My Man Godfrey (Ho): The IFD Appreciation Thread

[Guest Atomic Mystery Monster]

Note: This was originally posted at another forum, hence my explaining who Godfrey Ho is (I doubt that's all that nescessary here). I'm just copy-pasting my posts over to here in an attempt to get more activity on the board and talk with other IFD fans.

Ah, IFD Films and Arts...how I love their "cut and paste" movies. For those not in the know, IFD is infamous for buying the rights to movies that are either unfinished or would normally be considered "unreleasable" in America, adding in footage of white actors who "interact" with characters from the original movie footage via editing, and then redub all the dialogue so that it forms a single storyline. They'd also redo the credits so that IFD employees were given credit for creating, directing, etc. Said employees almost always had "Western" pseudonyms, with the most famous one being that of the director "Godfrey Ho". The story goes that since people started to catch on to the idea that "Godfrey Ho" meant that they were about to rent a "cut and paste" movie, IFD changed his pseudonym repeatedly. Even after he left the company, their continued use of the "cut and paste" forumla and director psuednyms have led many a person to conclude that Godfrey Ho has directed more movies than he really has.

As for Mr. Ho (his real name escapes me at the moment), he went on to direct some 100% original movies and is apparently teaching at a film school in Hong Kong.

Although IFD is most commonly associated with their "cut and paste" ninja movies (featuring ninjas wearing headbands that actually say "ninja" on them), they've applied that technique to other genres, including a giant monster movie! IFD also does translations of movies without adding new material, but many find their dubbing to be unintentionally hilarious.

I can't be the only one who loves movies like these; does anyone have any thoughts or reviews that they'd like to share?

[Guest Atomic Mystery Monster]

I occasionally encounter IFD movies featuring a scene or two that really bother me. This is one of those movies. NINJA CHAMPION starts with a gang of criminals with painted faces (think Kabuki mixed with KISS) attacking a couple in the forest. After beating up the male, they grab the bikini-clad female, punch her in the stomach, and rape her. This is followed by the woman being treated (operated on?) in a hospital, demanding that she not have any anesthetics since she "deserves the pain"! Not exactly what I was hoping for from a ninja movie.

At some point in the future, we find that the couple has split up-the man (George) got married to another woman and the woman (Rose) has become a diamond smuggler who's trackling down and killing her attackers on the side (one of them she kills using poisoned nipples). I should note that you don't learn the characters' names until much later in the movie. Later, it's revealed that it's been three months since the incident. That's right folks, George dumped his girlfriend and got married in under three months.

Anyway, Interpol gets involved because of their interest in stoppping the smuggling (and in order to justify the ninja footage), with footage from the two movies being edited and dubbed to make it look like two characters are talking on the phone. Speaking of phones, when (stock footage of) Richard Harrison makes a cameo appearance, he's shown using a novelty Garfield phone! So while the good Interpol agent/ninja goes after the evil ninjas behind the diamond smuggling ring, George tries to get back with Rose (As you can imagine, she's less than thrilled to see him again) and Rose tries to kill off the rest of the rapists. But when Rose seems to die and George sets out to avenge her death, he notices a woman that seems to be Rose. I won't spoil the ending, but I will tell you that it involves some moronic plot twists and a gun-toting retard.

The "source movie" has some decent fights, including a bizarre sequence in which George displays supernatural powers in order to fight off some bad guys. I'm guessing that he got those after being attacked at the beginning of the movie. Either that, or Rose has an even better reason to hate him. The ninja footage has some pretty interesting fight sequences as well, such as an evil ninja who likes using a giant ring as a weapon.

Judging from some signs at an airport sequence, I'm guessing that the "source movie' was made in Korea. Although the propaganda van in the parade scene makes me wonder if the "source movie" is North Korean in origin. If you can find NINJA CHAMPION, it's well worth a look. Just be prepared for the beginning...

[Guest Gwailos Forever]

I think Big Mike Leeder had roles in several IFD films. Care to comment on your experiences Mike? Bet you've got some tales to tell!

[Guest Chinatown Kid]

Does Tomas Tang have any connection with Godfrey Ho? I bought several of these "Ninja" films from Frank Lakatos in which Tang was the producer because I heard Sun Chien(My favorite Venom) was involved with them and hoped to see him in some fights scenes. Turns out he only appeared in a couple and it was bit parts which featured no fighting from him. These films have to be some of the worst I've ever seen and I'll never buy another film with Ninja in the title unless it's a Sho Kosugi flick!

[Guest morgoth]

Thomas Tang I believe is one of Ho's many disciples. NEVER watch any of those guys ninja flicks. But they did actually make an enjoyable movie here or there.

Silver Fox-"ashhole, give me the message"

Monk-"I am telling you Silver Fox, I AM NOT DEAD YET!"

[Guest Big Mike Leeder]

Ah IFD....

Whiule a lot of people seem to think Godfrey Ho directed everything that came out of IFD, you have to remember that after IFD's intial success, Thomas Tang left to open Filmark and for a while Godfrey was working for both companies before eventually forming his own company

While a lot of people seem to want to knock Joesph Lai & IFD, you have to remember that they were one of the first companies to give a lot of people their first international exposure, and while they did in the mid 80's early 90's do a lot of cut and paste projects with movies, they had officially licensed the footage from the distributors and you also have to remember that back then so few Korean or Thai films were considered marketable outside of their home turf so Joseph would buy the rights and then work out a way to make the films more marketable to the international audience..hence some of the cut and paste stuff

As a member of the IFD: Not Ready for Prime Time Players I will say that while these films weren't high art, they did give us a lot of experince and opportunities to start to experiment with fight choreography, improvization etc....if you go back and look through the films Bruce Fontaine, Kenn Goodman, Mike Miller, Steve Brettingham etc were all given the chance to show what they could do actionwise in some of these projects and a lot of action directors including Phillip ko Fei, Paul Wong from JC team in mid 80's, Ridley Tsui etc all got some of their early action director experience at IFD

.

[Guest kungfusamurai]

Those Korean kung fu flicks with guys like Elton Chong and Benny Tsui - weren't they already being financed via Tang or Lai or Ho? Many of those films, like Incredible Shaolin Thunderkick or Deadly Shaolin Longfist, featured a lot of chinese writing and seemed to focus on chinese kung fu handwork, even though a lot of the kicking was Tae Kwan Do based. If they were true Korean films that were hacked up to appeal to an international market, wouldn't they have been wearing Korean clothing, feature Korean signs, and have an overall Korean feel to the films?

KFS

[Linn1]

Chinese is used in a lot of places alongside Korean. It really isn't that strange to see it in their movies.

[Guest Atomic Mystery Monster]

Whiule a lot of people seem to think Godfrey Ho directed everything that came out of IFD, you have to remember that after IFD's intial success, Thomas Tang left to open Filmark and for a while Godfrey was working for both companies before eventually forming his own company

Now this is interesting. The version I had heard was that Thomas Tang was called in as a semi-replacement for Godfrey Ho after he left IFD to work with My Way Films. I guess it's the curse of the pseudonyms causing all of this confusion.

I'm pretty sure that Adda Audio-Visual and IFD are the same company, though.

While a lot of people seem to want to knock Joesph Lai & IFD, you have to remember that they were one of the first companies to give a lot of people their first international exposure, and while they did in the mid 80's early 90's do a lot of cut and paste projects with movies, they had officially licensed the footage from the distributors and you also have to remember that back then so few Korean or Thai films were considered marketable outside of their home turf so Joseph would buy the rights and then work out a way to make the films more marketable to the international audience..hence some of the cut and paste stuff

Holy crap, I'm not the only person who says that about IFD? Granted, it would've been better (in most cases) to have the original movies simply translated (at least the finished ones) without any new footage, but the English-language US home video market at the time didn't take kindly to Asian movies unless they involved martial arts or monsters. When you think about it, what they did (footage of Caucasians, changing the credits so it looked like they did all the work) wasn't very different from what American distributors did to foreign films in the 50's and 60's (especially with releases of Japanese monster movies).

IFD seems to be turning over a new leaf, though. Judging from their website, their recent output involves more translations and less new footage. In fact, their release of BEAUTY AND WARRIOR (an Indonesian cartoon) makes it seem like they simply distributed a movie without doing a new dub job or credits.

Big Mike Leeder, do you have any interesting "behind the scenes" stories about working for IFD?

[Guest Atomic Mystery Monster]

These films have to be some of the worst I've ever seen and I'll never buy another film with Ninja in the title unless it's a Sho Kosugi flick!

Oddly enough, Sho Kosugi's ninja movies inspired IFD to do their cut and paste ninja movies. Come to think of it, either ENTER THE NINJA or REVENGE OF THE NINJA involved a scene with a ninja wearing some type of headband...

But, yeah, IFD stuff is more enjoyable if you watch 'em expecting unintentionally hilarious madness. Expecting a martial arts masterpiece will only result in disappointment.

[Guest Atomic Mystery Monster]

Here's a little gem from 1987 called NINJA VS. NINJA that plays out almost exactly like a typical IFD "cut and paste" ninja movie (only without the headbands):

Non-Asian ninjas being the source of the problems seen in the footage taken from another movie? Check!

Goofy "special" ninja techniques? Check (The multiple arm trick and dividing scene are must sees)!

Hilariously bad dubbing? Check!

Music lifted from American sources? Check!

Characters from different sets of footage "interacting"? Check!

However, there are some differences that set this apart from a typical IFD movie. The credits don't bother to "Westernize" the cast's names, the ninja suits seem to be a size too big, and the ninja scenes lack the "polish" that ones shot by IFD have (And considering the quality of IFD's stuff, that's an accomplishment). I didn't see any indication of what film company originally made this, but I found a website that claims Filmark, a company known for "cut and paste" movies like ROBO VAMPIRE and whose founder had done work with IFD president Joseph Lai in the past, was behind it.

The movie used to make the bulk of NINJA VS. NINJA is an odd crime drama that'd be extremely entertaining even without the added ninja scenes! It involves a cop (made into a CIA agent in NVN's dub) who's out to avenge the death of his wife (and injury of his son) caused by by a bomb set up by two criminals: one who uses his mastery of the iron skin technique(!) to kill people without fear of being injured by knives or guns and the other who is a pervert that was driven insane by the death of his cross-eyed girlfriend. No, really. There are some pretty interesting, non humorous scenes and fighting in this movie as well. According to this website, these scenes are from a 1981 movie called BOMB SHELL.

And if that wasn't crazy enough, there's also a scene featuring the worst disguises ever put on film (including a guy wearing swim goggles and plastic vampire fangs). However I forget if it this was in the original movie or if it was a newly shot scene.

Tai Seng released NINJA VS. NINJA onto VHS and DVD years ago, so I can imagine that you can find it cheap on Amazon or Ebay. Or you could do what I did and pick up Tai Seng's "Ninja Six" set, a collection of titles they had previously released repackaged into a single box. It contains NINJA HUNTER, NINJA IN THE DEADLY TRAP, NINJA IN THE USA, NINJA VS. BRUCE LEE (starring Bruce Le), NINJA VS. NINJA, and NINJA VS. SHAOLIN GUARDS. I got mine for about $16.00. However, you'll want to buy some empty amaray cases when you get this, since Tai Seng decided to package them by having the DVDs stacked on a hub with foam at the bottom! I should also note that with the exception of NINJA VS. NINJA, none of these are IFD-style ninja movies.

Alternately, you could try renting it through your local library's rental system (Seriously, I got a lot of library references while looking up information for this title online).

Tai Seng's release is a cropped, full frame VHS transfer with faded colors and some tape glitches. Oddly enough, this (to my knowledge) is actually a licensed release from Ocean Shores (their watermark shows up twice during the movie). Back in the 1980's, someone at Ocean Shores (and sadly, several other Asian companies) decided that it'd be a good idea to make full frame, VHS masters and junk the original films for easier storage! The DVD itself is bare bones, having 8 chapter stops, a semi-animated menu, and some previews. But trust me, the sheer entertianment value of NINJA VS. NINJA makes up for it.

Reviews and screenshots for NINJA VS. NINJA and some of the other titles in the Ninja Six collection can be found here. However, the reviews there contain some minor spoilers.

[Guest morgoth]

Ninja vs. Ninja is unwatchable. Bruce Lee(Le) vs. Ninja is seriously 100 times better.

[Guest Atomic Mystery Monster]

Ninja vs. Ninja is unwatchable.

Oh sure, if you're one of those people who insists on good editing, coherent plotlines, and not having any unintentional comedy...

Bruce Lee(Le) vs. Ninja is seriously 100 times better.

Ah, but NINJA VS. NINJA has the benefit of actually having ninjas in it!

[Guest morgoth]

At least Bruce Lee vs. Ninja had Japanese people in it. :b

[Guest Atomic Mystery Monster]

At least Bruce Lee vs. Ninja had Japanese people in it.

Heh. Well, you've got me there. By the way, what Alexander Lou ninja movie would you recommend? The Ninja 6 pack has a bunch of them and I seem to recall you speaking highly of them in another thread.

[Guest morgoth]

Shaolin Guards is an all out fight fest. Pretty good but weak storytelling.

I think you would really like Ninja Death. Part 1 was really good though the second and third were well below average.

You would also really like NInja in the Usa and Super Ninja. Usa doesn't get rolling till have way into it but both those movies are great ninja cheesefests. Those are the 2 I would recommend but Ninja Hunter is also a cheese lovers delight.

[Guest Chinatown Kid]

Ninja vs Shaolin Guards did have some great action, especially the opening credit sequence where the Monk spars with the Ninja's, the Monk had some great bootwork. I remember seeing Bruce Lee vs Ninja on one of those Goodtimes vhs's years ago. If I'm not mistaken this was a cut and paste movie as well because they had several scenes taken from another Bruce Le movie called Return of Bruce inserted in the film. I usually don't care for Bruce Le as I like Bruce Li much better and prefer to watch his flicks instead. I did like Challenge of the Tiger though because of HJL's appearance. Also, Enter the Game of Death wasn't to bad as I thought it featured some of Le's best kicking.

[Guest killer meteor]

I'm watching the film Revenge Of Drunken Master, one of those Asso Asia Korean flics with Godfrey Ho credited as the director. There's a really sleazy subplot involving a knight errant who rescues a girl from some bandits only to anal rape her. The next scene, she's in love with him - much to his annoyance - and he's talking about how he wants to uphold justice. Maybe there's some cultural differences going on but still, CRAZY!

[Guest Atomic Mystery Monster]

Shaolin Guards is an all out fight fest. Pretty good but weak storytelling.

Thanks, I'll definitely pop that one in the DVD player tonight.

I think you would really like Ninja Death. Part 1 was really good though the second and third were well below average.

Oh yeah, NINJA DEATH 1 is awesomely crazy. The sky hammers and the kung-fu hunchback from parts 2 and 3 were pretty inteteresting, but they were nowhere near as good as the stuff in part 1.

I remember seeing Bruce Lee vs Ninja on one of those Goodtimes vhs's years ago. If I'm not mistaken this was a cut and paste movie as well because they had several scenes taken from another Bruce Le movie called Return of Bruce inserted in the film.

Bruceploitation says that that BRUCE LEE VS. NINJA was made using footage from RETURN OF BRUCE, MY NAME CALLED BRUCE, and ENTER THE GAME OF DEATH.

[Guest Atomic Mystery Monster]

I'm watching the film Revenge Of Drunken Master, one of those Asso Asia Korean flics with Godfrey Ho credited as the director. There's a really sleazy subplot involving a knight errant who rescues a girl from some bandits only to anal rape her. The next scene, she's in love with him - much to his annoyance - and he's talking about how he wants to uphold justice. Maybe there's some cultural differences going on but still, CRAZY!

Geez, where's the crotch-seeking dog from DRAGON ON FIRE when you really need him? I can only imagine the reaction of the dubbing staff when they got to that scene...

[Guest killer meteor]

Mind you, the producer of the dubs, Vaughn Savidge, now works for the BBC

[Guest Chinatown Kid]

Damn, I didn't recall that film was made up from footage of 3 different Bruce Le films. Talk about cheap! :lol That Joseph Velasco makes Godfrey Ho look like Tsui Hark or John Woo. :b

[Guest Atomic Mystery Monster]

Mind you, the producer of the dubs, Vaughn Savidge, now works for the BBC

Holy crap, that actually got confirmed? I remember someone mentioning that someone at the BBC had a similar name, but I'd always assumed it was a coincidence.

[Guest morgoth]

C-town kid, I heard also that it was spliced up. Only thing I remember about that movie is Lo Lieh has the best fight and there was a female karate cop. Pretty good memories.

[Guest Chinatown Kid]

Have you ever seen Challenge of the Tiger morgoth? I think it's one of Bruce Le's best films and he gets to take on Hwang Jang Lee in the finale.

The thing about Ninja vs Bruce Lee is that I feel it's cheating people by splicing several of Le's films together and trying to fool people into thinking its a whole new film. It would be much better to just watch the 3 original films instead.