Treasure of the Ninja, 1987.
Directed by William Lee.
Starring William Lee, Gary Burton, John H. Howenstine, Constance Lester, Mark Ogden.
SYNOPSIS:
A secret agent trained in martial arts escorts a female scientist on a mission to find the fabled ninja treasure.
When does a fan film become a ‘legitimate’ or ‘proper’ movie? When it gets funded? When shooting is complete? Once it is released and viewed by the public? Or perhaps fan films aren’t ‘proper’ movies and should stay on the filmmaker’s computer, to be viewed privately or only at family parties – “Ooh look! He’s made a film. Bless him.”
Treasure of the Ninja, the latest title on 101Films’ line of American Grindhouse Film Archives releases, is certainly a strong argument for the latter, as lead actor William Lee also served as writer, director, stunt coordinator and executive producer (he probably contributed to the funky soul songs on the soundtrack too but that is just speculation), and like most labours of love the movie exhibits a certain spirit, with a heart to it that only passion and dedication can bring to such a low budget project.
And at a cost of less than $1500 it would take a lot of heart and passion to overcome the limitations of such a miniscule budget. Some talent would be handy too, and whilst William Lee has obviously seen every Bruce Lee movie at least half-a-dozen times and can throw the appropriate shapes during the otherwise tedious fight scenes, these qualities do not add up to Treasure of the Ninja being anything more than barely capable fan fiction.
There is a plot of some sort in here, a James Bond-esque story of a female scientist seeking the lost treasure of the ninja, and she is helped on her mission by secret-agent-cum-kung-fu-master Faze (Lee), a sort-of Shaft-meets-Bruce-Lee character whose only real characteristics are… well, ripping off Shaft and Bruce Lee. Naturally, there are unscrupulous villains also after the titular treasure and along the way more ‘characters’ are introduced in the fight against evil until the inevitable ultimate confrontation, or something like that.
Despite the obvious budgetary limitations, such as filming without sound and dubbing everything on later in what must be the most awful ADR job ever committed to film (no, really – it makes Bob from House by the Cemetery’s dubbing sound Shakespearian in comparison, plus why is there the sound of helicopter blades constantly in the background?), a script made up of dialogue that was cliched in 1977, let alone 1987, and the picture quality of a VHS tape that has been chewed up in the machine and then meticulously wound back onto the spools, what really does this movie no favours at all is the 105-minute running time.
As we all know, the law states that all ninja movies must be no more than 85 minutes long – 87 if there is a love interest to acknowledge – and even a martial arts epic such as Enter the Dragon still needs to trim off some fat to stay lean and exciting. The sad thing is, if you trimmed all the fat from Treasure of the Ninja you would only have enough meat left to make a reasonably fun trailer that could probably have slotted into the Rodriguez/Tarantino Grindhouse trailer section, except this isn’t a loving homage or a gentle mickey-take – William Lee really is serious.
If you thought that Cannon Films’ demented Ninja III: The Domination was the height of 1980s action movie lunacy then you might give Treasure of the Ninja a watch, just for comparison to see what rubbish can actually be achieved by having less money to invest in a movie than Golan & Globus. It isn’t nice to trash somebody’s hard work, and William Lee is obviously passionate about martial arts and filmmaking, but just because you put your heart and soul into making something terrible, at the end of the day it is still terrible, cult following or not.
Save yourself the time and misery and just watch Michael Jai White’s Black Dynamite for a much more watchable martial arts homage instead. At least that one that is hilarious for all the right reasons.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★
Chris Ward
