“Ninja in the Dragon’s Den” Japanese Theatrical Poster
Director: Corey Yuen
Cast: Conan Lee, Hiroyuki Sanada (Henry Sanada), Tanaka Hiroshi, Tai Bo, Hwang Jang Lee, Kaname Tsushima, Someno Yukio, Chin Lung, Tien Feng, Ma Chin-Ku, Best Kwon Yeong-Moon, Paul Wei Ping Ao
Running Time: 95 min.
By Ian Whittle
In memory of Corey Yuen Kwai, whose death in 2022 was recently made public.
The early 80s saw an explosion of ninja-mania, instigated by Eric Van Lustbader’s novel The Ninja, and Western films such as The Octagon (1980) and Enter the Ninja (1981). Hong Kong naturally wanted a piece of the pie, resulting in titles as uniquely odd as Shaw Brother’s Five Element Ninjas (1982) and an absurd number of movies with Richard Harrison in neon-coloured ninja outfits.
But Ninja in the Dragon’s Den, from indie HK studio Seasonal, and the directorial debut of Corey Yuen Kwai, has the edge over them. Because it has THIS song.
Which you’d better like as it gets played about 56 times during the movie!
A mysterious ninja (is there any other kind?) known as the Shadow. Genbu (Sanada Hiroyuki) is killing off various high-ranking officials in revenge for the death of his father. The last man on his hit-list, Fukusa (Tanaka Hiroshi), a retired ninja, has fled to China years before, and Genbu and his wife set off for China, with a ninja clan leader, Sanchiro (Kwan Young-moon) in pursuit.
All rather serious and intense…which means the film suddenly remembers it’s a 1980s kung fu comedy, and we have to sit through two reels of young kung fu master Sun Jing (Conan Lee, real name Lloyd Hutchinson) tormenting his hapless smut-reading pal Chee (Tai Bo, whose real name is not presumably Billy Blanks) with practical jokes. Although typical of HK movies of this time, these shenanigans, with nasal Cantonese dubbing, don’t sit easily with the more Japanese/Western feel of the opening ninja scene. Weirdly, they probably work better in the above-average English dub, in which Chee, renamed Charlie, appears to be voiced by Burt Kwouk. There is an incredible fight sequence when Sun Jing battles a festival performer playing the Bull God on stilts, though I’m still non-the-wiser as to WHY the Bull God performer is seemingly attacking his fellow performers for real! And wouldn’t you know it, but Sun Jing’s “Uncle Fu” is the incognito Fukusa!
Thankfully Genbu arrives in China, and after briefly unknowingly encountering Sun Jing in a teahouse – the two wind up cheesing off a spiritual boxer, who threatens to sic his dad on them – makes many attempts on Fukusa’s life, with Sun Jing devising outlandish ways to counter him, culminating in an astonishing fire stunt that looks downright lethal for the poor stuntman!
Several deaths and several “I’m not-actually-dead” deaths later, Sun Jing and Genbu become friends…which, in the manner of various comic book crossovers, means they suddenly take on a common enemy in the form of the spiritual boxer’s father (Hwang Jang-lee). Disappointingly, Hwang is very underused here…and the finishing move used on him is rather low, though one can’t help but laugh at it, and it’s the same move used on him in the same year’s Secret Ninja, Roaring Tiger, so I guess it shows he was a good sport if nothing else.
The enduring legacy of Ninja in the Dragon’s Den SHOULD, or more likely COULD, have been Conan Lee, but he never seemed to catch a break – I’m not exactly clear on the details but Bey Logan, who knows a thing-or-two about making a mess of one’s career, likens Conan’s career management to that of former 007 George Lazenby. Based on this, Lee is stuck playing Jackie Chan from Drunken Master, which was probably getting very old hat by this point, not least because Chan was about to completely remake his screen image with modern Hong Kong actioners. Lee did have the edge over Jackie in that he spoke English as a first language, but based on this film and subsequent efforts like the hilarious Tiger on Beat, he was always going to eclipsed by his more established co-stars – Sanada here, Chow Yun-fat in the latter film – and despite an impressive 80s perm, and some rather outlandish clothes (the Venomish silvery jackets, the shoes with clown pom-poms!) there just isn’t much going on here to grab the attention.
The theme song probably did help, though!
Ian Whittle’s Rating: 7/10
I love this movie and was glad that I bought the HKL DVD years ago. The theme song of the movie is awesomely hilarious in an unintentional way with how it goes through the plot. It made me think of the scene in Baseketball when Trey Parker is listening to the song on the radio that starts going through everything that happens in the movie.
The action scenes are cool and plentiful. Conan Lee and Sanada were in top for here, and I enjoyed their final fights with each other and Hwang Jang Lee. It’s too bad that Conan Lee didn’t become a bigger star because of his shitty attitude and thinking he was better than everyone else around him.
This is probably my favorite ninja movie.
“The enduring legacy of Ninja in the Dragon’s Den SHOULD, or more likely COULD, have been Conan Lee, but he never seemed to catch a break – I’m not exactly clear on the details but Bey Logan, who knows a thing-or-two about making a mess of one’s career, likens Conan’s career management to that of former 007 George Lazenby.”
Conan Lee was his own worst enemy, Ng See-Yuen and Roy Horan speak candidly about their dealings with him after ‘Ninja in the Dragon’s Den’ was released in an interview from the 2002 Hong Kong Legends DVD –
https://youtu.be/xy-smvR_CyA?si=KEFVHUFGrBFBmp1r&t=166
I recall at the time on the HKL website Bey Logan ran a blog related to their upcoming titles, and he spoke about how they were attempting to get Lee for an on-camera interview that’d be included on the release, but it didn’t come to pass since he was asking for an extortionate amount of money!
On the commentary, Logan says Lee wanted him to make him a cheese sandwich and clean his house every day for a month!
When i was a young boy, my parents came home from the States, my father’s soccer team went for a tournament, they came home with a lot of HMONG dubbed movies. This was one and i watched this movie a lot times. This was the movie that got me to like Ninjas, I would go Trick or Treating as a ninja, throw stuff like a ninja and tie my shirts as ninja masks. Than i I watched Super Ninjas… Friggin crazy movie, made me love them more. Later I watched Beverley Hills Ninja, laughed my ass off at that movie.My favourite Ninja movies from my childhood.
I hope that in the light of Corey Yuen’s unfortunate passing, a decent company will make the efforts in putting this title in remastered glory, as the last one we got such version was HKL’s DVD long, long time ago. Even a remastered 1080p would do the job, hopefully is on the radar of Eureka, 88 Films, VS, Arrow and the rest.