Member Neil Koch Posted July 2, 2014 Member Share Posted July 2, 2014 Hi guys, I picked up a cheap "box set" from Crash Cinema, The Ultimate Ninja Collection. Most of it is Venom of the Ninja aka Ninja Death. I tired searching here and on the net for any info and couldn't find much, so I have a couple of questions. Was this originally a TV series (like it is presented on the DVD) or just a really long movie that was re-edited? What is the correct original title? The "Venom of the Ninja" title is obviously superimposed over the footage. Any differences between the two versions? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member AlbertV Posted July 2, 2014 Member Share Posted July 2, 2014 I know Venom of the Ninja's original name is NINJA KIDS, a 1982 film directed by Joseph Kuo. I'm not sure if this was a trilogy of films or if the sequels were part of the whole NINJA THE FINAL DUEL 9 hour epic that was later split. I will have to dig up some research on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Secret Executioner Posted July 2, 2014 Member Share Posted July 2, 2014 Ninja Kids (AKA Venom Of The Ninja) exist as both a trilogy and a single movie (a trimmed version of the trilogy). Concerning Ninja: The Final Duel, it's originally a 13-hour (!!) epic made in 1986 that became the source of footage for two distinct things: - Ninja: The Final Duel, originally a TV series released on 3 VHS in Taiwan that was itself edited to become a 90-minute movie. - Shaolin Dolemite AKA Ninja: The Final Duel 2, that uses other parts of the 13-jour epic (nothing from the TV series apparently) and adds scenes with Rudy Ray Moore that were spliced into the 1986 movie in 1999. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Secret Executioner Posted July 4, 2014 Member Share Posted July 4, 2014 For the record, my source for the informations I provided was French website Nanarland, a website about bad movies (movie reviews, biographies of actors, directors and producers...). I know Venom of the Ninja's original name is NINJA KIDS, a 1982 film directed by Joseph Kuo. I'm not sure if this was a trilogy of films or if the sequels were part of the whole NINJA THE FINAL DUEL 9 hour epic that was later split. I will have to dig up some research on it. Did you find more detailed informations on those ? Also, what's with your signature ? It's weird but hilarious. Where is it from ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Secret Executioner Posted August 19, 2014 Member Share Posted August 19, 2014 The single movie (85 minutes) has to be a trimmed version of the original trilogy/TV series (the format it was released under in the US - 6 episodes of 45 minutes). Lots of stuff seems to be missing, there are some plotholes and it focuses essentially on the action and on the major exposition. But (from a comparison I've read) it's still lacking exposition (much of the exposition was removed, including a more developped backstory on Alexander Lo's character and on the masked Ninja) and some action scene (notably involving the masked Ninja). Also, the sound effects differ depending on the version you get. The French "dub" (if we may call it that) is closer to the original Taiwanese apparently. I'd curious to see this longer version you're mentionning - I had planned to get that Ultimate Ninja Collection set (Venom Of The Ninja in its long version + Ninja: The Final Duel, sounds awesome to anyone into some Alexander Lo madness), but haven't been able to get it so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Secret Executioner Posted August 19, 2014 Member Share Posted August 19, 2014 And here's an oddity: one of the main characters from this film appears on the cover of this DVD: A DVD that actually contains a Godfrey Ho movie starring Bruce Baron and Stuart Smith as the leaders of two rival Ninja clans (though Baron seems to be the only Red Ninja) fighting while a Thai (?) movie is going on: G7oeg7z-mrs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Neil Koch Posted August 19, 2014 Author Member Share Posted August 19, 2014 http://www.hkfilm.net/movrevs/2/ultimateninja.htm I think the same set of footage was used in Ninja Terminator and Golden Ninja Invasion http://www.hkfilm.net/movrevs5/ninjaterm.htm http://www.hkfilm.net/movrevs/2/goldenninja.htm I'm not sure of the name of the Thai movie that is spliced in. I think VideoAsia has been out of business for a while now, but you can still find copies floating around Ebay, Amazon, etc. I've seen quite a few of them via disc on Netflix. Most of them are probably on YouTube also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Secret Executioner Posted August 19, 2014 Member Share Posted August 19, 2014 http://www.hkfilm.net/movrevs/2/ultimateninja.htm I think the same set of footage was used in Ninja Terminator and Golden Ninja Invasion http://www.hkfilm.net/movrevs5/ninjaterm.htm http://www.hkfilm.net/movrevs/2/goldenninja.htm I'm not sure of the name of the Thai movie that is spliced in. I think VideoAsia has been out of business for a while now, but you can still find copies floating around Ebay, Amazon, etc. I've seen quite a few of them via disc on Netflix. Most of them are probably on YouTube also. The costume of Bruce Baron in this one seems to have been worn by Pierre Tremblay as well - in Ninja Champion for instance (a movie where he plays the bad guy and he fights Bruce Baron). Golden Ninja Invasion also stars Stuart Smith (though as a good guy and as Stuart Steen - IFD actors were supposed not to work with Filmark), but I don't see how Ninja Terminator relates - except for Red Ninjas (is Bruce Baron the last one ?) and the Golden Ninja Warrior figure. I have no clue what the Thai film used in this is called, but I don't think I could tell what the original Asian movie is for any of these films. Some of these Asian films (like the Korean one used in Ninja Terminator or the Taiwanese one used in Ninja Dragon) look like good stuff though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Morgoth Bauglir Posted August 19, 2014 Member Share Posted August 19, 2014 I love Ninja Death part 1, but I wish I would have watched a condensed version of 2 and 3. Hard to sit through and not a very good final fight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member the moose Posted August 19, 2014 Member Share Posted August 19, 2014 Also, what's with your signature ? It's weird but hilarious. Where is it from ? It is from this movie here... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Morgoth Bauglir Posted August 19, 2014 Member Share Posted August 19, 2014 I have no clue what the Thai film used in this is called, but I don't think I could tell what the original Asian movie is for any of these films. Some of these Asian films (like the Korean one used in Ninja Terminator or the Taiwanese one used in Ninja Dragon) look like good stuff though. I don't know if I've seen Ninja Dragon but I love Ninja Terminator. I remember someone asked what the original Korean movie is called and didn't get an answer. To think that there are more scenes with Jaguar Wong. The coolest guy in movie history! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Secret Executioner Posted August 20, 2014 Member Share Posted August 20, 2014 I don't know if I've seen Ninja Dragon but I love Ninja Terminator. I remember someone asked what the original Korean movie is called and didn't get an answer. To think that there are more scenes with Jaguar Wong. The coolest guy in movie history! Yeah, that guy is damn cool - even when doing ridiculous stuff (following his ex becomes a car chase, he throws a dice in Hwang Jang Lee's face in the middle of a fight), he still looks awesome. Concerning Ninja Dragon, and according to the movie review on French website Nanarland.com quoting a Spanish blog on Ninja flicks, the movie used for the Asian part is a 1982 Taiwanese flick directed by Lee Wing-Cheung called Dark Trap. On a sidenote, it seems like Dark Trap is some kind of remake of a 1976 Shaw Brothers production directed by Hua Shan and called Brotherhood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Morgoth Bauglir Posted August 21, 2014 Member Share Posted August 21, 2014 Interesting. I've never seen Dark Trap, but that's what Godfrey Ho would do he would splice in his ninja footage with movies that almost nobody had ever seen. This made it a legitimate "new" movie:tongue: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Secret Executioner Posted August 21, 2014 Member Share Posted August 21, 2014 Interesting. I've never seen Dark Trap, but that's what Godfrey Ho would do he would splice in his ninja footage with movies that almost nobody had ever seen. This made it a legitimate "new" movie:tongue: That's exactly the principle of the cut-and-splice flick. According to what Richard Harrison stated in interviews, the actors who made movies with Godfrey Ho often had no clue what was going on and what would appear as one film would turn out to be a bunch of scenes used in a dozen of them - spliced in into a completely different Taiwanese, Filippino, Thai, Indonesian or Korean film that either had next to no distribution or wasn't finished and had been shelved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Morgoth Bauglir Posted August 21, 2014 Member Share Posted August 21, 2014 Yeah that's right. He was a pretty smart guy. I think I remember reading that he or Thomas Tang actually bought a studio that had a ton of these movies. And they basically became his movies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Secret Executioner Posted August 21, 2014 Member Share Posted August 21, 2014 Yeah that's right. He was a pretty smart guy. I think I remember reading that he or Thomas Tang actually bought a studio that had a ton of these movies. And they basically became his movies. Never heard of that. It could be Tuomas Tang, as he is a pretty shadowy figure and next to nothing is known about this guy - not even what he looked like (some believe he actually made appearances in some Filmark movies) or whether he actually died in the 1996 fire that destroyed several buildings in HK including the one where the head office of Filmark was located. But my guess would be that rather than Godfrey Ho (whom some people believe to be the actual Tuomas Tang), I'd think the purchaser of this studio would be his partner at IFD, Joseph Lai. The story of Joseph Lai, Tuomas Tang and Godfrey Ho is fascinating actually, though a lot of stuff isn't 100% sure like Tuomas Tang's identity (the Portuguese name Tuomas may suggest he's from Macao, a former Portuguese colony), why Tang and Lai dissolved Asso Asia and went separate ways in the early 1980s with Filmark and IFD (Taxes ? Personal conflict ?) - these two companies sounded like different things, but they were pretty much the same, with many actors on payroll for both (Paulo Tocha AKA Bruce Stallion, Mike Abbott, Stuart Smith) and many Filmark films could have been directed by Godfrey Ho under alias (Bruce Lambert, Joe Livingstone...). French website Nanarland has a nice entry on Tuomas Tang as part of their producer/director bios. I'll try and make a translation of what they say on that guy - lots of interesting stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.