The Black Ninja

Starring: Clayton Prince, Carla Brothers  Written and Directed by: Clayton Prince

The Story:  The first thing that entered my infernal Mind when I first viewed The Black Ninja was the lyrics to the theme song ripped off another superhero. "From brightest day to blackest night...." anyone ever hear that before? Its actually part of Green Lantern's oath. But Green Lantern didn't rap it, like in the theme for Black Ninja, so I guess its artistic license.

The first thing you'll see in this movie is a woman being mugged. Considering the fact that she's a fairly attractive well dressed white lady in what appears to be a bad neighborhood you'll ask yourself if she was trying to get mugged. But fear not, citizen....just as the mugging takes place a mysterious figure clad in black appears and beats the muggers up. They flee into a building across the street, but the figure follows, tosses a grenade inside and vanishes into the night. (The muggers run out of the building screaming before the grenade goes off) Thus we meet the Black Ninja!

The Black Ninja is in reality, Maliq Ali, a famous defense attorney. Ali is known to get his clients freed of any charges even when its clearly evident that they're guilty as sin. This makes him unpopular in law enforcement circles. But Ali doesn't seem to care about that, because he's not breaking any laws. (hey, why blame the guy because he's good at what he does?) In one of his cases Maliq gets rapist Pooky Jenkins acquitted even though Pooky is a nincompoop and guilty. (Maliq gets Pooky off by pointing out that he is in fact an idiot.) Even though the cops don't like him, Maliq does manage to make a friend of Dr. Tracy Allen, a psychiatrist. as the Black Ninja, Maliq saves Tracy from some muggers, one of them being the now-out-of-jail Pooky.

Tracy herself has some problems with crime. She's a witness to a murder case involving a gangster named Fanelli. Fanelli naturally wants her dead as disco to keep her from testifying. When he sends some guys to do the job Maliq just happens to be leaving her office. He quickly changes into the Black Ninja and dispatches the hit men, killing two of them. Strangely enough the police charge Tracy with the murders of the 2 thugs. This really bugged me only because it was well, stupid. Imagine, you're a doctor, and two guys break into your office to kill you. Now the police know she's a witness and even though they may not be able to tie these two dead thugs to Fanelli, hell, you'd think that'd be at least a consideration. Instead they don't believe Tracy when she tells them that a Black Ninja came in, killed two of the guys and knocked out the third. (The 3rd guy woke up and ran before the cops arrived) That's far fetched as a mutha f***a I know, but then so is Tracy killing two armed men. Yet they arrest her. Anyhoo, Maliq eventually bails her out and has her stay with him while he tries to get to the bottom of this. a side note is that we see rapist/mugger Pooky getting his just desserts as he's jailed in a cell with a really big fat disgusting black guy that wants to...well, you'll have to use your imagination on that. Its one of the reasons I'll never go to prison.

Maliq tells Tracy his story...five years ago he was happily married with 2 children. But as an up and coming defense attorney he got a bit greedy and ambitious. He defended a man named Hagiwara for murder and won. But he charged Hagiwara $100,000, which was all of the money he had. Hagiwara in anger killed his family, writing "Was it worth $100,000?" on the mirror with Maliq's son's blood. Maliq searched for Hagiwara afterwards, and trained in the martial arts but never found his prey.

The Black Ninja pays Fanelli a visit and warns him to stay away from Tracy. Fanelli lets it slip that he knows Hagiwara, but won't say where he is. Which is, a lie. Hagiwara returns in Fanelli's employ and kidnaps Tracy. (Fanelli tried a failed attempt to kill her again, but the Black Ninja saved the day....and in this encounter Tracy figured out that Maliq is the Black Ninja) Hagiwara forces the Black Minja to steal a diamond from a museum for him, and then fools him into thinking that he's killed Tracy. With nothing left to lose, the Black ninja goes after Fanelli, who beat the rap in court since no one would testify. But then the Black Ninja finds that Tracy is in fact, alive and being held by Hagiwara. In their final confrontation Hagiwara obviously outmatches the Black Ninja, but is stabbed in the back by Tracy while his attention is on the fight. The black Ninja finishes him off.

This movie was only entertaining in the way that a really low budget can be entertaining. It was made on the cheap, and it shows. The story isn't all that original either, but I guess there are only so many ways to explain why a guy would dress up like a Bat or a Ninja or a Devil and go out and fight crime. Like most of the low budget DTV schlock I seem to come across in The Inferno I get the idea that with a little more polish this could have been a better flick. Cut out some of the "comedy" parts, throw some more money for film and sets and get some better actors and it would have been a hoot. Clayton Prince directed this movie and played the title role. According to my source (The IMDb....what other source would I have?) he was also on the old sitcom, A Different World. .I don't know....I never watched that show. everyone on it reminded me of someone I didn't like. Carla Brothers was Tracy Allen and according to the same source she was in an episode of the Cosby Show. (A Different World was a spin-off from Cosby) Small world I guess.....and I did notice that Ms. brothers looks kind of like Lisa Bonet. That's a good thing.

Best Lines:  “Look at my client....looks like an idiot, doesn't he. He ain't kidding.” -Maliq convinvces the jury that Pookie is an idiot.

Are you kidding me?

1.) The IMDb has this movie listed as a comedy. Lord, I hope that's an error. there's really nothing funny about it....at least not intentionally. Yeah, there are a few spots that are played for laughs, but they're few and far between and not funny at all.

2.) Detective Howell arrests Tracy for the murder of the 2 hit men that burst into her office. How the flying f*** does that work? Now, she didn't kill these guys in the first place, the Black Ninja did. but the murder weapon isn't in the room (The Ninja turned the 3rd man's pistol on them....and the 3rd guy escaped) so how do they explain two gunshot victims and no gun? Besides these two morons were hit men! If two guys broke in here intent on killing me and I managed to snuff 'em both I really can't see the police charging me with murder! Wouldn't that be more like self defense?

3.) In a flashback we see the murder that Fanelli doesn't want Tracy testifying to. He killed a guy in the middle of a store with about a dozen witnesses! Are you telling me that none of these other people are willing to testify? Fanelli doesn't seem that scary! I can't even see him as som,e kind of mob boss.

4.) I'm probably not going to be Politically correct in this, but the actor playing Hagiwara has such a strong accent I could barely understand what he was saying. does he normally speak like that or was it an act? I hope its an act. I mean, I had a Japanese roommate in college and he was hard to understand, but not as hard as this guy!

5.) The Black Ninja's revenge on Fanelli is pretty cruel. He ambushes the criminal in the bathroom and uses his acupuncture skills to permanently paralyze the man! Now I'm not a softie when it comes to dealing with crime. If you let me make the rules I'd have drug dealer burning at the stake in the market square and spammers in the Stocks. But that's just plain fucked up. either kill him, or beat him up real bad. Even break his legs....but don't paralyze a person totally just for vengeance. Some hero.

Nudity and Sex: Maliq and Tracy have sex, but no nudity is shown.

Huh?:

Maliq learned ninjitsu, acupuncture and computer hacking in the five years between his family's death and the present? That's one fast learning dude!

I don't understand why Maliq would still want to defend the worst criminals of all time after his family was killed. Sure, that inspired him to go kick ass as the Black Ninja, but why  use his civilian identity to spring crooks from trouble? there's no indication that he goes after them later. He only runs into Pooky as the Black Ninja by coincidence. (Which actually, makes my case....Maliq knew Pooky was guilty of rape, yet he got the scumbag off in court....and Pooky's out committing more crimes 24 hours later.)

Now that I think about that last statement, it makes Maliq look like a crappy superhero. Pooky RAPED a woman, yet Maliq took his case and got him off. And Maliq even says he KNEW Pooky was guilty. Methinks they should have rewritten the script and changed the rape to theft. (Incidentally, Daredevil in his movie gores after a thug that raped a woman and was exonerated in court. Though Daredevil didn't purposely kill him, he might as well have....and there was no doubt about it....DD was gonna beat the crap out of him either way.)

I assume the city this takes place in is Philadelphia. The final fight between Black ninja and Hagiwara takes place at Penn's Landing.

The Final Judgment: Low production values, bad acting, somewhat silly idea in the first place....I loved it! Unfortunately the Inferno can only give the Black Ninja 2 devil heads and one of them is a gimme. There were a few parts that made me chuckle. Rent or buy only if you like really cheap DTV movies. (I'm talking REALLY CHEAP) I don't know if you can call this a blaxploitation movie. The principle characters are black, but so what?