“Ninja Champion” Theatrical Poster
Director: Kim Si-hyun
Co-director: Godfrey Ho
Cast: Choe Eun-hye, Im Ja-ho, Dragon Lee (Mun Kyong-sok), Baek Hwang-ki, Richard Harrison, Bruce Baron, Pierre Tremblay, Yoon Yang-Ha, Park Se-bum
Running Time: 87 min.
By Paul Bramhall
There are only 2 types of people in the world who’d want to watch Ninja Champion – those who enjoy cut ‘n’ paste Godfrey Ho ninja flicks, and those who want to check out an obscure slice of 80’s Korean cinema. I fall into the latter half of the equation, so having to endure occasional detours into watching Caucasian guys dressed in brightly coloured ninja outfits (complete with ‘NINJA’ branded headbands) is a trade-off I was willing to accept to watch Poisonous Rose Stripping the Night.
The cut ‘n’ paste style of filmmaking being referred to is a technique that Godfrey Ho and his IFD Films cohorts increasingly resorted to in the 80’s, seemingly unable to muster the energy to direct a whole movie himself, and realising such a technique was an effective way to make a quick buck. The deal was, realising that western audiences were in the midst of a ninja craze, Ho would purchase movies to distribute from the likes of Thailand, the Philippines, and Korea on the cheap. In the case of Thailand sometimes he’d even purchase semi-completed productions. He’d then shoot new scenes involving ninjas with a recurring group of Caucasian actors, splice them into the existing footage with a new English dub (which either created a completely new plot or incorporated them into the existing one), and sold the end result to overseas distributors with a new ninja themed title. Quite the business model.
At worst these movies were butchered beyond the point of recognition, at best – you’d still get most or even all of the original movie, but with additional ninja scenes added in. At best is the case with Poisonous Rose Stripping the Night, a 1985 rape revenge thriller from Kim Si-hyun, a director who spent almost all of the 80’s working exclusively with Dragon Lee (including on the likes of Dragon, the Young Master and Enter the Invincible Hero). Cast as the lead is Choe Eun-hye, an actress who only has 2 credits to her filmography, with here being her debut, and a lesser role in the following years Maze of Love. On a side note, Maze of Love was also picked up by IFD Films and turned into War City 2: Red Heat Conspiracy, ironically meaning that an obscure Korean actresses entire filmography is easier to get a hold of than some bona fide Korean classics which remain unreleased.
The scenes of Poisonous Rose Stripping the Night can said to be intact, although likely out of order, as the plot in the IFD English dubbed version differs significantly from the one outlined on the Korean Movie Database. For the sake of my sanity, we’ll stick with the one in Ninja Champion which sees Eun-hye raped by 3 attackers while camping with her boyfriend, a sequence which plays out during the opening credits. A pleasant way to start a movie! Learning that her rapists are in fact diamond smugglers who operate out of Taiwan, 2 years later she travels to Taipei and infiltrates their network under a false identity to take revenge. Think of it as a more smuggling orientated take on I Spit on Your Grave. To add insult to injury, after the incident Eun-hye’s boyfriend dumps her, and has gone on to marry a wheelchair bound lady who we learn precisely nothing about, other than that the boyfriend realises he’s not sexually attracted to her.
Bizarrely, the boyfriend is played by Im Ja-ho, more commonly known in the kung fu genre as Jack Lam for his roles in the likes of The Postman Strikes Back and Leopard Fist Ninja. Lam’s movies couldn’t escape the IFD Films treatment either, with 1984’s The Uninvited Guest of the Star Ferry being used as the basis of perhaps the most infamous cut ‘n’ paste movie of all – Ninja Terminator – which was released the following year. Here Lam, apart from being a lousy boyfriend and husband, is also playing an Interpol agent. Once he realises Eun-hye is still alive, not only does he want to help her seek revenge, he also decides he never should have dumped her in the first place! It turns out a girlfriend who’s been raped is preferable to a wife in a wheelchair, who he doesn’t seem to give a second thought to once Eun-hye is back in the picture. Go figure.
Lam’s presence also means we get some unexpected doses of high kicking action thrown into the mix. Regular Korean kung fu movie bad guy Baek Hwang-ki (Golden Dragon, Silver Snake, The Dragon’s Snake Fist) goes toe to toe with Ja-ho, as the diamond smugglers begin to suspect who Eun-hye really is, providing some welcome action beats. Usually the more outlandish elements of these movies are reserved for the spliced in ninja scenes, but here its revealed that Lam is so good at taekwondo, he can kick and teleport at the same time! Considering the rest of the movie is played serious, Lam’s random fight scene teleporting is somewhat of a head scratcher to say the least.
The real fun part though is watching Eun-hye take her revenge, which as much as I hate to admit it, is greatly assisted by the English dub. When she seduces one of her rapists (the “boxing champion of Asia” no less) and brings him back to her room, he soon finds himself poisoned and declares, “The wine, there must have been something in it!” Eun-hye calmly looks at him and replies “Not the wine, my nipples you jerk!” Is this the only movie to feature poison laced nipples? I think it might be.
Various nonsense ensues which is no doubt a result of the scene shuffling and awkwardly inserted ninja action (we’ll get to that soon), but eventually everyone ends up on a ship and Lam suddenly turns up armed to the teeth with a semi-automatic machine gun, katana, and pistols for good measure. Everyone runs around, bullets are sprayed vigorously, and Eun-hye’s assisted by her hulking but simple-minded colleague (at one point she begs the villains not to shoot him by telling them “He’s not responsible, he’s just a retard!”). There’s also a room containing a coffin with a giant oversized rocking horse which isn’t given any explanation whatsoever, kind of like some randomly inserted Avant Garde surrealism. Just when you think it can’t get anymore weird, in the closing moments Dragon Lee shows up for a few seconds as a cop decked out in a sharp white suit, but he doesn’t even get to say anything (we don’t even get a thumb of the nose!).
The ninja scenes come courtesy of IFD regulars Bruce Baron (Dragon Force) and Pierre Tremblay (Angel Terminators). Special mention also has to go to Richard Harrison, who show up for a few seconds recycling Ninja Terminator footage on the infamous Garfield phone. In short Pierre Tremblay is an evil ninja connected to the diamond smuggling operation, which puts him in the crosshairs of ninja Bruce Baron, and allows for the occasional ninja on ninja fight to be inserted at random intervals (including a ninja wearing a Jackie Chan Stunt Team vest!). Sadly Philip Ko Fei’s fight choreography is painfully routine, much like every other ninja fight that’s graced a Godfrey Ho flick. The final scene of Ninja Champion goes to a showdown between Baron and Tremblay in their full-on ninja getup, and involves a torturously long exposition dump to connect why they’re there to the overall plot, before finishing up on some monkey bars. Inspirational.
It’s safe to say that Poisonous Rose Stripping the Night would easily have been an entertaining movie by itself, and in this instance the ninja scenes not only add out of place acrobatic shenanigans, they also unnecessarily pad out the runtime. Kim Si-hyun crafted a competent revenge thriller with kicks so powerful they result in teleportation, poisonous nipples, gun fights, and the bonus of Taiwan locales. Thankfully here the ninja footage is minimal and isn’t overly intrusive, save for the final fight, but in retrospect Ninja Champion can happily be switched off once Si-hyun’s production comes to its logical conclusion (that is, unless you really like ninjas). Korean cinema was in a strange place in the mid-80’s, and Poisonous Rose Stripping the Night feels very much like a product of its era, mixing violence and eroticism with frequently brow furrowing results, but somehow it’s also never anything less than entertaining.
Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 6/10
