Directed and written by Harry Hook, who also made the 1990 Lord of the Flies, The Kitchen Toto is about Jonathan Graham, a regional police officer in the British colony of Kenya dealing with the uprising of the Kikuyu tribe. When they kill a black priest who’s condemned them, he takes in the man’s young son Mwangi (Edwin Mahinda) as his houseboy. Or kitchen toto, which is where this gets its name from.

Mwangi is trapped between two worlds, the independence his country needs so badly and the British who have treated him so well. Well, except for John’s son Edward, who uses him for target practice with his air rifle. When the Kikuyu tribe tries to recruit the servants to push out the English rulers, our protagonist has a life choice to make.

Look, not every Cannon movie is ninjas and explosions. Sometimes, they’re stiff upper lip explorations of the United Kingdom’s past. But yes, they really should all be ninjas and explosions.

This was the last film of Edward Judd, who was in The Day the Earth Caught Fire, Because of the Cats and The Vault of Horror.