A ninja named Billy — who is really from a Filipino movie made two years before this called Hatulan si baby angustia — has been training with a ninja master named Gordon (Richard Harrison, in the same footage that was supposedly for one film and ended up being ten or more). But now as it is time to return home and see his family again, Gordon will have to deal with another issue. Ivan the Red (Dave Wheeler) is a power-mad ninja so desperate to fight him that he has started to kill every fighter in the Ninja Empire. To draw him out, he uses Billy and his family, sending thugs to kidnap his sister and kill his mother. Billy had hoped to leave the world of the ninja behind. Now, he has no choice.

Again, like all of Godfrey Ho’s movie, we’re trapped between two worlds. In one, Harrison and many multicolored ninjas with headbands that helpfully inform us that they are, indeed, ninja fight one another with somersaults and swords. In the other, we’re in the tough streets and watching a young man in love with a cop’s daughter try and join the force, only to learn that even the father of the woman he loves is corrupt. It’s down, dirty and depressing, like the New Hollywood speaking in Tagalog.

If you already know that only a ninja can kill a ninja, this film will teach you a new lesson: if you are born a ninja, you die a ninja. I am slowly making my way through the Godfrey Ho Cinematic Universe and trying to put together the connective tissue between these films. I realize that he was just cranking them out with no concern for how they connect. But you know how when your brain has to figure out how to survive a traumatic accident it blocks things out or invents a new reality for you? That’s what I’m doing, trying to keep my blown brain inside my head and attempting to figure out how all of these unite to create one overall saga.

If there’s one universal thing about these movies, other than ninja and senseless combination of unconnected cinema, it’s the mindblowing soundtrack. This time, “Hu” by Dif Juz, is in the film. They were an English instrumental post-punk band, formed in London and active from 1980 to 1986. Members included Gary Bromley on bass, Richard Thomas on percussion and saxophone and the Curtis brothers, Dave and Alan, on guitars. For a brief time, Alan was in Duran Duran and the band also served as backup for Lee Scratch Perry. Signed to 4AD, they were also close with the Cocteau Twins and members collaborated with Wolfgang Press.

Speaking of the Cocteau Twins, their songs “Wax and Wane” and “Song to the Siren” are in this, as are “Medusa” by Clan of Xymox and The Human League’s “Human,” which was written and produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, former members of The Time. They’d just finished Janet Jackson’s Control record, which I heartily recommend.

Also, thanks to David Assassino, I learned that some of the Edgar Froese score to Fassbinder’s Kamikaze 1989 is in this and that the end credits are Miko Mission’s “Two for Love.”

I have no idea why all this synth pop ends up in ninja movies but as always, I am not complaining.

You can watch this on Tubi.