DAY 23: Exploitation Auteurs!

Trying to summarize a Godfrey Ho film is like trying to hold water in your hands, but here goes: An ancient feud between the Black Ninja Clan and the Diamond Ninja Empire is reignited by the discovery of a long-lost tomb. Meanwhile, in what feels like a completely different movie, a guy named Gordon is just trying to take photos of his girlfriend in Hong Kong when he gets harassed by some Caucasian thugs and has to kick some ass. Naturally, all these threads collide in a nonsensical whirlwind of mismatched footage, ridiculous dubbing and enough neon-colored ninja headbands to supply a small army.

As for the cast, Richard Harrison remains the undisputed king of the Godfrey Ho era. Harrison was a veteran of Italian peplum and spaghetti westerns who found himself trapped in a cycle of IFD Films productions. He plays the Ninja Master with the weary, thousand-yard stare of a man who knows exactly what he’s doing, but is clearly just here for the paycheck. At least he has that cool Garfield phone again, making me feel like his complaints that IFD kept reusing his footage from one movie to make so many more are true.

Melvin Pitcher, Andy Chworowsky, Pierre Tremblay and John Ladalski are staples of this era. They were often ex-pats living in Hong Kong, rounded up to provide the Western half of the footage so the movies could be sold to international markets. You’ll recognize them from pretty much every other IFD ninja flick, usually sporting awful wigs and mustaches that seem to change size between cuts.

If you haven’t seen one of his movies, Godfrey Ho was the master of the cut-and-paste technique, a hallmark of the IFD Films & Arts studio. The reality behind Diamond Ninja Force—like many of his films—is a Frankenstein operation. Ho would take an existing, unrelated Asian action film (often a low-budget Taiwanese or Thai martial arts flick) and splice in new, original footage of Western actors wearing ninja gear. The tone shifts wildly between a gritty Hong Kong crime drama and a surreal, plotless ninja fantasy. The scenes involving the Western actors rarely interact with the original film’s cast; they just stand in front of a wall or a tree, talk about the mission, and then engage in slow-motion ninja fights. Sometimes, there is a phone call.

This takes the 1986 Taiwanese movie Ghost Rapist/Demons Apartment as its base, and then we have scenes of Harrison fighting and taking photos. Yes, a ninja movie mixed with a movie where a ghost haunts a family and is all horny about it. This is the magic cocktail that only an IFD movie could deliver.

“Fanny, it’s only nerves,” a husband assures his wife, worried about rotting fruit and black cats. Fanny Wong. That’s a name. And then dudes call her while dressed in soccer clothes. Meanwhile, death threats over selling land and a samurai in Mario Bava lighting. Magic.

Godfrey Ho remains the king of just outright lifting music. This time, we get songs from Jean Michel Jarre’s Rendez-Vous, “Endless” by Kraftwerk, a Macross II song, some Orchestral Maneuvers In The Dark, “Who Are You” by The Who, some of the Death Wish 2 and Thief scores and who knows what else. Oh! Some Stweart Copeland? Godfrey Ho movies anticipate the need to use Shazam (or know way too many Tangerine Dream songs).

Also: Fanny has a son named Bobo.

Also also: Lori, Richard Harrison’s wife, is killed by a ninja. She’s played by Maria Francesca, Harrison’s real-life wife, so I can only imagine they were doing the Laura Gemser and Gabriele Tinti trick of getting cast together and then traveling the world.

Well, you know what comes next. Only a ninja can stop a ninja. “I promise I’ll avenge you,” says Harrison, speaking in perhaps another movie, endlessly repeated throughout the IFD catalog, all while ghosts haunt Fanny and family.

This is a movie where a ninja tells another, “You’re on my death list,” and slams the receiver into the back of Garfield, right before a father reminds his son not to wet the bed. Harrison does what he does best — put on a bright ninja suit and guyliner to stop other ninjas while surrounded by enough candles to make a Police video — while Poltergeist moments happen to Bobo and ghost women jill off while watching his parents have sex.

Life is unpredictable and horrible at times, so the joy of knowing I can watch neon ninjas fight Americans on vacation wearing short shorts whenever I want keeps me going. I wish I could inject these movies into my eyes like heroin.

You can watch this on Tubi.