Oct 082001
 
one reel

Dr. Oh, a mad scientist (Pat Morita), creates an obedient, ninja “clone” (Masakatsu Funaki) to kill his ex-colleagues, Dr. Markov (Gregory Vahanian), Dr. Forster (Alexandra Kamp-Groeneveld), and Dr. Hiller (Allan Kolman).  The three hire Mitchell Madsen (Sam Bottoms), an assassin with a bad liver, to stop Oh.  Things become more complicated when the ninja clone meets a prostitute (Cassandra Grae) who teaches him to be human.  Additionally, Dr. Hiller, who is also a mad scientist, is creating his own killer clone, Kismet (Bas Rutten).

The question is, do the actors lack the skills of the average grammar school Christmas pageant participant, or is director Makoto Yokoyama easily confused when both dialog and motion happen in a single scene?  Some of both, I suspect, but most of the blame has to go to Yokoyama, since it would be too difficult to find this many talentless performers.  Yokoyama’s experience comes from helming Power Rangers adventures, and he uses all the skills developed there on this film.  So, he gives us unbelievable characters, overacting, inappropriate pauses, and a range of other flaws.  At times, Yokoyama thinks he’s making an old school, Japanese martial arts epic, with the great warrior ripping off his shirt, flexing, screaming, and then walking into a fatal hail of bullets, never falling until he has reached his opponent.  This style is horribly mismatched when applied to the very Western, grumpy hitman mumbling about how rough it was in Nam (or whatever unknown military conflict he was a part of in his uninteresting and underdeveloped past).

The script, assuming there was one, doesn’t help.  Every third word from Madsen is “goddamned.”  “He’s a goddamned monster.”  “He’s a goddamned killing machine.”  “All I want is his goddamned liver.”  “I just want your goddamned help.”  Couldn’t they think of another expletive?  Or perhaps let him speak without an adjective now and again.  But then Sam Bottoms is miscast in the part of a gruff, action hero anyway.  He looks silly aiming a pistol.

Masakatsu Funaki can’t act, but he can move.  As long as the focus is on Funaki kicking things, or either of the mad scientists doing megalomania routines, the film is fun.  Unfortunately, it frequently veers off into painful “character development” that no one should have to suffer through.

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