We look at Godfrey Ho, the creator of classics like Ninja Terminator and Undefeatable.
“I can’t see you acting - more acting!”
It was beautiful and the film delivered on this promise.
Its just turtles all the way down… and thats a little like Godfrey Ho.
Its ninjas all the way down.
A guy could lose his mind in here.
Most of them have ninja in the title.
To further complicate, Godfrey Hos filmmaking technique was somewhat radical.
Some of the same footage was reused many times over in completely different stories.
The bizarre results of these experiments have both enchanted and enraged cult film fans for decades.
The ways Ho tried to mash unrelated films into one were astonishing and often very funny.
Theyd sometimes read newspapers with carefully cut-in headline shots that harked back to scenes from the other movie.
If you stop to think, its actually quite clever and undeniably audacious.
If a scene lifted from, say, a Taiwanese family drama starts getting too talky, dont worry.
Ho will just splice in a magical ninja, wholl appear from a puff of psychedelic smoke.
Its a brave approach whose results, while undeniably chaotic, were compelling.
No matter how many films youve seen, youll never guess whats coming next in a Godfrey Ho film.
His style rips the rule book to pieces.
Even the soundtracks were often stolen from recognizable bands or other films scores.
Memories of the elusive Ho vary wildly, depending on whos being asked.
Some say he was a good-natured and enthusiastic professional, always friendly and reliable with payments.
Veteran genre actor Richard Harrison has been outspoken of how he believes Ho ruined his career.
Pretty impressive work for a guy whose films are often namechecked as some of the worst of all time.
Funny as it may seem at first though, this makes a strange kind of sense.
Before he deconstructed his craft into notorious no-budget ninjas, Ho had to learn it and learn it well.
John Woo was actually Second AD onThe Blood Brothersand Godfrey Ho was First!
Instead he noticed a gap for Hong Kong films in the international market.
Many directors were scared to chase it but Ho prophetically saw this as the way forward.
Lai was adept at international film sales and had many contacts on the festival circuit.
Ho would splice his quickly-shot ninja footage into the incomplete films IFD had kicking around their archive.
The important thing was that the footage they featured Westerners because this was what made it sell overseas.
Beyond the cast, Ho and Lai tried their best to appeal to English-speaking tastes.
All their characters would be given comically over-anglicized old-fashioned names like Harry, Gordon, Bruce or Alan.
Nuts as it may seem, IFDs plan worked, to say the least.
The demand for new ninja films got so high that Ho stopped even hiring actors.
The uniquely manic style of the bizarro non-actors is a big part of the films delirious appeal.
Everyone amped themselves up to eleven so that Ho could see them acting.
All hail the Ninja Empire and may it one day be restored to its natural glory.
Or at least get a Blu-ray boxset release.
