Bullet Points: Ninja Condors
For me, 2022 was a year of exploring the ninja filmography of Alexander Lo Rei (aka Alexander Lou) with first time watches for Ninja in the USA and The Super Ninja. I thought I’d squeeze one more Alexander Lo Rei movie in before the calendar flipped to 2023 and I landed on 1988’s Ninja Condors…
- A Family Torn Apart: Young Brian and his father are on the run in their pick up truck in the opening scene of Ninja Condors. The chase ends on a beach, when their truck is surrounded by dirt bike riding bad guys. Despite his father’s pleas of innocence, the bad guys hook up ropes to his neck arms and legs, then hook the other end of those five ropes to their dirt bikes. Then with his son helplessly watching on… the bad guys all drive off in opposite directions ripping Brian’s father apart… LITERALLY. The police shows up just after the nick of time and Detective Tyler asks a sobbing Brian the dumbest question possible, “Are you alright?”
- Kill or Be Killed: Years later, it is Brian who is doing the killing. He works for a man named Lucifer (George Nicholas, Sakura Killers) and thanks to his ninjutsu training, Brian aka The White Eagle is Lucifer’s best man. But when his killing assignments veer from knocking off underworld types and criminals that deserve it… Brian no longer has the stomach for it and his work and relationship with Lucifer suffers as a result. Lucifer decides to give Brian a shot at redemption, can he kill Detective Tyler and Tyler’s pregnant wife? Brian can not do it… but still has to stand by and watch Lucifer’s other men slaughter innocent people (including taking a chainsaw to the womb of Tyler’s wife). Brian is then excommunicated from Lucifer’s company. Brian decides he is going to track down his master. Brian’s girlfriend Mabel convinces him to let her come along. An excited Mabel goes to pull the car around, she puts the key in the ignition, turns it and BOOM! Mabel dies via the car bomb that was intended for Brian. This has not been a good day for Brian…
- He Prefers To Be By Himself: Brian is now drinking his blues away at a bar. A guy at the other end of the bar named Eddie (Eugene Thomas) takes notice and tries to buddy up with Brian, who just wants to drink alone. So Eddie wanders over to a table of people and joins them, which leads to a dancing bar fight, that Brian inevitably gets sucked into and so begins the start of a bizarre friendship between Brian and Eddie that see them get arrested, get bailed out, get re-arrested, break out and Eddie keeps popping up even after Brian attempts to part ways with him.
- Revelations: Eddie is not just some oddball who took a liking to Brian at a bar, he is in fact a cop and the brother of the now deceased Detective Tyler, so it makes some sense that Eddie would be so gung ho about teaming up with Brian to help him take down the man responsible for his brother’s death, Lucifer… We also learn that Brian and Lucifer were both trained by the same master (played by Jack Long). Not sure how much sense it makes that the Master is shocked that a guy named Lucifer decided to use the skills he learned from the Master for evil, but I doubt anybody who ever decided to watch Ninja Condors did so hoping for a logical and cohesive storyline, they were watching for one thing…
- Ninja Action: There are exactly zero condors in the movie, but there are plenty of ninjas and these ninjas are in action. 30 seconds into the opening credits and we get to see shuriken, sais and nunchaku as part of the ninja training montage that plays under the credits… Brian and Eddie survive many a ninja attack over the course of the movie and there’s only one way the movie could end (although there were moments that it felt like Ninja Condors was never going to end which is not the best quality for a movie with an 89 minute runtime) Brian vs. Lucifer… former friends, fellow students of the Master and a sprawling battle that almost seems like a bunch of fight scenes that were mashed up together… probably because it was a bunch of fight scenes that were mashed up together… In the end we get a very Death Wish-esque finale, as cop Eddie lets Brian and his new girlfriend walkaway and start a new life together since he was “off duty”, instead of bringing Brian in for the vigilante justice he just dished out or the countless murders he committed under the employ of Lucifer.
Unlike my other Alexander Lo Rei experiences this year, Ninja Condors was actually a revisit for me. I knew from the opening scene where Brian’s father is torn apart that I had seen this movie before, although honestly that is the only thing I remembered about the movie. I would probably rank Ninja Condors behind The Super Ninja and Ninja in the USA, I think because after such a memorable opening it almost felt like it was all downhill from there… it is really, really hard to top a good dismemberment scene.
It is also really hard to top some good Bonus Bullet Points…
- AKA: Ninja Condors is also known as the overly complicated Ninjas, Condors 13.
- Wardrobe Malfunction: There is a flashback scene where Brian is having a conversation with the Master. Brian’s wardrobe changes twice during the course of this single conversation.
- Words of Wisdom: “Two chopsticks are better than one” – Eddie’s Mom
- If You Ever: …wanted to see ninjas on a merry-go-round or on a ice skating rink, then Ninja Condors is the movie for you.
