful to watch and as a result it is amazingly funny. It is also incredibly confusing. There are two stories in this movie that have almost nothing to do with each other and barely impact on each other and then the film just ends.On one side is Billy and his quest for vengeance against some local drug dealers who killed his mother and kidnapped his sister. Now Billy is a terrible ninja. In fact he barely does anything ninja-like whatsoever, unless you call using semi-automatic weapons and getting gunned down by the police at the end.The other story involves Billy's master, Gordon and another ninja called Ivan the Red. Now this is just plain silly.Gordon won't fight Ivan to begin with so Ivan decides to kill one ninja a month to persuade him to change his mind. First of all, what's with these dumb names? Gordon the ninja!? What!? How is that in any way meant to instill fear in an enemy? No offence to anyone called Gordon but if you were going to be a ninja, change your name to something a bit cooler. Next of all how can the ninjas in this movie meant to be inconspicuous with those outfits? The two main ninjas in this film have a load of tinfoil on them! Shiny!. The next thing I noticed is that all the ninjas are all middle-aged European dudes. Not one Asian ninja among them. Now the ending of this movie just sucked big time. The ninjas fought for like thirty seconds, the good guy won and then it ended. That's it! No more!On the plus side there are two really shining moments in this film for me. First is the always good dubbing. Method actors these guys are not. Any more wooden and I would have got splinters in my eyes from watching. The other is the headbands. Every ninja in this movie has a headband on that says ninja. What is that all about? Do they think that we need to be told that they are ninjas? The masks, sharp pointy weapons and ability to kill people stealthily kind of gave that away. Maybe it's an advertising thing. Sponsored by ninja...Cool.Now where can I buy one of those cool headbands....

Boanthrope It grates my potatoes when I read reviews on this site that say things like "This is worst film ever!" about films like Battlefield Earth, Pearl Harbour, etc. OK, these films are dreadful and made by people who should know better but compared to this tripe, and its ilk, I would describe Battlefield Earth as a cinematic masterpiece.I would concede that it's certainly possible to make a worse film than this but you have to be genuinely trying to make a bad film.** Spoilers ahead ** (Ha, as if you could spoil this film.)There are just so many things wrong with this film and it takes multiple viewings to spot them. E.g., at one point, John, a good guy, while trying to come up with a plan with rescue Billy's sister suggests using his adopted children a decoy! Also, the bad guy kidnaps Billy's sister early and doesn't think of using her as bait to capture Billy until right at the end of the film.Even the one thing that they seem to have put a bit of effort into - the gun-based action sequences - are bad. They're just boring and repetitive.However, I learnt several interesting things from this movie:1. Wherever this film is set, it is certainly a very cosmopolitan area. The lead character, who seems to have lived here all his life, has managed to pick up a South African accent. The evil gangsters all seem to sound Mexican and/or Asian. The women have an array of different, peculiar American accents. (Were the dubbing actors having bets on who could do most stupid voices?)2. Being brutally machine-gunned down results in no more than slight bleeding from the mouth (and then only sometimes).3. Any slight brush against a ninja's sword results in instantaneous death.4. Ninjas, i.e. stealth assassins, wear Day-Glo padded suits. A headband with 'ninja' written on it is the current must-have ninja accessory.5. Job prospects are poor for Asian ninjas nowadays. (You'd think Billy would have thought of that before going off to spend 10 years at Ninja School.) However, many of the causasian ones seem to have jobs that involve poncing about in glades.6. When a ninja dies, a windchime somewhere falls down.Nevertheless, this film is a hoot. I honestly can't decide if this it is really as bad this or if someone is taking the piss - especially with regards to the randomly interspersed ninja sequences and the godawful dubbing.Thoroughly recommended.

prettyboytim 'Ninja Squad' is a truly bizarre film. There are two main plots - the main one being about Billy, a trainee ninja who appears to live somewhere in Indonesia and whose family is being terrorised by some gangsters. He has spent the last 10 years training as a ninja under 'The Master Ninja' who, oddly enough, is a blond-haired elderly white guy in a bright pink and silver shellsuit. In fact, all the ninjas (apart from billy) are all caucasian and all wear brightly coloured shellsuits and bands across their foreheads that say 'ninja'. An evil ninja called 'Red Ivan' is going around killing ninjas to try and prove he's better than 'The Master'. 'Red Ivan', by the way, has a bright red and gold jumpsuit.In the 'Billy' parts of the film, there isn't all that much hand-to-hand fighting - more of it is pitched gun battles. The brightly-coloured ninja bits have lots of slow-motion sword battles in them, but they're ultimately rather unsatisfying as the effects budget obviously didn't reach to fake blood.All in all a rather odd film (with a very bizarre ending) which was quite obviously a foreign film with some weird ninja stuff tacked on. Quite enjoyable, though.