This is an often silly Chinese martial arts film that concerns two guys who help out a Chinese mob boss and get caught up in a mob war that brings American gangsters and ninjas into the mix. In all fairness I'm going to have to take a pass at rating this film since how you find the film will depend up how you take its broad comedy mixed with action and drama. I know that when I was watching the film last night I was very much not in a silly mood and the result was that I found the film hard to take. Perhaps it was the lateness of the hour, perhaps it was simply the film didn't click with me; for whatever reason I didn't really care for it. On the other hand I have a couple of friends who's opinions I trust who find the film very funny. What sort of mileage you get out of the film is up to you.
Add a Review
-
dbborroughs6 January 2010
-
Mafia Vs Ninja is a cool film. I saw it today, and i think that it was entertaining. It included ninjas, kung fu fighters, opponents from all over the world, a good gang and a bad gang, a false love story and so on. In fact, its climate had a great ninja scene.
The story is about a new guy who arrives at town, and this new guy is a great kung fu fighter. Later on, he is adopted by a good Chinese gang whose leader is killed due to his disagreements with the Japanese gang that sells heroin and so on. Therefore, the new guy goes to revenge the bad who have killed the leader of his Chinese group.
Mafia Vs Ninja has many fights, but no monks, no temples, no pupils nor masters, while there is a fair share of ninja attacks and kung fu fights that aren't always cheesy. In a nutshell, I recommend that fans of ninja cinema and kung fu cinema check this film out, it can provide you with an hour and a half of entertainment 7/10 -
arminio24 October 2005Gee! I remember how I watched this movie as a kid before 20 years in cinema and had fun like never before! Since then I tried hard to get any possible copy of it and now it is available on DVD... now, after 20 years, I think this is truly one of the silliest martial art flicks I've ever seen - and I've seen tons of them. This one has it all - from bizarre realization to insane look, feel and really memorable stunts and action that sometimes goes truly over the top - especially in great finale that comes with so insane fights that you must watch it to believe!
Truly recommended as a pure fun movie which value is in stupid dub, silly dialogs, trashy look, great action with obvious usage of dummies and wires... And after 20 years it just got better than the first time I watched it!
And dad! I still want that leather knife case! :)))
10/10 from me! -
This is a stunning film in every aspect. A skilled fighter comes to China in order to find a paying job, and is befriended by a coward of a fighter. He and his coward friend somehow help save a Chinese ruler from assassination. They are rewarded jobs in his kingdom and help slay off several archrival Japanese fighters. The Japanese warlord hires four interesting fighters- A master with the knives, a fat Jap with a sword, a black kickboxer, and an acrobatic fighter. The Chinese must take on these fighters and many other Japanese. This film is funny, entertaining, and quite possibly the greatest unknown Martial Arts film ever.
-
Jojosh the Pi2 November 1999I noticed that about half the voters gave "Mafia vs. Ninja" a 10. I sincerely hope this has nothing to do with quality (that's what we're supposed to vote on, right? :-D)
Fake blood, horrible video effects, and strings holding up the fighters all are featured. Ridiculously choreographed ninja battles reign supreme in one of the worst movies ever. It's also the movie that's made me laugh the most (except maybe Sinbad and the Seven Seas), for hours on end. You must see this movie at least once, and see how a real ninja movie is done! -
haoumaru19 February 2005I am a huge fan of anime and manga, and my second fav genre is Chinese martial arts films. Over the years, I have watched hundreds of Chinese martial arts movies, and I've seen many good ones, but Mafia vs Ninja comes out on top.
One of the things you gotta love in Chinese martial arts movies is their low budget, since it is the reason behind funny special effects. This is one of the funniest movies I have seen, I really enjoy it every time I see it.
The movie is about the lives of Jack Doe and Charlie Wu, two sewage workers who want a better future, and luck is on their side. They later become bodyguards to William Chung, the wise and fatherly leader of the "good" mafia of Shanghai, by a mere stroke of luck, as I said. This "good" mafia protects the people of Shanghai and does nothing wrong, and they're the only thing that stops the Japanese from taking over the city.
As always in Chinese film, the Japanese are the bad guys, and in this movie, they are a clan of drug-dealing Shinobi who also run whorehouses and gambling centers. Their goal is to kill Mr. Chung to be able to seize the city. They manage to kill him by hiring 4 deadly hit men, and Jack and Charlie vow to get their revenge.
Then the movie shows how Jack and Charlie kill the hit men one by one, to avenge their fallen master. There are so many fun scenes in this movie, the action and laughing is non-stop. The special effects are typical for a Kung-Fu movie, you can see lots of editing cuts, the strings that hold the actors, dummies getting punched, funny fake blood and bruises, and the punch and kick sound fx we all love.
The fights choreography is excellent and the action scenes are very good. The music is good and fits the scenes' mood accordingly. The characters are enjoyable, specially when you see their powers or their KungFu. KungFu is the center of the movie, and the Japanese have even their special version, the Ninja KungFu! The movie is dubbed in English, but it's Chinese voice actors speaking English! This results in an incredibly hilarious voice acting! You will never find better quotes or voices in another KungFu movie! "I'm gonna kill ya, bastard!!"
Nothing in this movie is wasted, and though it is low-budget, it is an awesome film, every Chinese film fan I know love it, and I am no exception. It's my fav KungFu movie, I first saw it back in 1993 and taped it when I got the chance...but I lost it. It is so good, that I spent years searching it on the web and I finally found the home video on Ebay and bought it!
There is so much fun in this movie, lots of great action scenes, great characters, incredibly funny voice acting, and a great storyline...Obviously, this is not Citizen Kane, but it is the best KungFu movie ever, and I really doubt there will ever be a better martial arts movie than Mafia vs Ninja. Fantastic and endlessly enjoyable.
The best of the genre, unsurpassably good, 1000 out of 1000! -
I_Ailurophile28 December 2023I'm given to understand that this movie is a revised rendition of a longer saga - abridged, condensed, and reedited, with rewrites and reshoots on top, and shamelessly lifting music from other movies. (Oh yes, I definitely heard even James Horner's score from 'Krull' in there.) I don't know how much of the final product is a reflection of these alterations, and how much of it might also be observed in the longer, more complete iteration. What I do know is that the viewing experience is extremely rough, and emphatically tries one's patience. More than that, it's pretty much downright unwatchable. Even as a cinephile who commits to anything they watch, for better and for worse, it's a pure act of masochism to sit through this. I hope for the sake of those involved that the more episodic version is better, because as we see it, 'Mafia vs ninja' is terribly made; not only is it not remotely entertaining, but it's actively aggravating.
The scene writing and dialogue are bizarrely blunt, forthright, and tactless, and the direction is no better. The plot development is mind-blowing in its absolute childish simplicity and lack of sophistication or nuance; at the same time, the plot itself is all but entirely incohesive, incoherent, and nonsensical, and nearly impossible to track as the connective threads between scenes, beats, or basic ideas are sometimes wholly undetectable by modern science. Curt editing serves the picture at large very poorly, and even specifically undercuts the possible value of too much of any stunts and fight choreography; the cinematography is often altogether sloppy. The audio during fight scenes is so over the top and exaggerated that it comes across much like an unknowing American preteen child jokingly imitating sound effects they heard someone else mimicking. Maybe the nature of that audio can be chalked up to astoundingly awful dubbing, for indeed, the English version of this rubbish is further plagued with rotten voice acting. It's not just about the dubbing, though, for with every other element being so putrescent, the actors themselves do not come off well - only where the fight scenes are concerned, maybe, and then the questionable cinematography and editing rob the actors even of that possible saving grace. Obliquely accentuating the point, in the last twenty or minutes or so the fight scenes embrace outright fantasy that would be right at home in anime; maybe I could have appreciated it here, too, if the shift weren't so abrupt from everything else the flick had been doing previously.
Even the sound editing is egregious, and the music is used poorly; what greets our ears tends more than not to be a nearly haphazard, cacophonous conglomeration of grating noise, some of which may resemble words. Like the violence in the last act, the costume design is basically just altogether cartoonish, and rarely looks good on a basic level; in fairness, this also describes how the characters are written (in and of themselves, and in each scene), and how they are portrayed by the cast. To the same point, for as ineptly as this is written and put together, I genuinely don't know who all the characters were supposed to be, nor where or how they come and go. One might reasonably wonder if 'Mafia vs ninja' weren't actually a giant unfunny joke, because surely no one could accidentally create something so vacuous, empty-headed, insipid, incompetent, gawky, and floundering as this is. From the moment it begins the feature is rancid, and it only ever gets worse - truly, there is never any improvement, and these ninety minutes are an infinite downward spiral of horrible, mindless, senseless "film-making" and "storytelling." I recognize that there really were fair ideas here in the screenplay, and that there really was hard work and skill poured into the action sequences. Unfortunately, the title as it exists squanders every conceivable advantage or spark of worth, and we as viewers are left with nothing but the self-hatred that results from realizing we chose to watch.
However it is you came across this, whatever you think you might get from it, you should not watch it. On the contrary, you should avoid it. You should complain to the folks who operate the places where you found it, and with any luck you can help to scrub this film from existence. You should actively help to ensure that no one else ever makes the same mistake of watching. 'Mafia vs ninja' is appalling, flagrantly amateurish trash, and since it treats its own stunts and action so poorly even these can't work to redeem it. If those making this had approached it with the faintest modicum of earnest care, and consistency, then it might have succeeded, but apparently that was just asking too much. I've seen the bottom of the cinematic barrel, more than once, and I assure with with total sincerity that the bottom of the barrel is where this loathsome, vexing sludge belongs. -
HaemovoreRex13 March 2006You immediately know that you're in for a fun ride here when, in the very first minute or so of the films running time, an impromptu fight breaks out between our hero, played by the always superb Alexander Lou, and a somewhat gaunt looking chap who appears to be wielding what at first sight looks like a piece of guttering!
As it turns out the attacker is also ostensibly rather thick as, after being given a quick pasting, he reveals that the reason for his decidedly anti-sociable behaviour was that he had in fact resorted to a spot of DIY justice in response to the rape of a number of women down the alley in question. Obviously, seeing our hero walk down the same alley he put two and two together and made about fifty, automatically assuming that he must therefore logically be the culprit of the said crimes!
Still apparently anyone can make such a simple, honest mistake and in no time at all, the two protagonists are the best of buddies! Okaaay .
Anyway, to cut a long story short, our hero and his new found pal next wind up working together at a sewage works, during which time they manage to save the life of a local mafia boss (a strangely benevolent chap at that) when he is attacked by his own cronies who are attempting to overthrow him.
Several savage beatings later at the hands of our hero, the bruised miscreants run off to lick their wounds and resolve to team up with a Japanese crime organisation which is headed by a rather rotund looking fellow who has a disturbing propensity for beating up his own sister! As it turns out, this organisation is rather more malevolent than the one the traitorous crooks formerly belonged to and even comprises a small army of ninja! In addition, just for good measure the organisation also enlist the aid of four experts in various martial arts fields; a master swordsman who bears an uncanny likeness to the late, great Oliver Hardy (!), an Italian knife throwing expert (and gambling addict to boot), a stereotypical, jive talking, 1970's styled Afro-Caribbean kickboxer (played by Alexander Lou's regular co star Eugene Thomas and finally a young ninja master.
Inevitably, this motley bunch manage to kill the strangely affable old Chinese mob boss which prompts our hero's to swear an oath of revenge.
From here on, the rest of the movie has our good guys challenging and defeating each of the assassins in turn before working their way up to the big boss himself.
Just to confuse matters somewhat, there is a sub plot involving Lou's character having a love affair with the evil Japanese boss's sister who also happens to be a ninja ..hmmmm what a tangled web eh?
Also of note are a number of scenes that don't exactly go to further the plot (nor make much sense for that matter) but are included presumably to beef out the movies running time . One such particularly humorous and frankly baffling scene has our heroes marching into an elite social club whose members appear to be made up solely of bigoted (and disturbingly unattractive!) Europeans. Needless to say a fight inevitably breaks out during which our heroes give the clubs patrons a jolly good beat down before leaving calmly.
As is often the case with this type of movie, and especially the ninja genre in particular, much of the enjoyment to be derived from them is from the unintentional laughs to be gleaned from the on screen antics. The irony is that the actors seem to be approaching the material with deadly straight faced seriousness which only serves to heighten the hilarity considering the sheer stupidity of the proceedings.
Probably the funniest factor in this is the actual ninja antics especially as demonstrated in the final, climatic battle.
During this duel, our hero finds himself besieged by a group of speeding grass clump ninja! Yes, you read that correctly .you really have not lived until you have witnessed the astonishing sight of a large clump of grass whizzing across a neatly kept lawn at high speed! And how does our man combat such a terrifying menace you might ask? Well the only way possible against this deadly art - he uproots a sapling and proceeds to beat the ninja senseless with it!
It has to be said that the fight choreography throughout is for the most part superb (if sadly sped up in parts) and certainly adds immensely to the films entertainment value.
In fact, as it happens the fight scenes themselves seem to make up the bulk of the films running time with barely a minute seeming to go by without a fight breaking out for seemingly any given reason whatsoever!
Added to this we have some real gems of god awful dialogue which certainly had me laughing out loud throughout.
What can I say? This film is a true classic of its genre and a must see for fans of B-Movies in general! Now if you'll excuse me, I have a rather pesky ninja infestation in my lawn to take care of .. -
This movie was made to be a film about a war between the Japanese mafia and a group of ninja's and the two yard servants who get in the middle to save their boss, the highest man in the mafia. The fight scenes were filmed slowly, for example when an actor through a punch he made his fist move slowly as if going to pet a strange dog. The editor later added sound effects and speeded up the film to give the illusion of extremely fast fighting. The novice camera tricks in this movie give it a hilarious touch. Wires used in fight scenes made me laugh for hours. When you finally meet the ninja warriors in the end, you'll stare in awe as they use "ninja invisibility" in the fight. It's one of my favorites.
-
HNB-29 July 2004I don't understand all the bad reviews for mafia vs. ninja. I mean, sure the dubbing, action, acting and plot are amateurish, but this is a kung fu movie, which means a new set of criteria needs to be used from which to judge it. A lot of IMDb users make this crucial mistake, and go looking for Shakespeare in everything they watch. Something like Mafia Vs Ninja needs to be reviewed with these potential qualities in mind: humor (intentional or otherwise), creative fighting styles/ gimmicks, quirkiness, and overall effect. I'd say it fares well in these respects. The film had me laughing throughout, like when the two main characters (who dress like oi punks, which added to my enjoyment) trash an establishment owned by a white bigot in the middle of the film for no reason (the scene seemed to be randomly thrown in), the ninjas at the end who turn into clumps of grass and either teleport or travel underground and then take their normal ninja shape again, the special team called in by the ninjas to fight the mafia (who are the protagonists) which includes an italian (i think?) knife thrower with a huge ridiculous scar on his face (who is an expert at throwing knives into apples suspended by wires in mid air), a Chinese swordsman, a Japanese ninja, and an African American fellow from detroit who as far as i could tell didn't know any actual kung fu, so just rolled around a lot and sort of threw people. and who can forget the sex scene which contains no nudity, but then is immediately followed by a still shot on what appears to be a painting of our hero's girlfriend in the nude. and even though none of the fighting in this film is too well done, the setups are creative, and the grittyness of them helps make them entertaining. overall a decent flick, and one kung fu fans should dig, especially if you liked fantasy mission force or any other of jackie chan's more bizarre films (half a loaf, the original drunken master, etc)
-
cduhn10 April 2001I can't tell if this movie was meant to be a comedy or not, but it sure turned out that way. Thsi movie is utterly hilarious. Take every cliche about kung-fu movies and multiply it by ten. Gallons of fake blood, evil Japanese stereotype, the "soul brother" black guy, it's all there, plus things I've NEVER seen in a kung-fu movie. Tree-fu, SAPLING-FU, and spitting water instead of blood, for instance. It's only because everything is SO bad in this movie that makes it so entertaining. I especially LOVE the Boss-ninja's black mask with the crooked eye- holes.
It's a toss-up between The Story of Ricky and this one as my all time favorite (unintentionally) funny kung-fu movie, but this one I think takes the prize. -
overkill-1217 November 2006This is simply one of the best movies ever made because it's so funny and the creators didn't intend for it to be. It is an instant cult classic along with the Turkish Star Wars and Turkish Star Trek.
I remember the first time I saw this movie the year was 1996 and I just couldn't stop laughing at the fake ninja tree fight scene. The next time it aired on TV I had the VCR at the ready. I must have watched it a good 10 times and showed it to all my friends and they pretty much had the same reaction as me. I literally freaked out when my dad taped a football game over it.
I needed to find this movie again!! After 10 years of searching I finally found it through the magic of the interweb.
I was expecting it to loose some of its luster over the years and all the hype my friends put it through back in the day but it didn't. It still made me laugh just as hard as when I first watched it. -
dreamscape031 November 2001I honestly don't know if this movie was intentionally this bad, but my gut tells me it wasn't. As an action flick it's really quite horrible but once you watch it you'll be rolling on the floor with your sides splitting from laughter! It's hilarious! Some of the worst stunts and effects EVER, not to mention a ridiculous plot. A must rent for anyone looking to poke fun at one of the few genuinely serious movies that can be so bad it's good.
-
Usually there are those who enjoy bad horror movies and those that enjoy bad kung-fu movies and few movies can be enjoyed by both, but Mafia vs. Ninja is immensely watchable (and laughable) even if you are amongst those that believe America has enough trash without foolish video distributors importing more. The movie is so great because it takes the usual elements of the chop-suey genre and and makes them worse. For instance, the almost required anti-Japanese racism is present (the Chinese mafia are the good guys you see, sure they extort and allow gambling and prostitution, but they draw the line at opium unlike those godless Japanese mafia guys). But not only do we get the anti-Japanese racism, we are treated to special bonus stereo-types in the form of a special all bad guy assassination team , including a black man (guess what kind of hair he has) and an Italian (guess where he has a scar?). The movie's verve extends to the action where the normally unbelievable fight scenes are made even more so via film-reversals, insane editing, and (I kid you not) wires on jumping fighters and thrown knives. Then there are the contrived plot devices, I must admit my favorite part of the movie. Sure, other chop-suey movies might give you exploding fruit baskets (this one does), but can they claim to feature a hero who beats someone with a tree? Lots of flicks feature invisible ninjas... but what about ninjas that literally turn into bushes? I thought not. Mafia vs. Ninja could never be mistaken for a good movie, but it is a kind of bad that doesn't take someone versed in ninja films to laugh at or enjoy. And for God's sake people the American video release features a man with the name of Poon Hung prominently in the credits. I personally can't think of a better reason to see a film. (-3 stars out of - 5).
-
Mafia vs. Ninja ranks among the holy grails of off the wall Taiwanese cinema. Taiwanese movies of the 1980's have developed a reputation for their high energy pacing and often bizarre yet engaging visual effects. Films such as Calamity of Snakes (1983) with it's man verses snake kung fu action, as well as the maddening yet transcendent works of Chen Chun-Liang (most infamously his unofficial 1991 feature length adaptation of Dragon Ball), give the country great notoriety among avid viewers of cult films.
On it's surface, Mafia vs. Ninja does not appear to be a movie of this lineage. It doesn't have many visual effects, it's plot is nothing too out there, and the cast and crew come from a pretty straitlaced lineage. Director and choreographer Robert Tai was known for his contributions to many Chang Cheh martial arts classics (most famously 1978's The Five Venoms), an auspicious pedigree wouldn't suggest the campy direction his career would later careen into with wonderful displays such as this film and it's predecessor Ninja - The Final Duel (1986).
So what makes Mafia vs. Ninja so special? Well first of all it's cast is more than capable of keeping up with Tai's choreography, Alexander Lo Rei is excellent as always. There's a bit of undercranking and the action itself is a far cry from the complex shapes and situational inventiveness seen in it's bigger budget Hong Kong contemporaries, but it gets the job done and it always hits the spot. It would also seem the creativity of the fights revs up as the film goes on, culminating in a wonderfully nutty finale that has to be seen to be believed.
However, this movie would not be the divine package it is if not for it's horrid English dub. There are so many hilarious and quotable stupid lines in this movie, and the comedy of errors in the voice acting helps to ensure that this film never has a dull moment! The movie is almost like a combined highlight reel of entertaining and solid action from the very strong on screen cast and mind numbing cinema nanar from the dubbing crew. So needless to say, if you're a fan of both martial arts films and the proverbial "so bad it's good" trope this film is one of the ideal specimens that demands a viewing! -
More people need to know this exists, they don't make them like this anymore..
-
roy_ayres425 September 2002A friend of mine from college showed me this movie. He told me it was really bad, but not in my wildest dreams would I have thought it would be the way it came off as. Imagine every single cliche in a kung fu film and every terrible effect you've seen in a movie...it's all here!!! You know it's gonna be bad when the first two lines are: "My friend, what are you doing?", "If you really wanna know, I'm gonna kill you, bastard!" A technical mess for sure, but I haven't seen a movie that has entertained me as much as this one in a long time. If you like crap cinema, CHECK THIS ONE OUT!!!
-
This is a companion film to the director's NINJA: THE FINAL DUEL, made in 1986 and featuring pretty much exactly the same cast as seen in this movie. MAFIA VS. NINJA is a non-stop chop-socky epic, detailing the battle between two rival factions, as pretty much evident in the English title. Yet the title is also a misnomer, in that the Mafia are hardly in the film as they are all brutally murdered within the first half an hour. Instead, our heroes are two former sewage men, tasked to battle against a range of fighters of different skills and abilities (always a favourite). The film starts off on a predictable foot, as our two lowly heroes fend off a protection racket set up by the Shanghai Mafia. Yet things take an unusual turn when it turns out the Mafia are the good guys and the rival Japanese invaders are the bad, attempting to bump them off with a bomb hidden in a basket of peaches! Eventually after a massacre only our two heroes are left alive, and from then on the plot takes a back seat to some simply incredible scenes of action.
The film is chock-full of special effects, good and bad, always pleasing. Fighters have the ability to fly up in the air before attacking their foes, and that's not just the ninjas either! Sometimes visible wires can be seen pulling the good guys into the air, out of harm's way, and at other times the ninjas disappear in extraordinarily cheesy ways. My favourite scenes is where the ninjas turn themselves into piles of grass, then creep up on our hero to attack! Such moments really do have to be seen to be believed. Other action highlights include the battles with the various enemies, including a clichéd black boxer straight out of Harlem, a huge Japanese sword fighter, a karate expert, a judo fighter, and my favourite, a scarred Italian knife-thrower who has the ability to impale apples flying through the air! Acting, dubbing, and editing are terrible, although I did enjoy Alexander Lou's happy hero. Watch out for fighters spitting water everywhere and the classic scene where Lou fights off the ninja with a tree. Great stuff and a real cult classic.