Is the Ultimate Ninja the Ultimate Godfrey Ho ninja film? Well, no (that would be Ninja Terminator, but then again I think there's about 40,000 other films with the word 'Ninja' in it that Ho released in 1986, so I might be wrong).
This one (like all the others) has good ninjas versus bad ninjas fighting over the black ninja model (looks like an action man, but I'm probably too inferior to understand the way of the ninja) every twenty minutes while some obscure Eastern kung-fu flick unfolds. Hey - I'm no expert on this kind of high art, I can only be thankful that Poundland deemed me worthy enough to sell this stuff.
The non-ninja plot involves some guy who's dad was killed in a confusing flashback heralded by the line "He's a great athlete - pity his dad is dead" wanting to get revenge on some guys. There's also another guy who works in a café that might be related to him, and a sister, and some other people. I'll confess here - I've watched Derek Jarman's Blue, The Three Colours trilogy, and most of Greenaway's works, but nothing prepared me for The Ultimate Ninja's allegory on the human condition. What Ho is saying to us here that we may envelope ourselves in modernity (represented here by the ninjas enveloped in stupid ninja headbands) but there's nothing technological and sociological progress can do to someone trying to kick you in the face. The sheer intellectual liminal text juxtaposed with the subliminal-text (you're closest friend may be the person trying to hack you to pieces with an axe)was too much for my brain, which went into shut down and only awoke to see a ninja battle in a picnic area.
Godfrey Ho provides us mere mortals with shafts of shattered rainbow which we can only sift through, looking for answers. Yesterday's Ho film is tomorrow's Corn Flakes, and only today can stroke it's chin, assemble a Golden Ninja Warrior with it's mind, and say "We will never know the real truth".
Amen.
