The Art of the Ninja, Volume 1

Customer Reviews:

WARNING! DO NOT BUY THIS MOVIE........2005-04-13

This by far has to be the dumbest $%@& movie on EARTH. I saw this movie and as soon as I heard them chanting "black ninja, black ninja" and saw that idiotic costume, I turned it off. But my friend insisted on watching the whole thing. OMG!!! First off the plot doesn't make any sense what's so ever. Second, every time I hear them chanting "black ninja, black ninja" it just kills my nerves. And would someone PLEASE tell me why he is fights his own clients. This movie does not deserve a one or a zero, I just wish I could award a -1.

It's so bad it's great, you will laugh your butt off.......2005-04-12

I could not believe my eyes when I saw this film. I heard it was crazy and kooky it went beyond that! The acting is bizarre, the characters are strange, the fighting is crazy, but best of all you can show this to your kids, (not very bloody at all,) and kids will like the stupid humor.
This has got to be the best of the worst, if they did this on purpose then they are geniuses.
Get it and than laugh at it! then see it again!

The Caped Crusader.......2004-08-16

I truly am the world's worst critic when it comes to martial arts movies. At least half my DVD collection consists of martial arts movies.

I was truly at a loss for words after seeing THE BLACK NINJA. I just could not decide if I loved it or hated it. I bought this movie for about $15, and I'll be the first to say that I probably spent a hell of alot more buying THE BLACK NINJA than the filmmakers spent making it.

Most of the "budget" probably went to the Black Ninja costume which look like a cross between the costumes of ZORRO and IRON MONKEY, although I'm stumped as to how he's sees out of that mask.(Don't be fooled by the DVD box art;Clayton Prince never wears anything that look like that.)

That's just as well, too, since the costume, a silly but very comic book like costume, is the only decent special effect in the movie. This film had to have been shot on video, the picture is so incredily crummy by any standard.

However, the martial arts action is a different story. While nothing spectacular, is competantly coreographed, and features a few really nice moves. In particular, a rather short but totally sweet fight between the Black Ninja and a small, yet lethal henchman features some impressive blackflips, somersaults, and spinning kicks.

There's also the use of what I like to call "punch'n crunch" sound effects every time a blow lands. This appears often in direct-to-video martial arts flicks. And there are also triple takes on many kicks; you'll see what I mean when you see it.

Clayton Prince is a fine actor, and appears to be a competant martial artist. While I can't excuse the complete lack of budget, and the short (TWO WEEKS!!!!) filming schedule, the martial arts action works fairly well, the BLACK NINJA theme song is catchy (if a bit outdated), and I find it hard to not like a film that is funny both when it is and is not supposed to be.

So, if Clayton Prince is reading review right now, I'd like to tell him: Clayton, you clearly wanted wanted to make a cool kung fu movie, and you sort of accomplished that here. So, next time, take the budget, multiply it by 1,000, extend the shooting schedule by no less than one month, and get together a few competant martial artists, and make BLACK NINJA 2.

That could send you on your way to being the next Wesley Snipes.

What a horribly great movie.......2004-06-02

Quite possibly the worst movie ever. Wow. The guy who plays the Black Ninja isn't a bad actor, he just can't write or direct. It is hilarious though...

Best of the worst?.......2004-01-04

Currently, this movie costs $89 to buy and $4 to rent. Combine the two sums and you've probably spent more on it than the producers of this class trash! Two things are immediately remarkable about this movie. First, the fiften seconds, combined, comprising the opening and closing animation sequences have production values which are immensely better than the actual movie. Second, by all accounts, the movie accomplishes its primary task, it's actually entertaining. Someone called this DTV a "blaxploitation" movie. I don't think so. While the majority of the cast is Black, this effort exploits all races, Black, White and Asian with equal opportunity.
Entertain yourself, and do the the writer/director/star a favor by renting it now, and buying it as soon as the purchase price drops below $20. The pre-feature preview promos on the VHS rental copy of "The Black Ninja" for "Pimps Up,Ho's Down" and "Welcome to the Terror Dome" are, in and of themselves, worth the price of popcorn. The former for its sheer audacity, the latter for its hint that things could be exponentially worse in every way that "art" might be.
Don't confuse this effort with the Chris Kelly title of the same name. Clayton Prince is head (but not shoulders. He's taller.) above that star in acting ability and modesty. Where else, have you ever seen a movie whose credits start with "written and directed by me" (sic), above the head of the star/writer/director?
Let's put it this way, if "Gigli" and "The Black Ninja"
were competing for the Best Picture Oscar(TM), "Gigli" would win for production values, "The Black Ninja" would win for entertainment value!

Average customer rating:

The Art of the Ninja, Volume 3

Manufacturer: Black Belt Magazine
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0001NJ9LM
Release Date: 2004-02-01

Bad Azz Muthaz, Vol. 4: Soul Brothers of Kung Fu/Black Ninja/G.I. Bro

Average customer rating:

The film G.I. Bro is actually titled Inglorious Bastards
Bad but in a Good Way

Bad Azz Muthaz, Vol. 4: Soul Brothers of Kung Fu/Black Ninja/G.I. Bro
Starring: Bad Azz Muthaz
Manufacturer: Ground Zero
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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( B ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
ASIN: B0003JAHOC
Release Date: 2004-10-26

Description

G.I. BRO: A group of court martialed G.I.'s escape during a German air raid and are forced to become a guerilla force when surrounded by the enemy. A chance for redemption arrives in the shape of a deadly mission for British Intelligence to blow up an armored train carrying a prototype missile. Fred Williamson stars. BLACK NINJA: When an Interpol assignment goes horribly wrong and leaves his wife brutally murdered, it becomes a personal vendetta for our hero. SOUL BROTHERS OF KUNG FU: Illegal immigrants Bruce Li and Lo Meng become fast friends with kung fu fanatic Carl Scott, and spend their time, exchanging techniques and battling the bad guys.

Customer Reviews:

The film G.I. Bro is actually titled Inglorious Bastards.......2007-03-20

Ignore the title to this flick as it's actually a flick called Inglorious [...] (aka Counterfeit Commandos, Deadly Mission, or Hell's Heroes.)

Though this DVD contains a horrible print, which I believe has been edited to feel a little bit more Blaxsploitation, this film is a pretty awesome Italian War flick set during WWII. The plot is very similar to the Dirty Dozen, though in Inglorious [...] we have five war prisoners on their way to prison who escape after their convoy is strafed by a Nazi fighter plane.

The five men then decide to make their way to the Swiss border but find themselves in one entanglement after another until they are unwittingly drafted into an assignment to hijack Nazi train and disable a warhead in the process.

I'm not familiar until to know if it's its own genre, but the Spaghetti War movie is rife with the same attributes as the Spaghetti Western and makes for a really fun movie with plenty of comedy, action and craziness.

A remake of this film is perennially referred to as Quentin Tarantino's "next project" in which he has written a script, but no date has been set for filming.

Bad but in a Good Way.......2006-07-14

GI Bro: This movie has nothing to do with blaxploitation except that one of the characters is a black guy. The same cast also seems to have made Real Soulja, another mis-labled flick making the rounds on these budget dvds. Bad movie, bad acting, bad title.

Black Ninja: If you like cheesy ninja movies where people can do magic flips and dissapear and have big goofy headbands clearly labled "NINJA" this is for you.. If you're looking for a serious hard hitting "brother-on-the-edge" type flick.. well, nothing in this set is for you.

Soul Brothers of Kung Fu: The plot is hard to follow, the action wasn't very impressive nor does it go for the campy style of Dolemite, so I was mostly bored, but if you're bothering to look at this set it's probably worth the few bucks. This version features first a cut then an additional uncut ending. The uncut is a little graphic but nothing modern audiences haven't seen. At least it lives up to it's title, unlike GI Bro..

Average customer rating:

The Art of the Ninja, Volume 2

Manufacturer: Black Belt Magazine
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0001NJ9LC
Release Date: 2004-02-01

Average customer rating:

almost a good fantasy-fu
worth it for the Fight among the supers movie!

Ninja Fantasy / Fight Among the Supers
Starring: Black Belt Theatre Double Feature
Manufacturer: Ground Zero
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00008RH0F
Release Date: 2003-04-15

Customer Reviews:

almost a good fantasy-fu.......2006-04-24

Now the blackbelt version must be the uncut one because it is over 90 minutes and would have been less than 60 if us americans would have chopped it up. The opening sequence is pretty cool but the rest of the movie is just a slapstick comedy. The god of chopsticks and the god of bowls want to see who is the best I guess, so they go and pick 2 kids to match up against eachother. I had trouble paying attention to this cause there is a couple of LONGG periods with no fu, but I don't think they ever had their duel against each other like the movie said it was going to do at the beginning, they just kind of team up and defeat the bad guys. And that is the reason the movie gets 2 the extra star. The acrobatics an dfights are very good. It is just that there is literallly like 10 minutes of fighting. And since that is SERIOUSLY all there is, they could have been a bit more spectacular.

The blackbelt version is certainly uncut and you can tell because of the imbedded subtitles. Also the picture quality is watchable.

I didn't watch the other movie casue I read the review on here.

worth it for the Fight among the supers movie!.......2005-02-08

Ninja Fantasy is one of those one movie with another movie edited in it! Basically you're watching a Chinese cop movie or whatever with some white guys dress up as ninjas (that's obviously the edited part)! But why you should buy this is becuz of Fight Among the Supers! Fight.... is a great kung fu movie! it's about these two gods (god of chopsticks and god of bowls) who take on students and teach them kung fu so they them to fight each other to see whos a better kung fu master (on the part of the gods of course)! The fight scenes were great! It's some of the best crap you'll see in early 80's kung fu cinema!
The picture for the movie is crisp clean, in original language and the subtitles come out good! It's Chinese and Engish subs. The dvd plays how it should! no extras but $10 is worth it! Supers is great and Ninja is good laughs!

Average customer rating:

Unhinged and Groovy!

Black Tight Killer
Starring: Akira Kobayashi , Chieko Matsubara , and Yuriko Sawanouchi
Director: Yasuharu Hasebe
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: 6305943850
Release Date: 2000-08-15

Amazon.com

Filmed in delirious pop-art color and directed like a live-action comic book, this tongue-in-cheek Japanese spy thriller plays like a surreal cliffhanger serial dropped into swinging Tokyo and zipped through on fast-forward. Go-go-dancing female assassins in form-fitting black leather bedevil a globetrotting photographer as he battles the Yakuza thugs and American gangsters who keep kidnapping his stewardess girlfriend. The women, armed with ninja chewing gum bullets, razor-sharp phonograph records, and explosive golf balls, alternately flirt and fight it out with our suave hero (played with effortless charisma by Akika Kobayashi), while his doe-eyed innocent honey Chieko Matsubara is tied up and staked out in one kinky trap after another. Director Yasuharu Hasebe was a disciple of genre-busting legend Seijun Suzuki, and this debut film plays like a pulpier take on Suzuki's Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill. The ostensible plot has something to do with a fortune in World War II gold and a super-secret treasure map, but it's merely an excuse for outrageous set pieces and high-energy fight scenes, edited with jackhammer rapidity and a giddy disdain for logic. Dig that crazy score of jangly surf rock and funky jazz, and have a ball with the typo-riddled subtitles--they become just another goofy element of this campy masterpiece.

The sharp widescreen print is mildly worn but vivid and bright. The DVD also features a 20-minute video interview with the director, which for some reason is dubbed over in English rather than subtitled. --Sean Axmaker

Description

Playgirl assassins a-go-go! A Mod/Pop Art sixties masterpiece masquerading as a gangster/spy spoof, "Black Tight Killers" (Ore Ni Sawaru To Abunaize, roughly "Don't Touch Me, I'm Dangerous") stars then-current matinee idol and singing star Akira Kobayashi as a combat photographer trying to save his stewardess girlfriend (Chieko Matsubara) from an alliance of American mobsters and Japanese yakuza (gangsters). He's alternately helped and hindered by a strange band of girl assassins who use razor-sharp 45 rpm records as weapons and wads of bubblegum to blind pursuers. What he soon discovers is that everyone is after a cache of gold hidden by Matsubara's late father immediately after World War II. The first film from one of Nikkatsu Studios' most talented late sixties directors, Yasuharu Hasebe, "Black Tight Killers" shows a definite influence from Hasebe's mentor, the iconoclastic and brilliant Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill, Tokyo Drifter).

Customer Reviews:

Unhinged and Groovy!.......2000-10-26

The Amazon reviewer captured this movie perfectly -- I'm here to tell you it's not hype. I caught this during its one public screening in L.A.; when I learned it would show briefly in NYC, I called friends there and warned them that missing it now meant missing it forever. Thank God I was wrong! BTK is a blast.

The comparison to Suzuki Seijun is a bit misleading. With Suzuki, enjoyment depends on your appreciation for his idiosyncracies and how they overtake the standard genre moves. Black Tight Killers, however, doesn't subvert 60's spy flicks; it jazzes them up. Where Bond movies are sly, BTK is loopy; while Bond has become very familiar, the unwinking giddiness to this offshoot tastes fresh. The cinematography and design keep the party going: Unable to compete with 007 lushness, they compensate (and then some) with style and humor.

DVD:

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