Customer Reviews

Pocket Ninjas

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is perhaps the most amateurish movie I've ever seen. It's so ridiculously bad, that I had a hard time believing it was released on DVD. Horrible sound, bad acting, stupid story lines.......no redeeming fun at all. As far as being a kids film....it's too lame for that. Stupidity does not mean kids will like it. Stay away!

I bought this DVD for a friend who is a Robert Z'Dar completeist. I was morbidly curious, so I watched it first. That was a major lapse of judgment. My first challenge was in trying to play the DVD: the main menu is so poorly designed as to make it hard to figure out how to get the movie to start; unfortunately I was a bit too tenacious and actually was able to get the film to play.

This film is one of the most amateurish films ever made (I am not the first reviewer to notice this,) making such Mogadore, Ohio classics as "Chickboxer" and "Galaxy of the Dinosaurs" look like Oscar winners by comparison. The movie stars a long haired karate instructor (think Roger Daltry in a bathrobe) and three annoying kids. This concept was far more skillfully executed by Hulk Hogan in "3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain." I am somewhat ashamed to be able to thoughtfully compare the two.

The teacher is the "White Dragon" who patrols the streets of gang-infested Los Angeles by night. He has supernatural powers (the "gift of the dragon") which he passes along to his three young proteges, who get red, gold, and black dragon masks of their own. (When you see the Red Dragon, note how he looks like an almost perfect cross between Gene Simmons in costume and Boy George.) The enemy is Cobra Khan played by Robert Z'Dar, who along with his son, Cubby Khan, run the looting and pillaging gangs.

The kids adore their teacher, and they practice with him daily. In fact, the huge preponderance of the film is taken up by karate practice (they wish they were as good as the cast of "Chickboxer" but they aren't) and annoying electronic music. Not only are they small ninjas (hence the title,) they rollerblade to their fights. There are subplots about environmental damage and fish poisonings, a comic book written in "Canadian" instead of English (rendering it illegible to the ninjas,) and fantasy action vignettes in which Robert Z'Dar actually gets to play patty cake and do a Tarzan impression that frightens off clowns. (I am not making this up.) Of all subplots, though, the most disconcerting is the one in which the moody ninja's mom is romantically interested in the karate teacher. When she bakes him cookies there are voiceovers where we get to explore what they are thinking about each other. Samples include "Nice muscles" and "Her hair is like a waterfall gleaming in the moonlight." That's not too far off, actually: her hair is quite large.

Cubby Khan and his minions finally duke it out in a warehouse, and engage the ninjas in a virtual reality game to determine the winner. This is perhaps the worst few minutes of film I have ever sat through in my entire life. Between the "Sonic Virtual Reality" special effects and Robert Z'Dar being enveloped in silly string, very little else compares to this in wretchedness.

One thing to note as the film ends: absolutely no plots are resolved. None. This film is notable for its utter lack of resolution. Are the gang problems solved? Do the karate teacher and the ninja's mom hook up? Is the fish poisoning stopped? We have no idea (and we don't care.) That shouldn't really be a problem for the target audience of this film, but even children will be unentertained by this drivel. This is not so bad it's good, it's just bad. If you want to see a better performance by Robert Z'Dar, I recommend "Guns of El Chupacabra," which, while awful, is still better than this. Actually I would recommend any of Robert Z'Dar's movies in preference to this, now that I think about it.

Pocket Ninjas: even the kids will just say no.

Dave Eddy has crafted one of the most intense ninja movies I have ever seen. The fight scenes were brutal and realistic, to the point where I almost shut it off so I wouldn't get nightmares, just too much gore. Other than that it was a fine film with AWESOME editing, great directing and spectacular acting (especially the hot austrailian teacher and Big Jaw) as far as the fight choreography goes, p*** off Jackie Chan, Dave Eddy is the new king! The movie is practically flawless, I dare you to find a continuity error. The fight scene involving the balloons was highly clever, inventine and INTENSE!!!! If you haven't seen what's quite possibly the best movie with ninja in its title (sorry American Ninja) then you must buy it now. Not for the squeemish or unintelligent.Treat yourself to the best action film since Last Action Hero and buy Pocket Ninjas now!

When I visited the set of this production way back in 1993, it was entitled SKATE DRAGONS and was being photographed and directed by Donald G. Jackson (RETURN TO FROGTOWN, ROLLER BLADE WARRIORS). Looks like another director took over mid-way,but the visuals directed by Jackson are his cool style. He even left them with Robert Z'Dar who's appeared in many of Jackson's new movies. Check this out to see what might have been. -Writing from the CyberPhrog Cafe in North Hollywood, OneShotSam

The film was supposed to be a kids film directed by Donald Jackson but after 4 days of shooting almost nothing, and where he brought hookers to the set the same night as the finacials backers were on the set, he was quickly fired. The production sat for a few weeks when the original camerman was sent out to direct and shoot footage of a local Asian dragon festival. He brought back shaky, amature footge so he too was fired (His attitude of "If I got paid more I would do better work" didn't seem to sell the executive producer on keeping him on) The line producer was then sent out to direct a sunset shot at the beach with a new cameraman. While the footage looked good, there was little direction. The editor was asked to somehow tie all this foortage together in some sort of story. Some new scenes were written to try and explain what was going on however after the bulk of that footage was shot the executive producer decided to direct some scenes that had no connection to anything new or old (Clowns in the Ballon factory, Virtual Reality fights, Wizard of Oz scene) to add "production Value". The film was finished however while at the film market no one would buy a film that was under 90 minutes so the exeutive producer made the editor shoot 10 minutes of work out scenes.

The editor did as good of a job as could be expected with the various looks and storylines. If one reads the end credits and you took each section andlooked at it on it's own one could see that the original Donald Jackson "Skate Dragons" footage is by far the worst looking and worst directed part. The Clowns in the Ballon factory scenes looks good and is silly but really has no place in the film, the Virtual Reality fights are out of place even by the 80 standards (Come on 'Tron' and 'The Black Hole' looked better than this), The Donald Jackson fight scenes with Robert Z'Dar and Gary Daniels are so poorly shot and directed that Gary Daniels went home and cut his hair off the next day so he would not have to work on the film any more. (Supposedly new scenes were written for him and his short hair look where he was a co-anchor on a news show with the female lead - thusly the romantic subtext - and the news about toxic dumping however the executive producer cut those scenes suggesting that Gary Daniles was an action star and no one would ever want to see him talk, just fight.)