Cobra Against Ninja (1987)
Aka: Cobra vs. Ninja
Original Footage: I Came From Nakhon City (ข้ามาจากเมืองนคร)
D: Joseph Lai.
Richard Harrison, Stuart Smith, Alan Friss, Paul Branney, Gary Carter,
Alfred Pears, Jimmy Bosco, Krung Srivilai, Debra Patan, Alban Raman.
Ugh. Cobra Against Ninja has nothing to do with the Snake Style of martial arts, or even the Sylvester Stallone movie Cobra from the same period. The source material is a 1978 Thai movie called I Came from Nakhon City, starring Thai star Krung Srivilai. I wasn’t able to really ascertain what the source material was supposed to be about based on the footage we see here and the dub it has been given.
There are four Thai soldiers who have been serving at the border (of which country, we never learn). When their time is up, they all go their separate ways. One of them, Kirk, goes to work for a crime gang led by Ringo and his younger brother, Raymond. There is a third boss named Russell. Although they do petty extortion and loan sharking, their main bread-and-butter is sports betting, especially (according to the dub) on ninja duels.
These days, the big name in the ninja duel business is the Gordon, the Red Champion (Robert Harrison). A rival ninja, Cobra (Stuart Smith), wants to defeat Gordon, but has been betting on him against other ninjas in order to up the stakes. Why? So that when he himself challenges Gordon, the odds will be such that if he bets on himself, he’ll be impossibly rich if he wins.
Anyway, another one of the soldiers, Chester (Krung Srivilai), is accused by the gang of stealing a briefcase with important information. Raymond sends some hired goons to fetch the briefcase, but they end up killing Chester’s mother and kidnapping his sister. And another one of the soldiers, David, is working as a cop and gets captured and imprisoned after trying to seduce one of Ringo’s two girlfriends—watch the spectacle of a Thai girl dubbed to sound like she’s from New Jersey. Eventually, the four soldier friends team up to blow up the bad guys while Gordon and Cobra duel in the background.
The success of a Cut-and-Paste film like this can be measured by:
1. How good are the fights from the original film?
2. Is the plot of the finished product coherent?
3. Can you figure out the plot of the original film based on the dub?
4. Are the ninja scenes delightfully goofy?
The answer to the first three questions is a resounding “No.” I had a very hard time trying to figure out what the story was (both the original film and the finished product), who was who, and just trying to make sense of what was happening in front of me. The entire film is completely nonsensical and the fight scenes are uncoordinated brawls. The added ninja scenes are funny in that they generally involve traditional Chinese weapons—spear, nine-ringed broadsword, hook swords, rattan shields—plus Timothy Alberto’s man-perm is hilarious. I also like how the dubbing refers to Richard Harrison’s opponents as Green Serpent, White Dolphin, and Purple Hawk, but they’re all clad in black. So, there is nothing to recommend Cobra Against Ninja.
Silver Dragon Ninja (1987)
Original Footage: Trap (aka: Cop Killer)
D: Chiang Tao (credited as Don Kong). Paulo Tocha, Pedro Ernyes, Eric Neff, Suen Kwok-Ming, Lau Hok-Nin, Pai Ying, Kenneth Tsang Kong.
In the case of Silver Dragon Ninja, the source material hails from a lesser-known Hong Kong crime thriller titled Trap (later retitled Cop Killer), starring Dragon Inn and A Touch of Zen alumni
Pai Ying. The film involves a team of cops, initially led by Alex (Pai
Ying), who are trying to bring down a crime boss, Mark Moh (Kenneth
Tsang). Mark is initially involved in passport falsification, although
he plans on adding arms dealing into his portfolio. When some of his men
are busted by the police, he sends his enforcer, Turkey (Lau Hok-Nin),
to kill them before they can testify. This leads to a brutal campaign by
Alex against Mark, which ultimately leads to him turning in his badge
after getting chewed out too much by his superior. The case is handed
over to one of Alex’s academy buddies (Wong Yuen-San), who sends a
female cop, Jane, to go undercover as Mark’s girlfriend.
Meanwhile,
Mark’s goons continue to harass Alex, even though he’s off the force.
This leads to an escalation into violence between Alex and Mark’s men,
which quickly gets out of hand once the bad guys start targeting Alex’s
family, too. This leads Alex to lead a one-man vigilante campaign
against the gang While Jane is in Manila discovering just who else in
involved in Mark’s dealings.
Tomas
Tang and director Chiang Tao—who worked with both Filmark and IFD after
his tenure at the Shaw Brothers—insert new scenes involving ninjas in a
manner similar to the films above. In this case, a pair of Interpol
agents—Silver Dragon (Paulo Tocha) and Fred (Nigerian martial artist
Eric Neff)—are also white ninjas who are bent on stopping the Black
Ninja Empire from taking over the world. The Black Ninjas are led by
Roger Kimsky (Pedro Ernyes), who also presides over Mark Moh’s gang (as
per the dubbing). So, his ninja are always in the background,
“observing” the events of the other movie. Eventually, the two white
ninjas have to face off with the black ninjas after they “kill” an
important character from the other movie.
Silver Dragon Ninja
has the same median quality as [most of these movies]. There are no
real differences, aesthetically or stylistically, between this and the
IFD films, except maybe that the ninjas here are less “colorful” than
their IFD counterparts. The ninja choreography is of the same standard,
considering that Chiang Tao lent his services to both studios. The
source film appears to be a decent, if unremarkable police thriller,
with some shocking and brutal moments in the second half. It does feel
like two different movies—three if you count the ninja footage—as it
jumps back and forth between Alex’s scuffles with the gang and Jane’s
undercover work as the bad guy’s main squeeze. And I’m still trying to
make sense of the kangaroo court scene at the end…
