Couple weeks ago I was poking around with some B&W print ads using imagery from my Thai press kit collection – converting the decaying colors into more contrasty greyscale, exploring new crops, bringing out the grain and textures of the … Continued
So Five Element Ninjas… is this martial arts alchemy experiment the nexus of one craze on the outs and another on the rise, or is it just an embarrassing oddity shunned like a red-headed stepchild by snobs of two different … Continued
BACK IN BLACK! Gold, brown, blue, red and beige schemes aside, FEN also has a damn nifty commando raid where a platoon of black-clad ninja adeptly bypass the kung-fu compound’s ample defenses and lay waste to the remaining students. It … Continued
By day three, most of you should be rushing out to some store to buy FEN, and won’t be reading this. However, for you stalwarts still clinging to obsolete concepts like credibility and logic in your movies, let me assault … Continued
Okay, so our noble defenders of traditional kung-fu (and kung-fu box office) have accepted the challenge of the invading Japanese genre- uh, army, and away we go – down the yellow brick path of vengeance to… THE GOLD NINJA! FEN … Continued
1982 – Hey, you… Kung-Fu Genre. Yeah you, the dominant force in martial arts exploitation in the 70’s. Y’know that flesh wound you got last year from that Golan-Globus ninja flick? Yeah, the one next the scar you got in … Continued
I’m of two minds about the classic Kaiketsu Lion Maru tokusatsu series. I basically love everything about it… except for the heroes. The character designs of the lead and his rival Tiger Joe sort of creep me out. Tiger I … Continued
This one is probably late 80’s, but you still see generic wind-up and battery-op toys like this, crudely shinobi-fied, at Southern California swap meets, Florida flea markets, dirt mall dealers and curbside vendors in NYC all the time.
I can’t even deal with how amazing these hand-crafted custom weapons are from Japan’s Jutte Master! This weaponsmith is affiliated with the Musashi Clan ninja re-enactment/performance group in Japan. Their activities range from serious martial arts study to festival performances … Continued