“Who were those other guys? The ones in black?”

Drake’s rating: They should have named him Steve. Steve the Ninja has a nice ring to it.

Drake’s review: I mentioned in the last Mutant Roundtable that ninjas were seemingly everywhere in the ‘80s, and that was certainly true. However, what I myself didn’t know was that those famous shuriken-tossing, pajama-clad assassins had made their merry way not only to the United States (where they had their very own American Ninja), but had traveled to the Scandinavian Peninsula as well!

That’s right, thanks to director Mats Helge, ninjas invaded Sweden and made their presence known by immediately engaging in that well-known trope of ninja flicks everywhere: the car chase.

It makes sense, though, that a 20th century ninja would know how to drive. After all, they have to have some way to get downtown to pick up their black pajamas from the dry cleaner (to get out the blood stains) and their ninjatō from the local knife sharpener (constant ninja duels wears down the edge of the blade). And not every ninja can travel unseen through the sewers. That’s really only for ninja turtles.

But the point of this car chase is to rescue Nadia* from the evil Russians who want to kidnap her. It seems Nadia’s father is a scientist who decided to pack up and move to Russia one day, but now that he’s made a scientific breakthrough in nuclear fission, he wants to head back home and open up the technology to the world. The Russians are having none of that, of course, and want to kidnap Nadia to force her father, one Professor Markov, to stick around and thus keep his tech behind the Iron Curtain.

The CIA is rather perturbed by the whole thing and sends in a team of ninjas to protect Nadia, and to retrieve the professor. And those ninjas are led by a man named… Mason.** Which is just a wee bit anticlimactic, but it’s not like he’s named Hubert, so we’ll let it go this time.

So of course Mason saves Nadia, at least until the Russians try to kidnap her a second time. Unprepared for such dogged persistence, Mason fails to protect Nadia from kidnapping number two, and she falls into Russian hands. Literally. She’s wearing one of those extra-wide ‘80s belts, so a big Russian just lifts her up by it and carts her off like a piece of luggage. How undignified!

Still, maybe they can still save the professor, right? Well, about that… The CIA gives it the old college try, but thanks to the sudden but inevitable betrayal by a double-agent, Markov is once again a Russian prisoner, he just doesn’t realize it. Believing the double-agent, he thinks he’s safely ensconced in Sweden once again and happily begins to decode his formula, which he had hidden in the text of a romance novel. No, I don’t know if it’s one of the ones with a Fabio cover.

So now it’s Russians 2, Ninjas 0.

It’s looking bad for the home team here, so Mason and Team Ninja now have to make their way into Russia, infiltrate the castle where Professor Markov and Nadia are being held, then rescue them and beat feet back to Sweden. It’s just another day’s work when you’re a ninja.

The Ninja Mission is a surprisingly fun entry into the genre, cramming ninja and spy antics together into a Cold War-era action movie that keeps the action going throughout. Granted, I won’t disagree with anyone who thinks the martial arts sequences are on the weak side, because they certainly are, but director Helge wisely fills out the more frenetic scenes with gunfights and chases to keep it all going. It’s a bit of a campy film, thanks to the dubbing, but I do have the feeling Helge was never trying to take it too seriously in any event.

This isn’t one of your classic, must-see ninja films, but it is a solid action flick that lives up to its title: there are ninjas, and they are on a mission. It’s hard to ask more from this flick than that.

*Just Nadia. She’s a pop star, so she only needs one name.

**Just Mason. Sadly, he’s not revealed to be a pop star, else this would tie in nicely to Miami Connection.

Intermission!

• That gun makes the cutest pew-pew sound!
• This is a lot of gunfire for a ninja flick.
• That’s some pretty slow karate. The CIA should have hired those guys from the Burbank Karate Club.
• Somersaulting out of frame because just walking isn’t cool enough.
• That sounds less like automatic gunfire and more like a lawnmower trying to start.
• Squibtastic!
• Ninjas in snow kinda stick out like a sore thumb.
• More lawnmower sounds and pew-pew guns.
• Huh. Well, all that shooting and stabbing and karate-ing seems kinda pointless now.
• The worst part about The Ninja Mission? Finding a decent copy. The only ones I could dig up are pretty low-resolution.
• Yikes! I was going to screencap Nadia’s pop star performance, but then noticed she was wearing a see-through mesh top. Man, I was this close to getting smashed with Justin’s Banhammer.