Film: Alien Vs Ninja
Release date: 7th February 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 81 mins
Director: Seiji Chiba
Starring: Mika Hijii, Ben Hiura, Shûji Kashiwabara, Masanori Mimoto, Yûki Ogoe
Genre: Action/Comedy/Fantasy/Martial Arts/Sci-Fi
Studio: Revolver
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: Japan
With a title like Alien Vs Ninja, there can really be only one expectation from any prospective viewer: fun. Surely the promise of samurai swords, tentacles, severed limbs and buckets of gore is enough to provide it...
Fresh from a raid of a rival clan’s temple, Yamata and his band of ninjas fight their way back to their village. On their way back they witness a fireball in the sky which lands in the forest.
Fearing the fireball to be a weapon of the rival clan, the lord of the village dispatches the ninjas to investigate. Deep in the forest the group run into Nishi, a disturbed boy who is the sole survivor from a nearby village that has been attacked by mysterious creatures.
Soon after, the warriors realise they are not alone in the forest. They are being stalked by an enemy that is quicker, stronger and deadlier than any they’ve faced before.
What follows is a fight for survival, one in which the ninjas will come to realise there is more to these aliens than they could have imagined…
A film such as Alien Vs Ninja (or AVN, in a nod to Alien Vs Predator) defies any serious criticism. A film about bad-ass ninjas fighting bad-ass aliens, with some extreme gore and comedy thrown in for good measure, should be the highlight of any drunken film night.
The trouble is AVN isn’t as much fun as it should be. It isn’t so much a film as a loose collection of set pieces. This might not be so bad, but after the second gore-soaked fight scene it all gets a bit tedious.
Beginning with a reasonably well choreographed action sequence in which our band of heroes flee a rival clan’s temple and have to fight several faceless bad guys, AVN starts promisingly enough. There is a firm smile fixed to the face as we watch some unbelievable sword-play, nothing we haven’t seen before in much better films, but fun nonetheless and well above expectations. A fireball witnessed in the sky signifies the arrival of the aliens and we are treated to some build-up and back story whilst we wait for the first encounter. The problem is that when this encounter comes and goes we are left feeling as though the film has already shown its hand.
The initial alien encounter is a wildly over-the-top gore-fest in which bodies get sucked underground and spewed out in chunks, limbs are hacked off, heads roll and flesh is eaten from bones, all by a cunningly hidden enemy that is only glimpsed, giving a reasonably effective set-piece. When we get our first look at the alien, we realise that it should have stayed cunningly hidden.
The effort gone to keep the aliens concealed is rendered totally redundant by the terrible man-in-rubber-suit look of the beasts when they are eventually revealed fully, and one can’t help but feel that if the filmmakers really wanted to have fun, they should have gone all out and had a blast with tacky effects and played along with their limitations. Instead, there are shades of effort that are completely useless and end up ruining our enjoyment of what could have been an enjoyable b-movie done Japanese style. Every set-piece after the first encounter shows us nothing particularly new or interesting, and as a result, the rest of the film drags towards a needlessly open-ended finale.
The characters on display are a variety of clichés, and while (thankfully) no-one appears to be taking things too seriously, there are too many moments of supposed comedy that simply annoy. A gay villager seems to be present simply to be laughed at for being gay and irksome, without having any bearing on the plot; the female ninja is leered at by both male ninjas and the aliens; and the main ‘comedy character’ is so unbearably irritating it comes as a relief when he is beheaded. Perhaps if these moments were actually funny, and not simply crass and unnecessary, they might add a level of enjoyment to the film.
It does seem that there is little point picking over the AVN’s failings as it is only meant as a minor distraction and shouldn’t be taken seriously. If it is to be a distraction, however, it at least has to make us laugh a little. It’s a shame that the main feeling throughout is boredom. Films like these have been done so much better in the past. Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste is a prime example of a film that knows its limitations with regards to visual effects, and has as much fun as possible with them, making sure that we are in on the joke from the beginning. In terms of the sub-genre AVN belongs to, Ryuhei Kitamura’s Versus (essentially Zombie Vs Ninja) is a far more accomplished film, that manages to squeeze as much life as possible out of the genre cross-over while retaining essential cinematic elements such as storytelling, structure and performance.
While AVN attempts to emulate both these movies, it manages to be only poor imitations of them. The horror is neither sufficiently horrific for it to be sickening, nor is it tacky enough for it to be funny. Similarly, the enhancement of the aliens with poor CGI only serves to detract from the whole b-movie ideal, and as a result, they are not fake enough to be laughed at or enhanced enough to be exciting.
If you are a fan of cheap gore, watch Bad Taste. If you want a fun and interesting genre cross-over, watch Versus. If your life truly won’t be complete until you’ve seen a female ninja have simulated sex with a rubber monster while punching it repeatedly in the face with knuckle dusters, then maybe you can be forgiven for seeking out Alien Vs Ninja. Otherwise, steer well clear. RM
