Rating: *
Review Date: 8/9/26
Producer: Joseph Lai
Cast: Daniel Garfield, Patrick Largent
Wow. How is it possible for a movie to be THIS bad? Picking up immediately after "Commando The Ninja" (1988) ended, the scientist Tanaka flashes back to how his wife and daughter were kidnapped by the mob in order to force him into giving up the secret formula for a biological weapon he developed during WWII. He refused, and now he's in the custody of a guy named Larry (Daniel Garfield), and two women named Becky and Brenda. He manages to escape, only to be recaptured by Mark and his henchmen. After a close call with ninja expert Martin (NOT the same Uncle Martin from the first film), Larry visits his old master, who is an expert in the art of "hocus pocus" (Taoist magic?). This leads to recapturing Tanaka again, where Larry and the girls once more try to get the formula out of him. He eventually relents, and they all go to a burned down house to find where Tanaka hid the formula. But Martin and his ninja soldiers show up to get the formula first. Unfortunately for them, a mysterious white ninja (Patrick Largent) shows up out of nowhere and takes them all out. The end.
What an incompetent and incoherent piece of garbage this is! And if you haven't seen the superior "Commando The Ninja" first, you'll be completely lost. Much like Godfrey Ho, Joseph Lai appears to have taken footage from multiple projects and attempted to stitch them together into some kind of nonsense narrative. Everything about the film is terrible, although the fight scenes are still better than what Hollywood was capable of in the 80s and 90s.
Shot on video with no budget, it's an exercise in tedium to watch. The production values are poor and the amount of recycled footage is criminal. Sharing the same cast, sets, locations, and wardrobe from the first film, it's clear that the producers either ran out of time, money, ideas, and/or footage to create a proper sequel. In fact, it's not clear why there's a sequel in the first place, when this and "Commando The Ninja" could have easily been compressed into a single feature. As such, "Born A Ninja" feels intentionally padded and painfully prolonged in order to meet its 90-minute running length.
The music is all over the place, and you know you're in trouble when the film opens with samples from the "Star Wars" main title. Scenes where nothing happens drag on for an uncomfortable amount of time, forcing me to hit the fast-forward button several times. Continuity is laughably bad, with outfits changing between scenes and sideburns changing length. The hocus pocus master disappears as soon as the white ninja shows up, who is evidently part of a third party that wants the formula. He clearly kills one of three black ninja warriors by splitting his face in half, but then there are still three left. Huh? Finally, Tanaka uses an oni mask, a mirror, a candle, and his watch to show the hidden location of the formula on a nearby wall. They hastily mark the spot before the beam of light fades, and then completely ignore it. So much of the film makes absolutely no sense and is completely pointless. If nothing else, I'm impressed that the shameless producers had the guts to release it at all. What a disappointing waste of time. Do yourself a favor and stick with "Commando The Ninja." Or better yet, don't bother watching either film.