I took one look at the cover art and immediately knew what kind of film I was in for when I saw the ninjas riding motorcycles. With such a campy premise, it's impossible to take seriously.
Mark (Y. K. Kim), Tom, Jack, Jim, and John are five orphan college students (even though the first two guys look like they're in their early 40s) all make up the band Dragon Sound and manage to accidentally piss off a street gang with connections to a group of coke dealing biker ninjas led by Yashito and his lieutenant Jeff. Making matters worse, in some loose romantic sub-plot, John is dating Jeffs sister, Jane, who soon starts singing for the band. Luckily, Mark is a Tae Kwan Do instructor and taught the band well enough to fight ninjas with swords so they're ready to kick butt and take names.
As expected, the action scenes are ridiculously corny and over the top, yet still fun to watch. The Dragon Sound members all pull off some pretty sweet martial arts moves even though some were muddled by blurry slow-motion effects. Plus, the final battle against Yashita was a disappointing one-sided beatdown in Marks' favor.
The shooting locations looked decent, even though most of the movie was shot in Orlando instead of Miami and lighting was poor at times. But to me, what makes this a little better than any other dime a dozen budget 80s martial arts flick was the great music. Dragon Sound had some awesome and catchy songs like Friends, Tough Guy, and Against the Ninja. The whole soundtrack just screamed 80s, even though none of the band members are actually playing their instruments except for Tom's actor, Aangelo Janotti. Still, the soundtrack earned six stars instead of the typical five I'd give a film like this.
But naturally, all the acting is awful. The "actors" all sound totally apathetic as they speak their lines and look bored most of the time, probably well-aware of what they signed up for. John even mutters "Oh. Ninjas" when Yashitas goons come riding up to them like he was reacting to the weather or something, and the sub-plot about Jim's long-lost father was too ham fisted to be affective. And if that's not happening, the cast tend to show exaggerated and goofy expressions during the fight scenes. For me, the most unintentionally hysterical moment was Jim's reaction to getting slashed across the chest and Mark repeatedly screaming his name afterward.
Speaking of which, it's no surprise that this was Y. K. Kim's one and only acting role. No question, he's a tough martial artist and does great in the fight scenes, but his Korean accent is so thick, you can't understand him half the time without subtitles.
I wasn't expecting this to be as good as other 80's martial arts flicks like Bloodsport or The Last Dragon. But if you're into "so bad, it's good" kind of action films with 80's rock music, then definitely one a watch if you're bored.
