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"Ninja Vixens" Collection: Lacks 'Ninja' and 'Vixens'
By Ian Lueck
04-04-2009, 10:47 PM |
I've got nothing against independent films. They may have low budgets, but if you can create memorable characters and situations, you can more than make up for the financial restrictions. For example, I like Clerks; it was shot on a $25,000 budget and looks it, but it had witty dialog and an odd assortment of characters. Bill Plympton hasn't got a Disney-sized budget, but he makes up for it with surreal humor where you don't know what to expect next.
 But Ninja Vixens is just a lot of the same old stuff in a cheap wrapper.
Ninja Vixens is essentially an umbrella title for nine films with the same setting and theme (ninja vixens, duh). The tenth film, something of an oddball, is titled "Virgin Nightmares" and is more of a supernatural horror film. Being that they all have different plots, actors, characters, and directors, the tone can vary from movie to movie. Some are more goofy and light-hearted ("Flame of Seduction", "Vixen Dropouts", "Web of Passion"), while others are somber and deadly serious ("Crimson Blades", "Forbidden Paradise", "Demonic Sacrifices"). One thing they all have in common, though, is their cheapness and effectiveness in inducing boredom.
What do I mean by cheapness? Take, for example, a scene in one of the films when a character is knocked off a cliff. Rather than film a stunt actor and stage the action so that it seems like the character was actually falling, the editors took a still of her and rotated it around on the screen. It's so bad and so obviously a paper cutout effect that it had me rolling with laughter, but not for the right reasons. There are also moments when the combination of live actors and computer graphics is painful, like when a ninja has to fight a horde of undead skeleton creatures: It's incredibly evident that she was just swinging at air and they added in these cheap, early '90s visuals. If someone is supposed to be burning to death, the fire will be superimposed over the character, which of course is unconvincing. There's also the old trick of a sword being placed under an actor's arm to look like they've been stabbed in the chest, except it's not staged properly, so you can actually see the sword under their arm. Perhaps the worst offender, though, is when a female adversary shoots liquid weapons out of her nipples. The, ahem, "material" is clearly placed in front of her chest on another editing layer and doesn't look like it's actually exiting her, um, nipples.
 Now all of this could be forgiven if the plots were original or had interesting characters. Sadly, this isn't the case. Many of the stories involve supernatural forces and/or brutal criminals being fought by ninjas, or in the case of the tenth film, a family being terrified by a haunted apartment they've moved into, where the biggest threat is a gray hand that emerges from the wall. Really? That's the best they could come up with? These are cookie cutter plotlines that would be massacred by critics if they came out of Hollywood. The only film that really comes close to a unique premise is about a man whose penis has been stolen by a sorceress. But that film's the exception, not the rule. And the monotony of the setting throughout the ten films doesn't help, as by the end of the fourth one you'll be sick of the Japanese feudal era. Perhaps they should've set a couple in different time periods to keep things fresh.
There's also a definite disappointment when it comes to the action sequences. In the 70-minute stores, we often only get about five or six minutes of actual fighting (if that), and the rest is just unremarkable dialog about honor, betrayal, and sacrifice. And the fights aren’t even very funny or engaging, and usually end rather quickly with a few sword swings and no fast editing. In fact, at times the fights are filmed in one continuous shot, which works when the action moves so fast that to make rapid cutting would remove one from the action rather than engage one (such as with some of Jackie Chan’s battles). But here, with the sluggish sword dueling, it makes things even more sluggish.
And then we come to the fanservice. Ninja Vixens falls into the Pink Eiga genre of film, meaning that it's softcore (i.e., no genitals or explicit sex scenes), but I still thought the films were pretty tame. Without going into too much detail, there are numerous sex scenes in Ninja Vixens when the male will seem to kiss every part of a female's chest except for the, um, targets. I understand they couldn't show everything, but even allowing for that, the makers seem very skittish about showing anything. When Ikki Tousen (a TV series!) has more erotic scenes and revealing outfits than these films do, that's saying something.
 The DVD presentation also could have been better. The picture is non-anamorphic widescreen, meaning that if you’re watching on a HDTV, you get blank spaces on both sides in addition to the widescreen bars, leaving a pretty small picture. Due to being shot on video instead of film, the video quality is also below par. The only feature on the ten discs is a textual preview for other films in the series. Packaging is nice: an Alpha case with five double-sided disc holders, so this means that even at ten discs this collection won’t take up much room on your shelf.
Even at 70 minutes apiece, I found myself looking at the clock a little too often while watching these. They could have been cheesy, B-movie guilty pleasures, but instead they are clichéd bores that don't take advantage of their opportunities, especially given the suggestive title of Ninja Vixens. If overdone plots, short-lived fights, outdated titillation, and monotonous settings sound like fun— Well, you need to raise your standards. But you'll also be the target audience for Ninja Vixens, so go nuts.
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