Super Ninja - I'll have the Soup AND the Ninja

Did you pack your Ninja Springs, honey?

There are ninja movies… and then there is Super Ninja (1984)—a film so aggressively committed to every ridiculous shinobi trope ever conceived that it loops right past parody and into accidental genius. If you’ve ever wanted to see color-coded assassins deploy zip-lines, burrow through the earth like caffeinated gophers, and—yes—water-ski in full ninja regalia, this is your holy text. And just when you think the well has run dry, it introduces portable ninja trampolines as a legitimate method of tactical traversal. Cinema peaked here.

The plot? Oh, it exists. Somewhere. It requires light excavation. Characters explain things in stilted, echo-chamber-dubbed dialogue that sounds like it was recorded inside a soup can. The villains concoct plans so catastrophically self-defeating that the entire narrative collapses into what can only be described as an “idiot plot.” If any antagonist paused for even a single reflective breath, they’d realize their schemes only accelerate their own doom. In fact, the most logical strategy available to them would be to do absolutely nothing and let events unfold naturally. But no—when you’ve invested in a team of color-coded ninja knockoffs, you’re obligated to deploy them in increasingly absurd ways.

And yet, that’s precisely why Super Ninja works. The dreadful dubbing, the hilariously wooden line readings, the narrative leaps that feel like missing reels—all of it enhances the experience. It’s chaotic, earnest, and completely unselfaware. There’s a strange purity to its excess. This isn’t a film winking at you; it believes every trampoline-assisted midair flip matters. For bad movie enthusiasts hunting that electric “so-bad-it’s-good” high, this is prime territory. It’s messy. It’s nonsensical. It’s spectacularly misguided. And it is absolutely glorious.