Tongan Ninja (2002)

Director:

Jason Stutter

Writers:

Jemaine Clement (writer)
Jason Stutter (writer)

Release Date:

8 November 2002 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Comedy | Musical | Romance

Tagline:

A film that will touch your heart... after it's finished with your teeth, ribs, spleen and kneecaps.

Plot Keywords:

Samoa | Spoof | Stuttering | Pacific | Titanic

Cast

Sam Manu	...	Tongan Ninja (Sione Finau)
Jemaine Clement	...	Action Fighter (Marvin)
Linda Tseng	...	Miss Lee
Raybon Kan	...	Asian Sidekick
David Fane	...	Herman the Henchman
Victor Rodger	...	Mr. Big
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Charley Murphy Samau	...	Tongan Ninja Child
Brett Ormsby	...	Chang the waiter
Marty Pine	...	Wong
Tana Umaga	...	Famous rugby player

Runtime:

83 min

Country:

New Zealand

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital EX

Certification:

Australia:M (cable rating) | Australia:PG (original rating) | UK:12

Filming Locations:

New Zealand

Company:

Midnight Film Productions Limited

Quotes:

[the badguys are trying to escape the Tongan Ninja in a car chase]
Asian Sidekick: Somehow he knows where we are going
Ninja: Should I stop indicating?

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Official Making of 'Tongan Ninja' (2004) (V)

Soundtrack:

How Deep Is Your Love

Crazily awesome

I know I use the word 'awesome' a lot, I just happen to watch a lot of crazy awesome movies. I can't help it. I don't actively seek them out, they just find a way of ending up on my TV or in my DVD player. Anyway, where was I? 'Awesome'. I use the word 'awesome' frequently, and I'll admit that I'm not even using it correctly in more than a few cases. However, 'awesome' is my way of indicating a given movie's coolness level, and such a little word is so much more descriptive than a silly rating system involving numbers and stars. For example, I believe I rated 'Wild Zero' as 10 stars, 'Versus' as 9 stars, and 'Battlefield Baseball' as 8 stars, but I do believe I said each one is awesome. Numbers are so inaccurate, and can't describe such movies. 'Awesome' is so much more descriptive.

Now you may be asking "But how does all this relate to 'Tongan Ninja'?". Well, you see Billy, any number I give to 'Tongan Ninja' would be grossly unfair, as it would not be taking both the awesomeness of 'Tongan Ninja' and its value as a movie into account (see my review of 'Killer Meteors'. However, if I were to simply say 'Tongan Ninja' is crazily awesome, that would say so much more: it would say that anyone easily amused will enjoy it, and then people of any class and refinement should avoid it entirely.

'Tongan Ninja' is crazily awesome.

Sione (Sam Manu) is the Tongan Ninja. As a child, he survived a plane crash caused by Marvin (Jemaine Clement), who has since grown up to be an evil ninja and Sione's rival. Marvin makes it a point to frequently remind Sione that Sione's father survived, only to be eaten by a fish. The adult Sione is sent to New Zealand by their ninja mentor, Master Magasaki, to protect a restaurant in true 'Way of the Dragon' style. But the evil ninja Marvin is not far behind...

In all its crazy awesomeness, 'Tongan Ninja' is a spoof on old kung-fu movies. Hell, the plot is taken from Bruce Lee's 'Way of the Dragon', just with some extra creative license. Its a funny movie, messing around with the stereotypical plot elements (dead fathers, "I am your father", the greatest fighter of whatever style), bad dubbing, and making most of the very limited budget they had instead of trying to hide from being cheap. The fight scenes serve to amuse as comedy, not as true fight scenes, and the action goes way over the top but manages to stay funny throughout the movie.

Cheap and wacky, 'Tongan Ninja' isn't obviously going to appeal to everyone. However, anyone who likes their movies cheap and wacky (not to mention crazily awesome) will enjoy this.