El fantasma blanco

This & other gems of ninja wisdom are sprinkled over you in "White Phantom." It starts out with a ninja striptease. Then you meet "Ears", the gangster who is never seen without his headphones on (and that stylishly-knotted Hawaiian shirt!) Of course he gets trounced by the harmonica-playing flying/dancing White Ninja (who uses the startlingly effective Rocky Balboa punching puppet to K.O. him). The White Ninja is a strange creature...I mean, gee, what's that big white thing over there in the bushes? All he needs is a set of bunny ears! Add ninja rafts & mysterious multi-color modular future homes, & you've got one of the best bad ninja films ever (take that Godfrey Ho)!

Don't let the rating from other people fool you: this film is definitely not 4.5 out of 10. it's more like 1. The acting in this film is terrible, and the plot only has around 30 lines of actual dialogue in it. The film is based around a nuclear weapon, yet this seems to become less and less a part of the film as it progresses until at the end it's completely forgotten about and you're left wondering who exactly holds the power to wipe out an entire city. The fighting (if you can call it that) looks like it's been coreographed by an eleven year old, it is slow, wooden and predictable. The only thing this film has going for it is that if you watch it with a bunch of friends, at least you can laugh at the film makers and wonder just what exactly they were thinking when they made this movie. A character called "Ears"? Honestly... It's truly truly awful, and if there's one film to avoid it's White Phantom.

I do NOT understand all you guy's fuss... This is a NINJER movie! Look at all the other ninjer flicks at that time. None of them showed ninjutsu, most of them didn't even show Japanese Styles. At least this movie shows something familiar to Japanese arts.

Other movies take themselves way too serious (American Ninja, anyone?). White Phantom is low level fun, but without ridiculous exaggerated action every two scenes, and to me, that is worth a LOT! No wire fu, no flying ninjer, no ninjer who can teleport or make themselves invisible.

So in short: White Phantom offers a bit of fun, Japanese style of Martial Arts, no exaggeration and no "too serious" feeling. I don't see the problem at all.

A Slap-happy yokel in a beige overcoat, who is supposed to be the stories hero, spends most of his time tipping his Yankees hat to kids and strangers while strolling from brothel to basketball court to strip joint playing his harmonica as he enters every scene.

Immediately upon seeing the White Phantom the first time, I'm was laughing and hoping that he will shave at some point in the film. I'll leave that for you to find out for yourselves. I will say this, his nutsy patchy attempt of a beard didn't make the it to the box cover.

The film doesn't establish it's location very well. It begins with a noisy eating guy with California plates who gets his cargo ganked. It cuts to a steamy ninja dance and the real action begins. I can only assume from the street signs that the new location, which is for the remainder of the film, is in China or perhaps Hong Kong. The confusing part is every character that doesn't speak English speaks Mandarin. To confuse this further, the film is rife with ninjas, which ninjas are from Japanese culture. So Japanese Ninjas in China who speak Chinese? The White Phantom doesn't appear until midway through the film and when it comes to action, he's so ninja he uses his fists to fight off 50 camouflage ninjas with swords.

If this hasn't convinced you that you should rent or preferably BUY this film, then maybe the mention of multiple games of Rock, Paper, Scissors are played in Chinese. That's hot action! Also, there are some minor bare foot shots for those who might be interested.

If you like campy fun, you can laugh your way through this. 'White Phantom - Enemy of Darkness' has earned a special rank in my collection of bad films. The camera work is respectable, the story ridiculous, the characters silly. In summary, this film proved to me why White Ninjas are always unhappy - they can never get those pesky dirt, grass, and blood stains out!

SLAM DUNK!

My review was written in October 1987 after watching the movie on Vidmark video cassette.

"White Phantom" is an okay followup to the action film "Sakura Killers". Pic is well-lensed, boasts an evocative, varied musical score and better acting (with well-recorded English dialog) than the usual martial arts fare, but an almost nonexistent plotline keeps it routine (it debuted on video cassette with no U. S. theatrical exposure).

As with "Sakura Killers", Pic opens with a raid by ninjas of a U. S. scientific installation, with five megatons worth of plutonium stolen. Military colonel Bo Svenson's mission is to retrieve it. Action shifts to Taiwan where scruffy young hero (in a N. Y. Yankees cap) Jay Roberts Jr. Is eventually put on the case. Again it's the Sakura family of Japanese gangsters running a local protection racket who are the villains. Dance Pge Leong is an undercover agent who also is fighting the Sakura family.

Roberts, dressing in a white ninja outfit, displays good martial arts skills, but film's premise of retrieving the plutonium gets lost in the shuffle. Similarly, Leong, alluring in her dance routines, is pointlessly written out of the script before the finish. Pic's highlight is a very impressive strobe-light sequence integrating Leong's flashdance routine with an outburst of violence.