Cyber Ninja (1988) with Nerds, Geeks, & The Kitchen Sink

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
DK (00:10):
I might be talking shit.
That might be the thing tonight.

Chris (00:13):
Yeah.
And I mean, in terms of streamingplatforms, I don't know if you've ever
tried to watch something for free on Plex.
I started to once and it said add one ofone of nine up in the top right corner.

DK (00:25):
And I was like, yep.
Oh, fuck this.
Yep.
Not doing it.
You know what's crazy?
I watched a movie last night, um,actually shout outs to five Day Reynolds
listeners of this show know them.
Um, I was watching, um, fuck is that moviecalled Double uh, what, what's the movie?
Literally today.
I literally

Chris (00:42):
just ended up like stopped listening to it double
Is it double something Threat?
Double take I think

DK (00:47):
Double threat.
No.
Yeah, double threat.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Double threat.
That's it.
And I watched it on Tuby and likethe ads were so minimal it like did,
I was on thankful they were there.
I was like, oh good, I can go pee.
Like.
They were perfectly placed.
Thank you, Tubi.
I love you.

Chris (01:00):
Yeah.
Best, best streaming service.

DK (01:02):
So good.

Chris (01:04):
So, uh, what are those, some of those seventies horror films
that dks got you rewatching Chris?

Chris (NerdsGeeks) (01:10):
Well, I, I've gone back to, um, some, a few George CCO ones.

DK (01:16):
Mm.

So re-watched for probably the fifth time,
uh, the Exorcist three.
Oh, well that's nineties buddy.
Well, no, but the Changeling.
Okay.
And um, is it named, oh god, what?
It was remade with Liam Neeson and,um, Catherine Zanna Jones, I think.

(01:41):
Isn't that just the haunting?
Isn't that the haunting?
Oh yeah, the haunting.
Okay.
Yeah.
I went back and watched theold, old version of that one.
Sure.
So much better.
Loved it as a kid.
Yeah.
So,

Chris (01:51):
yeah, I don't think I've seen, I think I might have
seen the remake at one point.
I feel like there's a bunchof like cherubs in it.
Mm-hmm.
Or something You're, you're

DK (02:01):
God, right?
Yes.
If there's one thing you could besure of in that movie, it is cherubs.
Yes.

Chris (02:05):
Yeah.
So I remember that

Cher.

Chris (02:10):
Yeah.
Great movie.
I guess I, one thing I do is I'mone of those letterbox people that
changes my top four every month basedon what I watched the previous month.
Yeah, sure.
And I was like, you know, maybe insteadof coming onto this podcast and struggling
to think of something to talk about,maybe I should take a note of what
those were so I can bring that up.

(02:32):
And in terms of seventies horror,for surprisingly, for the first
time last month, I watched Nightof the Leis and Oh, really?
Oh, yeah.
I had never, somehow never seen it.
I liked it a lot.
It's

DK (02:44):
a fun movie and it's like better than you would expect, like when you,
when you read the what it's about,and then you're like, really this?
But then it's like not that bad.
Right.

Chris (02:53):
Yeah.
I

DK (02:54):
mean, I,

Chris (02:55):
Hey as we'll talk about.
When we get into this movie,I'm a sucker for miniature sets.
Oh my gosh.
And there's something joyousabout watching rabbits terrorize.
A little farmhouse.
A

DK (03:06):
little farmhouse.
Yeah.

Chris (03:08):
Yeah.
Although there may have been somereal animal cruelty in that movie,
like a lot of it I wasn't sure.
I couldn't tell.
I don't want to know about that.

DK (03:19):
Let's just say there wasn't.

Chris (03:20):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And a big house, USAA midfifties Charles Bronson movie.
That was one I watched.
Oh my damn it.
I actually, that was theone I sent you in bones.
This screenshot of, of Charles Bronsonlooking just jacked beyond all belief.
Out

DK (03:38):
of his mind.

Chris (03:40):
Yeah.
Oh my God.
I always like, I've always knownthat and I've seen it, but for some
reason, just seeing someone in thefifties with that muscle definition,
I was like, oh my God, look at this.
Dude.

DK (03:52):
It, it feels weird.
Yeah, for sure.

Chris (03:56):
I don't know.
It's a good one.
Pretty like oddly dark fora movie in the fifties.
Like there's not any like true violence init, but the implied violence in it Sure.
Yeah.
Is pretty, pretty dark fora movie of that time period.
Is

DK (04:10):
is he, I don't, is he mustached in that one mustache?
He's not.
Okay.
That's, there was a, there wasa time when he didn't like man
with a camera like no mustache.
And he is like, it makes him seem somuch younger and then he just flips
over to old man mustache and he'sthat from the seventies till his
death 65 For 40 years of his life.
For the rest of his life.

(04:33):
Yeah.
There's, there's Bronsontalk in my house most days.
Any kind of sentence you cansay and then just end it with,
yes son of a bitch, anything.

Chris (04:44):
Yeah, I'm sure your, your young daughter appreciates and understands
all the Charles Bronson references.

DK (04:50):
I she would probably be able to point 'em out, I think.
Yeah.
She has seen, she's seenenough Bronson around.

Chris (04:56):
Hey, glad to hear someone's raising their kids.
Right.
Hello everyone, and welcome to DeadFormats, a movie podcast, which
is all about, uh, dead formats,the type of movies that just
aren't made anymore these days.
I'm your host, Chris, and thisepisode we're going to be discussing
Cyber Ninja from 1988, and todayI'm joined by two very special

(05:18):
guests, both prepared to distinguishthemselves with courage and gallantry.
Chris dk, welcome.
How are you guys doing this evening?

DK (05:28):
Chris, I was gonna let you go first, but I always, I improve if you feel
like it improve and look, we need it.
We need it so bad right now.
I know.

Uh, you always go first, so, I mean, you know,
it's because I say the intro and I,and you know, when I talk over you,
it just sort of happens that way.

DK (05:43):
Jesus.

Well, but it's really good for you to have, you
know, we appreciate you having us on.
Okay.
Oh, tk, go ahead.

DK (05:50):
Oh, no, I was just gonna say, we really appreciate you having us on.
Um, no, this is such a good show.
I had such a blast with the,uh, the five VR guys the most.
I think that's the most recent episode.
Um, the, the game, the, um, yes.
Videotape magazine, hotdog video,volume 11, hot video video check
your level of on love and sex.

(06:10):
I have to get, I have to see it.
I haven't seen it yet.
I, I need to see it.
What a great episode.
If people haven't heard that,what are you doing here?
I mean, yeah, listen to this,but holy shit, so great.

Chris (06:22):
Yeah.
So if you listen to this show, youshould be familiar with DK from our first
episode where we talked about Fantasmrevision and Chris's dks co-host on their
podcast, nerds Geeks and the Kitchen Sink.
They talk comics, they talk aboutmovies, they talk about video games.
So hey, they're the perfect pair tobring on to talk about this week's film.

(06:43):
Our dead format this week is a directto video film, and it is also the first
live action movie based on a video game.
And it is also a Star Wars ripoff,which is why we're talking about
it today for May the fourth.
We're definitely not recordingthis episode way in advance.
So all the stuff that wasrecently revealed at Star Wars

(07:06):
celebration, we know all about that.
And, uh, we couldn't believe

DK (07:09):
those announcements.
Yeah, my God,

Chris (07:11):
I liked all the good stuff that they revealed Chris,
but I gotta say the bad stuff.
Oh my God,

DK (07:18):
I wasn't really a fan.
What did you guys think?
Well, I know Chris is upset about it all.
Uh, so I'm, I'm the one that'shopeful and, uh, I, I'm trying

not to turn into rent home this time.
I swear as gun is my wind in.

DK (07:31):
Yeah.
Uh, they announced they, there was alittle bit of a trailer for like a new,
some short, are they, are those shorts?
The dark side, the, what is it called?
Um.
I'm talking shit again.
Uh, what do you call it?
It's that animated one.
Was it?
The Underworld.
Underworld.
That's it.
That's it.
Mm-hmm.
Are those based on, on thoseold Clone wars Lucas scripts?
No, I know that, but I mean are No,do, do you do, are you aware of the,

(07:54):
the Underworld show that was I has

a ton of them.
Yeah.
None of this was

DK (07:57):
speaking of a dead format.
It's a never evenexisted, all considered in

the, uh, legends.
Not the eu with thenew eu, and that's all.
I didn't know if they

DK (08:05):
had maybe

reused some of that felon of stuff.
Yeah,

Chris (08:08):
I, I mean, I guess just based on your, you guys little tangent about
EU and George Lucas underworld, it'ssafe to say you're Star Wars fans.
So tell us a little bit about yourrespective histories with Star Wars.
Chris, you go first.

Okay.
Mine started in a long timeago in a galaxy far, far away.
Jesus Christ.
In, in 1973, uh, no.
Anyway.
No, I did see the OG Star Wars.
It's not Star Wars.
A new Hope.
It was Star Wars.
I actually, I was four.
My parents took me and I was hooked.

(08:45):
I literally hid under anotherseat to get to see the second
viewing that I lost, that theylost me, and I sat and watched her.
So I'm a huge original Star Wars.
I mildly like the, uh, prequels andthere are things I like of the sequels,

(09:08):
but I'm not gonna give it a thumbs up.
But I, I, I have toys.
I have some of the original,like 12 inch figures.
I've got just about everythingyou can think of Star Wars.
So I am a huge fan.

Chris (09:22):
So were your parents just freaking out for an hour
and a half looking for you?

It was probably the worst ass meaning I ever got in my life
after that, but it was so worth it.

DK (09:34):
Amazing.
Well, Chris, one of my favoriterecent Star Wars memories
is watching Mando with you.

Yeah.

DK (09:41):
Uh, we worked together at that time and it would be something where the new
episode would drop, and I hadn't seen ityet, so we'd sort of sneak it at work.
That's true, that's true.
We had, we had the tablet playingthat last episode of, is that
season one when Luke shows up?
That was two, seasontwo, I can't remember.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's season two.
Luke shows up and that ex wink.

(10:01):
I just remember, like, I think Ipaused it and I just looked at you
and I was like, no, no, no, no.
Like, that was amazing.
Right?
Yeah.
Um, so that was a reallyfun recent and then we, we
watched it again at your house.
Yes.
Like with your family.
It was wonderful just tosee all that Luke stuff.
Uh, so, you know, I, I grew up,uh, I really, I think I said this
recently on another show I kind ofcame alive in the nineties and so,

(10:23):
um, I grew up in a world though wherethere were three Star Wars movies.
Mm-hmm.
And, um.
I read the books I was so into, soall you could get was like the movies
and then there were video games.
Mm-hmm.
Which I was, one of my favoritegames of all time is Star Wars,
dark Forces Two Jedi Knight.
It's very underappreciated,under loved, it's like a sort
of a quake style Star Wars game.
But you have force powers, you haveright guns, you have a light saber.

(10:44):
At a certain point, there are Jedibattles that you have to fight.
The sth.
It's so much fun.
You're fighting storm troopers.
It's, it's incredible.
I love that game so much.
Um, it needs to comeback, please, whoever.
Um, but anyway, at that time, allthere was was the expanded universe
stuff, the books and the games.
Mm-hmm.
And so I, I latched onto those thingsand, you know, I was kind of, I was

(11:04):
becoming a reader and I was just,just blasting through those books.
I read so many of those booksand my mom is a librarian, so she
was like, Hey, if you're reading,I'll get you anything you want.
Whenever you want.
Just tell me what book you want.
And if you're, if you're reallyreading them, I'm buying them for you.
So I, I was totally spoiled on the books.
The comics, the, the,the eventual prequels.

(11:25):
I even like the sequels to some degree.
Obviously there areproblems, blah, blah, blah.
But I'm pretty good at enjoying things.
Mm. Um, and I'm, I'm pretty good at like,you know, as long as I feel like we are
in a place that I, you know, as long as ittakes a couple boxes, I'm usually pretty.
Okay.
And, and, um, so, um, the second one,uh, so we have what, what, what is it?

(11:49):
Uh, empire Strikes Bad.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
I was like, no, no ful.
I'm trying to think of, I, I'm doingdifferent kind of math in my head here.
No.
Uh, the first movie my daughterever saw in the theater was.
Um, the second sequel,what the fuck is it called?
Oh, attack of the Clones.
See, that's so memorable.
No, no, no, no, no.

(12:09):
Sequel.
Sequel.

Chris (12:10):
Oh, uh, last Jedi.

DK (12:12):
That Jedi.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I I was like this, what is it The revenge?
Is it the I'm getting old.
There's too many.
Uh, yeah, so Last Jedi wasthe first movies my daughter
Zora ever saw in the theater.
So that right there is like a, you know,anytime it's on, I'm like, yeah, okay.
We, I have a special fondness for Ray.
I was seeing my daughter, you know,loving a character on the screen
and it was just one of those things.

(12:33):
So, I guess, needless tosay, big Star Wars fan.
I've played all the recent games.
Um, I'm, I'm excited for the, there'sa new turn-based EXCOM style game
that is technically unannounced,but has leaked pretty heavily.
It's from Respawn apparently,but um, from some of the makers,
some of the developers of excom.
That sounds like a, a great time.
So I'm ready for that.

Chris (12:54):
Wow.
Yeah.
It's funny you mentioned the secondseason of Mandalorian because I used
to be a Star Wars super fan, and that'sthe last thing that I've watched.
And it's not because I thought thatshow was bad, it was just sort of
like a, a slow process that startedwith the Clone Wars and sort of just

(13:14):
like, you know, the sequel trilogy.
And then after season two of Mandalorian,I. I saw all of the things on the horizon
and I was like, I, I'm just not gettinganything outta this relationship anymore.
Star Wars, I totally get it.
Let you mean you's

didn't like you, didn't like the
scooter Patrol, power Rangers.
Well, he didn't see, Ididn't even see that.
Oh my God.
I spared myself from that.
You did.
You very well.
Did.
It

Chris (13:39):
seems to have been a good decision because the consensus
seems to be that and or is likethe only thing that is consensus.
Thumbs up.
Whether that's like a weak thumbs upor a strong one, but I've never really
heard anyone say they dislike that show.
But everything else since thenseems to be, has gotten generally

(14:00):
like middling to negative reviews.
So,

DK (14:04):
and or lacks fun, but it's not about fun.
Fun or.
Oh, it's got a pace and it's likethis, it's, it's very plotting.
Sheldon internal.
Yes.
But, but I love Andor.
It's very good.
I'm very excited for the second season.
Um, but, you know, I, I haveto say, I also had a, a phase
where it was before the sequelscame out where I was just done.

(14:27):
Like people would mention Star Warsand I would just sigh and roll my
eyes and go, I'm so tired of it.
I'm so tired of it.
But I don't know what happened.
I think, I don't know.
I, I love Rogue One.
That's a great one.
There's, there's good stuff to be hadstill of the, of the modern stuff.
I don't know.
I just feel like I've lightened upon myself and it's like, yo, buddy,
you can, you can enjoy things still.
It's okay.
So it's really just a decision.

(14:47):
And if it's, if it's somethingwhere right now you're like, eh,
I don't really care, that's fine.
Yeah.
But maybe eventually,

Chris (14:52):
maybe eventually.
Although.
I doubt it.
No worries.
There'd have to be some pretty, prettydrastic shakeup in whatever's been
going on for the past decade plus.
Sure.
But, uh, yeah, I mean I was just,a lot like UDK we're similar ages.
I was just obsessed with the books.
You know, anything that I couldfind at the library, I was reading

(15:15):
it, uh, you know, tales of theBounty Hunters, tales of the Tino.
Oh my gosh, those weretwo of my biggest ones.
That book

DK (15:21):
is in the room with Chris right now.
Yes.
It's, I know where it is on the Shelf.
Yeah.

Chris (15:25):
Loved that.
And yesterday I was thinking of thisseries of young adult ones that I think
was called like Jedi Prints, and it wasall about, the first book in the series
was, uh, Darth, the Glove of Darth Vader.
I know it.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know that one.
And Tricops is in there.
Tricops my man.
So, hell yeah.

(15:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I even, I was like.
A moderator of a Discord for a StarWars mobile game for a long time.
So I was like, which game?
Galaxy of Heroes.
That's a cool game though.
I was obsessed with it.

DK (15:58):
Yeah, it's a cool game.

Chris (15:59):
And actually I shouldn't say that Mandalorian two was the last like Star
Wars thing I did because I was stilllike playing that game for a good two
or two and a half years after I waslike, quote unquote done with Star Wars.

DK (16:13):
Well, they supported it like crazy, right?
Yeah.
They added Kyle Catanas at a certain point.
Yeah, so I actually

Chris (16:18):
quit before they started adding a lot of EU stuff.
I think.
I mean the only like quote unquoteEU characters that were really in
it when I was playing were fromCottor, which I never like, that
completely passed me by because Ididn't have, uh, an original Xbox.
So I never played those games.
But, uh,

DK (16:37):
they're good.
They're definitely worth your time, butit's also not something, it's not an
experience like I'm begging you to have.
Yeah, they're,

Chris (16:43):
they're fine.
I mean, after that, I think they'veadded star killer from Force Unleashed
and Kyle Catan, like you said, likea bunch of random EU characters
or things from other video games.

DK (16:54):
My love for Kyle Catan is so stupid.
I can't, I just love Kyle Catan.
I love, it's particularly DeadJedi Knight Dark Forces too.
I love his ship.
I love his gun that he has hisoutfit that, the shitty actor that
plays him in the live action videos.
I love all of that so much.
It's, I, I, it's so nineties.
I It's perfect.

Chris (17:15):
Yeah.
I think other than Galaxy of Heroes,I probably played Shadows of the
Empire a lot just because N 64.

DK (17:22):
Do you have a crushing fear of Wamps like I do because of that game?

Chris (17:25):
Yeah.
Also, like I. When Disney bought StarWars and threw away all of the eu,
that was the one I was the most sadabout because that was like a George
Lucas, you know, soup to nuts project.
I'm like, you guys should, youguys should hold onto that.
Like he made that.
But yeah, whatever.
Prince Caesar.

DK (17:42):
Come on.
Yeah.
Dash rar dash red.
My dudes.
Come on.
Wait, what was this robot called?
Lebo.
Lebo.
God damnit and,

Chris (17:55):
oh, the out runner.
Was that the ship?
It was something like that.
Yeah.

DK (17:58):
I think it's called that, isn't it?
Yeah.
It's like a shitty Millennium Falcon.

Yeah.
Yeah.

Chris (18:05):
But enough about Star Wars for now.
Well, I guess we're gonna talk aboutStar Wars, but the other thing I wanted,
I, I think I know the answer to this,but it's a question I usually ask.
Had either of you heard of Cyber Ninjabefore watching it for this cast?

The movie?
No.
I'm vaguely rememberCyber Ninja in the game?

DK (18:25):
So I don't, I don't think it released in the US ever, but, but funnily enough,
I had come across the game before.
Um, I'm a big time emulation dude.
Mm-hmm.
And I love arcade.
Mm-hmm.
And, uh, well, I, uh, doa lot of handheld game.
Mm-hmm.
And, uh, yeah.
So I, I happened to havethe game already Awesome.

(18:47):
And I had bumped into it before.
I had played it before, and so Ididn't, I, I, I can't lie, like I didn't
realize it when I was watching themovie, but then when I looked it up,
I started to put the pieces together.
Right.
And I was like, holy shit.
I can't believe That's crazy.
Yeah.
So maybe

Chris (19:02):
there's a little, a few gaps you can fill in later on
when we're going through the plot.

DK (19:07):
Yeah.
Um, but the game iscalled MiiR Mirai Ninja.

Chris (19:10):
Yes.

DK (19:11):
I don't know how to pronounce it exactly, but That's all right.
Mirai Ninja.
Mirai Ninja.
There's, there's a lot of overlapand I, I have some things to share.
In regards to that, but we'll,we'll get there when we get there.

Chris (19:21):
So have you s either of you seen, I'm sure you've seen many Star
Wars rip offs before having chew.
Yes, yes, of course.

Absolutely.
I went to a theater and saw food wars.
I shouldn't say drive-in.

Chris (19:39):
What was that like?

That was interesting.
Pizza the hut, the MillenniumFalcon looked like an iron pizza.
The hut.
What about space balls?
It was in that too.
They had out too.

DK (19:53):
Yeah.
Yeah, it was, I, I lovedspace Balls as a kid for sure.
Didn't working, wasn't Muppet.

Chris (20:00):
Yeah, I haven't watched it in 30 years, probably

DK (20:05):
last time I watched it, I was pretty sad.

Chris (20:07):
Not good.
It didn't move up

DK (20:08):
as I wanted it to.
But that, this is, this was during mycranky phase though, so I don't know.
I may, I may have been being tooharsh, but I remember, like I, it was
just a joy as a kid, just pure joy.
But I don't know, maybe I need to, maybeI just need to be nice again and just
say, Hey, let's just enjoy Rick Moranis.

Chris (20:25):
Uh, hey, I'm all for enjoying Rick Moranis.
Hell yeah.

If you can enjoy the last geni, you can
go back and enjoy space balls.

DK (20:35):
Look, there's, there's lines from there that I still quote all the time.
I know, right?
Barf, puke, whatever.
Where's my money?

We ain't found shit.

DK (20:45):
Absolutely.
I love that.

Chris (20:46):
Yeah.
So I was, I was looking at the releasecalendar for this show and I noticed
I had an episode planned for May 5th.
I got the idea like, Hey, let'sjust do it a day earlier, have an
episode about a Star Wars rip off.
And I was looking at lists to get someideas and there were surprisingly,
like very few that met the soft rulesthat I have for the sorts of movies

(21:07):
that I like to cover on this show.
Uh, there were a few animated onesI considered Space Adventure, Cobra.
The movie was one of them, which Iactually watched and it was okay, but
it just didn't have that juice Oh.
That I was looking for.
And so I thought about it andI was like, well, there was
that one movie Cyber Ninja.

(21:27):
That I watched like six years ago,that kinda has a tenuous connection
to Star Wars with the ATSs.
You know, maybe I canshoehorn that in somehow.
And the more I looked into it,the more I realized that this is
very explicitly ripping off StarWars more than I had realized.
And researching this, I kept findingthis quote about how on the back of

(21:49):
the VHS for this film, the director,Keita EMEA actually says that he
made this film as a Star Wars ripoff.
But I couldn't find any pictures onlinethat were clear enough to confirm that.
So I reached out to aDiscord buddy of mine.
He provided me with a picture of theJapanese VHS, and sure enough, the back of
the VHS has a message from the director,which is as follows, future Ninja.

(22:15):
It's a lame title.
In order to create my own version ofStar Wars, this lameness is unavoidable.
However, this lameness helpedme when I was making this film.
It was essential.
I. Shei decorated with somethinglike a New Year's pine decoration,
a coy like a construction workersonara with a calculator in his hand.

(22:36):
And the best part is that someonewho had never shot a movie
before was directing it on set.
And the thing is they truly believedthat all of that lameness is cool.
I think this work isfilled with such feelings.
For better or worse,please watch it warmly.

DK (22:52):
It says that on the VHS case.
Yeah,

Chris (22:56):
that's my God.
On the back where it's normally haslike a synopsis and like characters
and actors, it just says message fromthe director and that's what it says.
God, it's amazing.
Wonderful.

All movies should have that on the back of them.
That is wonderful.
Yeah.

Chris (23:15):
It's kinda shitty and lame, but that's what makes it so good.

DK (23:18):
Right.
I found a making of documentary, I don'tknow, have you, have you watched that?
I haven't.
I assume that

Chris (23:24):
comes from the laser disc.

DK (23:27):
It has to, the problem is that it's only in Japanese.
Damn.
I, I only found it today and Icould have found a way to translate
it, but I just did not have time.

Chris (23:35):
Yeah.
If I had did not have time, I about it,I would've translated and sent it to you.

DK (23:40):
Yeah.
That would've been nice.
It's, it's cool.
It's got some neat, like, behindthe scenes footage and you see them
filming it and setting things up andlike rehearsing the fights and stuff.
It's really neat.
I wish I could have, I wish I couldhave, uh, gotten it, gotten to
that, but it just didn't work out.
So that, that's some fun forthe, for the listener to, to

Chris (23:55):
track that down.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Track that down.
Listener.
Um, so like I said, this is the firstlive action video game adaptation.
I have to specify live action becausethere was an animated Pac-Man TV movie
released in 1982 called ChristmasComes to Pac Land, which I think
I've actually seen, I've seen severalof those animated Pacman things

DK (24:19):
and well, um, depending on the release you watch, I mean,
this was, this is a Namco film.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
Yep.
And so I watched 10 minutesof a dubbed version.
The movie starts with, the first thingyou see is Pac-Man, the, the Namco logo.

Chris (24:35):
Wow.
Hmm.
I have actually haven't ever seenthe, uh, dubbed version of this.

DK (24:41):
I couldn't find the complete Dubb, but I found the, it's the first 10 minutes.
The thing is,

Chris (24:45):
I think, is that it was dubbed for the VHS release, but I don't
think that that dub has like, carriedthrough to successive releases.
So it's kind of not as easyto find as the original

DK (24:57):
and, and all, and all I read, and I know this may not be the case,
but what I was reading was this wasspecifically for a Canadian release.

Chris (25:04):
Wow.

DK (25:04):
So that might make it even more difficult to find.
So that's not helpful.
Which

Chris (25:07):
I think they, the title in Canada was Warlord
Warlord or something like that.
Yep.
You get a

DK (25:12):
completely different title.
Yeah.

Chris (25:14):
So apart from the Pac-Man, there was also a Japanese only theatrical
release of a Super Mario animatedfilm called Super Mario Brothers, the
Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peachand another animated film called.
Running Boy Star Soldier's Secretbased on the Game Star Soldier.

(25:34):
Both of those were releasedon the same day in 1986.
What the hell's going on?
Yeah.
I guess they're all justrushing to be first, right?
I've never heard of Star Soldier.
It looked like just one ofthose Space Harrier games.
Spaceship shooting spaceships.
Sure.

DK (25:51):
Respectable.

Chris (25:52):
Yeah.
Um, the game for this wasonly released in Japan.
The, the, the first console ports,uh, didn't come out until 2021.
And those were also only in Japan, uh,for the switch in PlayStation four.
So the game may actually be more obscurethan the movie is in a lot of ways.
Wow.

(26:13):
Um, it wasn't a whole lot of ininformation I could find on this.
Uh, a lot of the Wikipedia articleseems as if it was translated very
poorly from Japanese to English.

DK (26:24):
The Wikipedia article is sparse.
Yeah.

Chris (26:26):
So even the information that is out there in English doesn't really help
because it doesn't really make any sense.
I wasn't able to find anythingspecifically about why this game in
particular was chosen for a movieadaptation, but basically as best
as I was able to piece it together.
They started production on this film,but they didn't have a director and I

(26:48):
guess Kea Amia was working as a characterdesigner and had a little bit of
experience directing, so they just decidedto let him direct the movie and, uh,

DK (26:59):
always a good choice.
Yeah,

Chris (27:00):
I mean, I think it was an amazing choice because Kea Amia Fucking
Rules, which I'm sure we'll be talkingabout throughout, but he is best
known for directing two films in thelong running Common Writer series.
Oh yeah.
Both of which I watched for thefirst time in preparation for this.
And he's also known for creatinghis own Toka Satsu franchise Garrow,

(27:23):
which started in 2005 and has hadrelated movies and series released
ever since, even as recently as 2024.
So that's all thebackground I have on that.

DK (27:34):
Oh, it's funny.
I didn't, I didn't even, Iwasn't even aware that he did
any of the common writer stuff.
Yeah.
Uh, but it's funny because I wasthinking about, I was just kind of
going over this discussion in my head.
Mm-hmm.
And I was like, well, it's gonna behard not to co compare it to like
Power Rangers and some of thoseearlier nineties, whatever things.
But like, I was like, no, no, no.
But it, we need to go earlier.
Like it should be common writer,so I should be, I should be
comparing it to common writer.

(27:55):
So how funny is that, that.
That he really did direct some of those.
So yeah, those similarities are like real.

Chris (28:02):
So there was like this, I'm, I'm a little bit in the common writer.
I've watched part ofthe first series of it.
I'm not like a super fan.
I heard the one's Amazing fan or anything,but there was like this weird period
in the, like the nineties where theydidn't have any TV series and they were
just doing like these one-off movies.
Yeah.
And so that's when he was in there,he directed two like complete

(28:23):
like movies that are completelyunrelated to any of the series.
Both of them are under an hour long andthey're both like origin stories for an
iteration of common writer that like neverwould, was never planned to continue.

DK (28:37):
These are the perfect kinds of film.

Chris (28:38):
Yes.
I would love to

DK (28:40):
see these.
That sounds wonderful.

Chris (28:42):
If you liked this movie, you'll like everything from him that I've
seen because it's all very similar.
But, uh, were, are either of youlike fans of this sort of like
superhero, toka, sasu genre, or.

Oh yeah.
I used to watch all those, like lateseventies, early eighties, you know,
that they translated over into English.
Mm-hmm.
On that were on TV every morning,you know, Sundays and Saturdays.
And our local station was awesome.
All those, all thosekind of Pre Power Ranger?

(29:18):
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Power Rangers.

DK (29:20):
Yep.
And same for me.
I could, I would watch whateverI'd get my hands on, you know.
Um, I was at a friend'shouse a lot growing up and,
uh, one, one particular one.
I mean, I kind of was babysatthere and I would go there after
school, but we were also like bestfriends, so it just worked out.
It was great.
Anytime we could find stuff like that.
We would be taping it and we would beshowing it to each other and watching

(29:41):
it over and over and yeah, definitely.
Like that's how we found Common Writer.
Like, I don't even rememberwhere was that even airing?
Was that on like TNT or somethingor like sci-fi that, where was that?
That in

Chris (29:51):
particular?
I had never seen until I was well intoadulthood, so I don't, oh, it was,
I don't remember it being on, it was

DK (29:56):
definitely on tv.

Yeah, it, it was, I just can't remember where
it was some, yeah, I can't rememberright off top if it was like one of
the, the TNT or something like that.
And then I know Channel 11, you know, ourlocal campaign, R Randos point of view.
Well, and I

DK (30:12):
remember there being some other ones that seemed kind
of like knockoffs of that.
I mean, right.
There were all kinds of those.

Chris (30:17):
Yeah.
I mean, me and DK are around the sameage within a few years of each other, so.
Definitely grew up on Power Rangersand all like big bad Beatle boards,
VR Troopers, dude, yous better believe

DK (30:29):
we are VR troopers.

Chris (30:31):
An actual American like not ripped off and Redubbed,
American Toka Satsu film.
The Diver was very formative for me.
You better fucking believe that.
I

DK (30:42):
have like three references to Guy for in my notes.
Oh God.

Mark Hamill and one of his vest.
What?
That mustache?
Yeah.
You better believe

DK (30:49):
it.

Chris (30:50):
I think like there was a, when I was very young, there was like just
a, a videotape at the local video storethat was one of those, like, we probably
edited together like three episodesof Ultraman and called it a movie that
I used to rent over and over again.
Yeah.
So yeah, it's all, it's all good stuff.
I love it.
Oh, and we did talk about this off,off mic, and I don't know if you

(31:14):
knew this dk, but Chris actuallywatched this without any subtitles.
Uh, yes.
Which I think is going tobe a very fun experience.

DK (31:22):
I, I was, I found this out about two hours ago.
Uh, he's like, I watchedit for the third time.
It's just kind of tough without subtitles.
Uh, so I wanna, I wanna point back to theDM Chris from, uh, the date of March 20th.
If you want the subtitles, youwill have to download it and use

(31:43):
a player like VLC or something.
I said that to you.
I also mentioned the server.
Oh, you couldn't get the server to work.
That's okay.
I couldn't get the server to work.
That's fine.
But I told you about the dead subtitle.
I, I know.
Okay.
I know.
I'm just saying this is on you.
But

I've been working to get the new computer up for the last two
days and I totally forgotten to look back.
Can't it?
Believe you.
And the first time I watchedand I watched it on my phone,
so how dare you all this to

Chris (32:09):
say improve if you feel like it.
Chris,

DK (32:12):
thank you so much.
Although the computer upgrade is agreat thing, your camera looks better.

I know.
It doesn't it though,

Chris (32:20):
clearly.
Finally.
Yeah.
It's, it's gonna be, it's gonna be funrevealing to Chris what the plot is based
on or against what he imagined it to be.
And I, I would imagine that they're,they probably line up pretty well because

I, I mean, it definitely was an experience of,
like I said, I know a few words inJapanese, so I was catching about every.
20th word coming outta their mouths.

DK (32:46):
That's not very helpful.
So, uh, yeah, I, and I I would justask how much plot is there really?

I mean, seven pages worth according to my notes.

Chris (32:57):
Oh my God.
Uh, but yeah, let's, let's get into it.
So, sure.
It starts with a, uh, text crawl,much like you might see in Star Wars
that says, once upon a time in adistant future, almost like a long
time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
I seem

DK (33:16):
familiar.
Yeah.

Chris (33:17):
Valiant Troops of the Noble UAE clan prepare to engage the dark
overlords army of mechanical warriorsin combat, anticipating the worst, the
SBE general stationed their belovedprincess well, out of harm's way.
Facing overwhelming odds against thepowerful mechanical ninjas, the young
warriors of the UAE prepare to distinguishthemselves with courage and gallantry.

(33:40):
The final hour of conflict hasarrived, and guys, we are then
treated to an, I'll say it.
Amazing battle sequence.
What was going through your headsas this epic struggle between
good and evil unfolded before you?

DK (33:54):
Well, I have to back up just for a second.
Yes.
Just for a second already.
I have an issue.
Uh, the s Wabe generalsstationed their beloved princess.
Well, out of harm's wayoutside in a lawn chair

Chris (34:08):
in

DK (34:08):
the

Chris (34:08):
middle of a battlefield.
Yeah.

DK (34:12):
The fight is amazing.
The whole thing is amazing.
It's like me playing withtoys in the yard as a kid.
It's the best way Ican describe it, right?
It, it, it is so imaginativeand the walkers and everything.
And, and by the way, this isthe first, this is the first,
um, show and tell thing I have.
Um, those walkers aredirectly from the game.
Wow.
Um, and so I, it's not gonna helpyour anyone listening, but um, I'm

(34:37):
just gonna quickly show you that.
Do you see that beautifullyrendered on the Namco system too?
Yeah.
Directly from the game.
Right.
And, and there is anotherthing that's pretty cool.
Um, let me grab the right screen.
I don't wanna spoil anything.
Um, but there is another thing too,when the thing starts and you see the,

(35:00):
the words floating in the sky mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
That is also like directly from the game.
Wow.
It's kind of cool.
If you look at that intro, the first like15 minutes of the movie versus this from
the game, like, they are treating you.
Right.
If you're a fan of the game, they'redoing you a, a real good, uh, deed here.

(35:21):
I mean, it's perfect.
They're, they're nailing it.
Oh, right.
Even the ninjas, I mean, pretty close.
Although the ninja wasn't here inthe, in the game or in the movie.
Right.
But still,

Chris (35:31):
right.

DK (35:31):
Those words being in the sky, like, it's really cool.
It sets the tone, it sets the atmosphere.
It's really neat.
It's unique.
I really like that.

Chris (35:38):
Yeah, I mean we definitely see the Star Wars influence right off the
bat, right, with mechanical ninjasthat are basically like Tuscan Raiders
that shoot energy kins from their palmsAlso, like the meccas are basically ATSs
with right feud, old Japanese buildings

DK (35:56):
on top of them.
It's, it's, yeah, I get, I get that.
You could say it's a knockoff,but it's, I think it's kind of
like, um, the best way to do it.

Chris (36:03):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, opening battle scene is, it's aperfect display of the tension between
the film's low budget and its loftyconcepts because it is very obviously a
low budget film, but at the same time.
It's executed very well and in like sucha distinct and imaginative aesthetic

(36:25):
that it somehow ends up working likethis futile Japan meets eighties sci-fi
look isn't something that I've everseen done in this particular way.
I think they really pull it off.
It's, it's hard to describe almost.

DK (36:39):
Yeah.
But it's like a pairingthat works so well.
It's, it's honestly,it's ama it amazed me.
I thought it was just,it's, it's incredible.
It just all works and it'sso uniform through the movie.
It's like they've, they, they really didlike, I don't know who is responsible for
those designs, but my God, it's perfect.

Well, and that's another thing I really wanted to
know how he came up with the designs.
I don't know about you guys, but likethe walkers really reminded me of like.
A cybernetic ba yaga house.
Yeah.
That's the first thing I thought of.
Yeah.
And you know, I mean that's absolutely,it's like, okay, where did you come up
with that kind of concept of that design?
Yeah.
With that, you know,Asian flare on top of it.

(37:16):
So Yeah.

Chris (37:17):
And there's like, they, the, the good guys have like fortresses like, that
are like Japanese fortress tank meccas.
Yeah.
It's, it's so cool.
And it's like, it's this reallyinteresting like cyclical inspiration
because Star Wars obviously inspiredby Samurai Films, the Hidden Fortress.
And then now we have a Japanese filminspired by Star Wars that takes

(37:41):
it in this other crazy direction.
It's very interesting.
Uh, but at the end of the battle,one of the Sue Abe warriors Jira Maru
surveys the destruction and findsthat his brother, he Kaku, has fallen
Jira, Maru, takes up his brother'ssword and screams towards the heavens.
We get our title screen, Mira Ninja,stealth Joy Cloud Device Side story.

(38:05):
Can you explain that title?
I can't, but I think it is a caseof someone translating this because
this, this is like a fan translation.
I think what they did was I. Translatethe kanji in isolation from each other
rather than as like an idea, like, sothis kanji typically means stealth,

(38:28):
so we're just gonna say stealth joy,cloud device side story rather than
like what they all should mean together.
That's, that's my suspicion.
Although I would imagine if youhave the fluency in Japanese to
translate an entire movie, youprobably wouldn't make that mistake.
So I don't, I don't know.

DK (38:46):
It makes you wonder is it really that?
Yeah.
And if so, what the hell does it mean?
Right.

I'll have to get Logan steal joy.
I'll have to get my sonto watch this and tell me.
'cause he's fluent in Japanese.
So what's, what's the Jewish part?
You should have

Chris (38:59):
FaceTimed him with him if you Well,

he's an em t and he's always busy, so.

DK (39:05):
Alright.

But I will after the fact,

DK (39:09):
but before we move away from it.
Yeah.
The, the, the beginning fight, like,I, I don't think I can overstate
how, how fun it is, um, the outfits.
So many guys running around justkicking the shit out of each other.
Flipping over the guythat flips onto the rock.
Yeah.
I don't know how he did thatwithout her, that man died.
That's nuts.
I mean, the, the, the actionis really, really good.

(39:29):
So it's like, we don't haveany money, but like, goddammit,
we're gonna give it our all here.

Chris (39:33):
Yeah.
Also, did the music in that battlescene remind you of music from

DK (39:39):
Terminator?

Chris (39:40):
Yes.

DK (39:41):
Yes.
But what's interesting

Chris (39:43):
about it is that it sounds more like the Terminator two version.
Yes.
But this is before Terminator two.
Isn't that weird?
Yeah.

DK (39:52):
But there's like a similarity, like there's the machines
and everything, you know?
Yeah.
It's very strange.
Um, I believe that piece ofmusic, and I could be wrong,
this was quite late at night.
Um, I was, I was playing the gameand I had the music turned up,
and I think that piece of music isin the game, so it's even older.
Wow.

(40:12):
If I'm, if I'm correct, and Ibelieve I, I've got a pretty good
ear for a little melody like that.
Yeah.
I I'm pretty sure that that, thatit's the same piece of music.
If not, it's very similar, uh, regardless.
Yeah.
Like how weird that like tonallythat music is so similar and then
like we have all these similar ideasof the, the machines taking over
and the giant things rolling over.
Yeah.
It's, it's, it's a weirdcoincidence yet, yet again.

Chris (40:34):
Yeah.
Well, I mean, if he's not aboveripping off Star Wars, he's probably
not above ripping off Terminator.

DK (40:39):
Sure.

Chris (40:40):
But, uh, we are next introduced to the titular cyber ninja as he
battles it out with a group ofmechanical ninjas in the woods.
The cyber ninja is easily able todispatch the mechanical ninjas and
the fight ends with Cyber Ninjadoing a wall kick off of a tree.
And Decaffeinate decapitatingone of the mechanical ninjas.
He decaffeinated that in.

(41:01):
And I'll say, as I said, I've seenseveral of Kea, Emmy's, other films.
He does have a preoccupation withdecapitations and head explosions.
Think it happens in all of the ones thatI've seen, and there's at least one more
later on in this film, my kind of guy.

Yeah.
And there's absolutelynothing wrong with that.

DK (41:19):
Yeah,

the sword

DK (41:20):
play is so good.
The swords seem real, by the way.
Uh, it seems very unsafe.
Um, so I saw some behind the scenesfootage and I couldn't understand
obviously what the director wassaying, but I. They were running
through the routines, the fightroutines over and over, and the main
guy that the cyber ninja was, wasdoing them without his helmet on.

(41:43):
I can't imagine having to do all thatat such a ferocity and at such a pace
and swinging that metal thing aroundand not hurting someone or yourself.
Yeah.
With that helmet on, it'slegitimately it seems dangerous,
like it's, it's really cool.

Chris (41:59):
It was a real decapitation that Tuscan Raider actually died.

Well, they were only mechanical, so no big deal.

Chris (42:07):
More machine now than mine.
It could have had.
The soul of a human as welearn later, it's possible.
Yep, yep.
We should also point out that, uh,we're about 11 and a half minutes
into the film and there's basicallybeen no dialogue apart from a few
characters screaming out othercharacters names peppered in Exactly.
Here and there I'm right.

(42:27):
And that may not sound that impressive,but this movie's only 68 minutes
long when you take the credits out.
So yeah, it's a pretty,don't point that out.
Yeah.
It's a pretty substantialportion of the film that is
just like wall to wall action.
Just as the cyber enginekneels down to rest.
A human soldier named Oggi emerges fromthe trees with five SBE warriors in tow.

(42:49):
Oggi threatens to destroy the cyber ninjawhom he identifies as the one called she
annu by the crane crest on his helmet.
She annu seems to recognize oneof the UAE warriors, JIRA Maru,
and decides to leap into the treesrather than battle the humans.

DK (43:05):
Cyber Ninja reminds me very much of Yoshi Mitsu from Tecan.
Yeah.
Which is a good call.
Wonderful film.
I love that.
And just like seeing him running aroundin the woods and stuff, doing Yoshi mitsu
things is like, it's very cool to see thatthe, the whole look of the cyber Ninja.
10 out of 10.
Yeah.
You, you couldn't be better.
Yeah.
You couldn't.
But, uh, I, I wanna goback just really quickly.
Mm-hmm.

(43:26):
At the end of the first scene, I, Iforgot to mention this from my, from
my notes, so I tried to translate.
Wait, we didn't even talk about that.
The swords have, they're notbullets, they're like energy charges.
They, right.
Well, I think they're morelike energy charges, right.
I think if, I've watched the moviea few times now and, and so my
understanding of it has evolved.
I could be wrong.
I don't think there's anactual projectile coming out.

(43:46):
No.
Right.
It's, it's ITing energy.
They're the sword.
Yeah.
But they're like bullets.
Yeah.
They're like little.
Yeah, exactly.
So we're, it's a oneone spent.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which

Chris (43:54):
is really cool.
It's the coolest fuckingidea in the world.
It makes no sense.
But they just imagine like loadinga nine millimeter bullet into
the hilt of your samurai sword.
It's,

DK (44:06):
I will say

Chris (44:07):
it's fucking awesome.
Yes.

DK (44:09):
Um, but so he holds up at the very last, after he climbs out, uh, climbs
up and you see him holding the thing up.
Mm-hmm.
Um, I, I was trying to translate thatwith my phone and it wouldn't translate.
Uh, but then I watched that English dub.
Mm-hmm.
And there's a voiceover, and when heholds that little, that little thing up,
it says out loud, the heart of the sword.

(44:30):
Hmm.
Interesting.
I found that to be quite interesting.
So I, I don't, the heart of the swordis that it's even more dangerous.
I don't know.
Part of the sword is the gun part.
I don't, I don't know.
But yeah.
Really cool.
So that, and that comes into playa lot later, so I wanted to make
sure we didn't miss the, the, theessentially bullets for the gun.
Yeah.
Oh, and a oggi.
Is that, is that the guy's name?

(44:50):
Oggi?
Yes.
Yes.
I'm, I'm, you know, again, we, wegrew up in a similar time and I'm
sure we both watched the same stuff.
He reminds me of Veta fromDragon Ball Z quite a bit.
His, I think it's his look, but also hisattitude and also his like kind of blue
and white and the boots and everything.
Yeah.
And that his whole

look, that chest plate armor.
Yeah.
I, I was getting venina vibes.
Yeah.
Trying to ball vibes as well.
Everyone has

Chris (45:15):
scouters on their heads,

right?
The scouters are

DK (45:18):
Yeah, for sure.
A thing.
I was gonna bring that up later.
They measure your kai, I guess.
Mm-hmm.
I will get there.
Or were you gonna say Chris?

Oh, um, you know, you guys weren't talking
about the ninja's design.
It also reminds me that, I don't know,I can't remember if the game was after
or before, but, uh, ninja gyn Oh yeah.
Mm-hmm.
It's classic.
Totally.
It totally looks like that.
Especially like the leaneriterations of the game.
Complete.

(45:44):
Yeah.
A classic game.
That's too fucking hard.

Chris (45:48):
Ninja guy in black on the hardest difficulty.
Oh my

God.
Shut up.
Good.
I loved that game.
A good,

Chris (45:54):
yeah.
I'm a Chin Nobi fan.
I'm not sorry about it.

Isn't nothing wrong with that

Chris (45:59):
in terms of Ninja Games probably played to, yeah, 10 Chew was the one I
was gonna say I probably played the most.
Although it's like, you know, metal gearsolid's not a ninja game, but there's a
shit load of stealth involved and, and

DK (46:11):
you better believe there's a cyborg ninja.
Oh yeah.
'Chris: cause in VR missions, the metal gear, solid VR missions game that
came out, you get to be gray fox.
So it is a ninja game.
Don't get me started.
I will do middle gear all night.
We have to just move, we, I
can't even, I shouldn't even talk about it.

Chris (46:28):
So we are then taken to Kiki Castle, the evil headquarters that
is crawling with mechanical ninjas.
And I do mean crawling because they'recrawling on the walls like spiders.
We are introduced toour two main bad guys.
One is great r May the bishop of darkness.

DK (46:45):
What a cool name.
Yes.
A

Chris (46:47):
kabuki past sorcerer with insect legs protruding from his back.
He's almost like some sort of spiderclown that you might see doing
interpretive dances on a college campus.
Oh my god.

DK (46:59):
What?
Wow.
Poison Is that 360?
That's a day.
A combination.
Shout.
Wow.
Um, I, I, in my notes kind of put, justkind of refer to him as Mr. Sinister.
Yeah, he, I mean,

Chris (47:10):
he's just like kind of, you know.
There, there's an archetypeof like Japanese sorcerer.
So I think of like, when I see him,I'm like, Quai for Mortal Kombat.
Well, sure,

DK (47:19):
yeah, yeah, of course.

Chris (47:20):
But there's, I mean, there's a million characters just like him.
Yep.

DK (47:24):
And he's good too.
His look is perfect.
And the voice.
Yeah.
Get outta here.
It's he's, he does a lot ofheavy lifting for the, like the
villain, the villainy of this film.

Chris (47:33):
Right?
Well, he does most ofthe exposition, so he

DK (47:37):
does almost all of it.
Yeah.

Chris (47:39):
And he has an underling named Soki.
And how would you guys describe him?

DK (47:45):
There is a, there's a Power Ranger thing.
Uh, I don't even know what it's called.
I mean, it looks like SilverSamurai, uh, with Bob Marley Drylock.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Good call.
Good call, but wine.

Yeah.
Completely star quiet.
But, but,

DK (47:59):
but also looks completely unique too.
I mean, right.
It's, it's such a good design.
I, I cannot say enough aboutthe costuming for this movie.
It is legitimately incredible.

Chris (48:10):
So Chochi is played by Mizuho Yoshida, who's actually like
a pretty well-known suit actor.
He's in two of, uh, Emmy as otherfilms Rom and Rom too, as the titular.
Hell yeah.
He also played Zeus and Gamara The Brave.
He plays DRA in Rebirth of Moratwo and he plays Mother Legion

(48:32):
in Gamara two Attack of Legion.
So, holy shit, this dude knowshow to do it pretty, yeah.
Some pretty big stuff.

DK (48:39):
That's, he's a great villain.
Yeah.
And that's another one that is in thegame that is directly from the game.
And, and their interpretationof it is spot on.
Is really spot on.
I, I won't show it to you yetbecause he appears in a screen
that I have for later, but Wow.
I mean, really, really, really good.
Really good.

Chris (48:57):
So after much exposition that basically amounts to sheer nui is
regaining his human memory after beingconverted into a cyber ninja by the dark
mechanical army and Sochi is being sent todestroy him, we return to the woods where
the princess of the SBE clan is hiding outin a mechanical pollen ke, which shout out

(49:19):
to Cyber Ninja for teaching me that word.
I had never heard it before, but itis the name for like the throne that
someone has carried on with the sticks.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
That's a Colin Ke didn't know that.

DK (49:31):
Was that, was that a practical, was that really there?
It looked like it might've been painting.
I think that

Chris (49:35):
was Matt.
That part.
Okay.
I thought

DK (49:36):
so too, but it, but it was really convincing.
It's the screen.
It looks, yeah, it looks so good.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I thought it might've been a painting.
Yeah.

Chris (49:44):
Um, back at Kiki Castle, there's a pulsating tree and the chamber of
Darkness and Rime explains Toki thatthere's a solar eclipse tomorrow,
and that when the moon covers thesun, that's the exact moment when
the magnetic rays will arouse you.

DK (49:59):
I have that note.
They can't wait to get aroused tomorrow

at noon.
I was kind wondering what thatwas, because it's overacting
and the, just the whole kind ofexcitement on that point mm-hmm.
Really had me questioning what thehell was going on at that point.

Chris (50:18):
Well, now, you know, they're in the chamber of darkness getting aroused.

I didn't know if it was a little more spike

DK (50:23):
scene than I expected, or me every night.
I like that the, youknow, it, it makes sense.
It's like, oh, well the, all this magneticenergy could help him unlock his memory.
I'm gonna

Chris (50:34):
push back on you a little bit.
When you say it makes sense.
Okay, sure.

It makes sense in a way.

DK (50:41):
Yeah, that was fair.

D K's had a lot of experience in his darn
chamber with electronic toys.
Yeah.
Sadly, true.
Very true.

Chris (50:52):
RA and Choi's master Zai will be resurrected and the pul
the tree is pulsating with theenergy that will nourish Zai.
They decide that their master canonly be fed with the purest blood.
Also, the mag magnetic stormtomorrow might restore sheer annu
memory, so they have to be careful.

(51:12):
Cool.

DK (51:13):
We haven't really talked about the ninjas too much, the, the, the evil ones.
I mean, yeah.
They look like Tuscan Raiders.
Yes.
But we haven't really mentionedtheir, their movement.
I. Uh, their body language is reallygood and like, really well thought out.
And

Chris (51:26):
also not mechanical or ninja at all.
No, no.
It's all, it's when, when I was watchingit these few times, the closest like, uh,
analog I could think of was back to PowerRangers again, very much like putties.

DK (51:40):
A hundred percent.
Very much like Putties.
Yeah.
They have a lot of strange arm movements.
And they, it's like they go outta theirway to be in uncomfortable positions.
Like when they're having the Zoom callwith their boss, they have to stand
there with their arms out like this andthey're, those extra must have been dying.

Chris (51:55):
Oh, it, it's in the scene where Cyber Ninja kills a bunch
of them at the beginning whenit shows the aftermath of that.
There's one guy that's like standingon his head Handstand dead guy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's awesome.

DK (52:08):
It's really, there's a couple.
There's also one where there's two,there's um, there's a, there's a, the, the
good guy and then there's the evil ninjaguy and they've both stabbed each other.
Right.
And they're just leaning on eachother, but they're dead is so cool.

Chris (52:20):
Every frame a painting.

DK (52:22):
Yeah.
Very true.

Chris (52:26):
Just then the face of Raaa appears on the wall, much like Zoan
from Power Rangers, or even theemperor from Star Wars who to thunk.
Mm-hmm.
Rime wants to turn Nui to thedark side, almost like a Darth
Vader Fluke Skywalker situation.
Holy shit, man.
But then Aui tells Rime that ifShei regains his human memory, he

(52:49):
must be destroyed almost like a, hewill join us or die type scenario.
I wonder where we've heard that

before.

Chris (52:58):
You're blowing my mind.
And so this, this was thepoint where I was like, why?
Why didn't I see all of thisthe first time I watched it?
Well, like, I'm sure Chris, even withoutdialogue, you probably were like,
wow, this is a lot like Star Wars.

Oh yeah.
I saw several similarities.

Chris (53:15):
Uh, we return to the SBE Clans base camp.
The leader of the SBE clan.
Kaju is setting up with settlingup rather with a cogi for all the
mechanical ninja killing he's done.
The SBE clan has built a newweapon, a giant pagoda rail gun.
They plan to fire on Kiki Castle, butjust as Kaju asks Oggi to protect the

(53:36):
princess tomorrow while the Klan attacksthe castle, a suave warrior informs kaju
that the princess has been kidnapped aflying sled carrying the princess passes
by and kills a shitload of suave warriors.

DK (53:50):
And just, just to briefly, I mean, here's something that, this is not
from Star Wars, it's super weapons.
Star Wars doesn't have those.

No,

DK (53:56):
no.
So we can just move on

the big ships that have, you know,
large laser cannons on them.
No, but hey, I do wanna say, um, that's ahell of a pair of binoculars that he had.
Yeah.
To be able see a personin a ship miles away.
Clear as day.
I, I, that old man was

DK (54:16):
great.
I loved his just pasted on hair.
Uh, everything about his look was fun.

Chris (54:23):
Yeah.
I mean, I guess he's kind ofthe bale organ of the movie.

DK (54:29):
Everyone was thinking You have Smith with his pasted

Chris (54:32):
on goatee.
Oh, right.
Holy shit.
It's all coming for full circle now.

DK (54:36):
Who's the jar jar of this movie?
Uh hmm.
I guess one of those doofus, uh,

Chris (54:43):
uh, soldiers.
Soldiers, yeah.
Yeah.
One of the ones thathasn't mastered his kai.
Yeah.
There you go.
A Cogi offers to rescue the princess,but he'll need a lot of gold.
And five men who have masteredtheir kai A cogi Plans to save the
princess just in time for the Sobeclan to destroy the ki Kai Castle.

(55:04):
It's almost like Han and Luke rescuingLeia before attacking the Death Star.

DK (55:09):
It's also like Han demanding a payment.
Yeah.
For rescuing those presses.

Chris (55:13):
Yeah.
So we should point out, oggi is like, he'sa mercenary, much like a Han Solo sort of.
I mean, he is smuggler,mercenary, similar lines of work.
He's not actually part ofthe Klan, so that's why he is
extorting, uh, bail or to proceed.

DK (55:31):
But he does, he does seem honorable though.
He seems very honorable, right.
Um, willing to do what it takes.
Willing to put himself in danger.
Yeah.
He's a cool character.
He's actually a cool character.
I think he

Chris (55:41):
just knows his worth and he is gonna get it.
Hell yeah.
So the princess is being held captivein the pulsating tree to feed Roae.
This is also a repeating Kea Meia trope.
Uh, those two common writer filmsI watched both have this in them.
Really, I can't remember if it's inhis other films, but three out of three

(56:03):
that I've watched recently have someonein a tree or a tree-like apparatus.
Tree Out A tree?

DK (56:09):
Yes.
Okay.

Chris (56:12):
At the SUA Bay Base Camp, oggi chooses men to accompany him on his raid.
On Kiki Castle, the men are evaluatedone by one by screaming as loud as
they can, and their power levels aredisplayed on some sort of electronic
device that they all wear on their heads.
Now, this is something that I knew wasadapted from the game because I did

(56:32):
watch like a 20 minute speed run of it.
I watched, watched the sameone as well in the game.
Rather than having a healthbar, your character's health
is represented by kanji.
So the characters you see on theSoldier Scout things in this movie
are the characters in the gamethat mean you have full health.
So, and

DK (56:49):
I like that if he chooses you, he just shoves you as hard as he can.

Chris (56:54):
Yeah.
But the only problem is that afterthat very brutal raid by the flying
sled, there aren't enough SBE menleft to have mastered their Kai.
So a kgi is going to haveto proceed shorthanded.
But Jira Maru offers his servicesto avenge his brother's death at
the hands of the mechanical ninjas.
Kgi says, no, punches him in theface, which causes his power level

(57:17):
to go over 9,000 and Jira Marusets off with a Cogi and the other
SBE warriors towards Kiki Castle.

DK (57:27):
And that reminds me a thing I missed.
I should have said this before,but when they, when they cut to
one of those moments when the, theprincess is being held in the tree.
Mm-hmm.
You know, kinda like Leiabeing held in the Death Star.
Uh, she says a line, something along thelines of, I can't die in these clothes.
Yes.
I'm a warrior.

Chris (57:44):
I must change into a miniskirt as we find out at the
end of the movie months later.
Yeah.
Oggi and crew arrive at a hidden entranceto the castle, and here we get some
great futile, futuristic technology.
There's a scroll that pulls out intoelectronic, an electronic map overlay,
really cool modular revolver bazookathings, and here is where they actually

(58:10):
talk about what a spirit sword is.
So I just enjoyed all of this stuff.
It's great prop work.

DK (58:18):
I loved it.
I, I would've gone crazy for,for like those guns as a kid.
Those, the guns andstuff, and the sword too.
I mean, even the scroll map,that's a, that's like a hologram.
It's all so cool.
You're right.
So, you know, we can talk about thebudget being low, but, but their
imagination was so high they did this.
Yeah.
They honestly, it's, it's, again,if you're gonna rip off Star

(58:41):
Wars, you did a great job, guys.

Well, you know, and that's the one thing, especially
with Star Wars, I call it tech pornfor guys, the guns look so cool and
they're like, wouldn't the ships,the, you know, the swords, all those
kind of things we love to see ina movie that'll make it successful
no matter how, you know, kind of.
It can always be betterwith a little tech porn.

Chris (59:06):
Yeah.
But also, I mean, it's,it's sort of similar.
I mean, star Wars has all ofthese iconic designs that are
just things slapped together.
I mean mm-hmm.
IG 80 eight's like an espressomachine or, or something.
You better believe it.
He is.
And there is that famous guy on,in Cloud City running around ice
cream with an ice cream maker

Chris (NerdsGeeks): that's been used so many (59:29):
undefined

DK (59:30):
times afterwards.
Now, hey, they have a name for that now.
It's a cam Tono.
Yep.
Is it bad that I know that?
Or is it good that I know that

Chris (59:40):
it's all just so good?

DK (59:41):
Yeah.

Chris (59:42):
The Uaee enter, uh, the lower catacombs of the castle, but they're
spotted by some sort of motiondetector and another battle with
mechanical ninjas ensues, and a UBIslooking guy shows up Just as things
start to look grim for the Uaee clan.
Shei shows up to save the day.

DK (01:00:03):
Yeah.
In my notes, I referto this as a mini boss.
Yeah.
I, he has to be a mini boss in the game.
I imagine.
There, there is there.
And he like teleports across the screen.
Yeah, definitely.

Chris (NerdsGeeks) (01:00:13):
I'm so glad I'm not the only one that was
calling this guy in the new miss.
Oh yeah.
He's just, I mean just Anubis Stargate.

Chris (01:00:22):
Yeah.

DK (01:00:22):
All of these

Chris (01:00:23):
things.

DK (01:00:25):
Yeah.
This is the first time weget, we really get to see them
using the swords like for real.
Right?
The spirit swords and Yeah.
Once they start doing it and yourealize what it is, it's just
like, holy shit, I love this.

Chris (01:00:36):
Yeah, it's amazing.
But by the end of the battle, allof the good guys, except for a
kgi, JIRA, Maru and Sherania havefallen to the mechanical ninjas.
And it's at this point that someonefinally puts two and two together
because a kgi notices that JIRA'sspirit sword has the same crane
that's on Sheran no's helmet.

(01:00:56):
She annu must in fact beJIRA's dead brother Ku.
Wow.
A revelation,

DK (01:01:05):
a surprise to be sure.
Yeah.
Right.

Chris (01:01:07):
But a welcome one.

DK (01:01:12):
So good.

Chris (01:01:13):
And we find out that sheer nui plans on getting his soul back and
becoming human again before the castleis t, but a cocky doubts that he would
be accepted back into the SBE clan, evenif he managed to become human again.
And this part, I didn't reallyunderstand that much because Jira Maru
yells at him and calls him a traitor.

(01:01:35):
I'm not really surewhy I did not get that.

DK (01:01:38):
The, in the first level of the game, it's called, is it called Deserter?
So I wonder if he likedeserted the clan or something.
Like, I wonder if that's something wejust didn't really get some previous
thing that happened where I, I, I don'treally know how to make the math work,
but I'm just putting that together.
Maybe they kind of think ofthem, of them as a deserter.

(01:02:00):
Sure.
Or, or, or maybe none

Chris (01:02:01):
of that.

Let's go with that.

Chris (01:02:04):
It's kind of a harsh way to refer to someone that died
alongside you in battle, right?

DK (01:02:10):
Yeah.

Chris (01:02:10):
You deserted this mortal plane,
Sochi.
Two henchmen and a gaggle ofmechanical ninjas block the hero's
path to the flying sled bay.
And you guessed it.
There's another battleof mechanical ninjas.
Sochi nearly defeats sheer annuity, butJira Maro saves them at the last second
distracting Sochi long enough for sheerannuity to land a killing blow on Sochi.

(01:02:34):
Or is it a killing blow?

DK (01:02:35):
It's gotta be this.
This has the ceiling traps.
Yes.
Right.
We're in this like, sort of cave, but Idon't know if it's really a cave, but,
um, it's like a cave kind of homes.
Yeah.
Something.
But those ceiling traps are weirdlya thing that are in the game.
Like it's, it's weird thatthey choose to adapt that part.
I, whatever.
Yeah.
Like there are whole sections of thegame that are missing from the film.

(01:02:57):
Like there's a part when there'sa city and there's a part where
like, like a, you know, looks like aheavily populated, you know, modern
city, but you don't see any of that.
There's a, there's a part of the gamewhen you're in like a mechanical,
some sort of factory or like, there'slike giant cogs and stuff rotating
around and stuff, but none of thatmakes it into the movie either.
But for some reason, theceiling traps in a cave.

(01:03:18):
We gotta have them.
We gotta have them.
And it is a fun little thing, youknow, where like the guy accidentally
steps under it and it zaps him.
Like, those are cool.

Chris (01:03:26):
Yeah, they're very cool.
They like spray kanji at you.
I'm not sure what it says, but Yeah.
Right.
It looks cool.
But I guess that is like, that'skind of a thing with live action
video game adaptations, right?
It's like, why this of ev Imean, the Super Mario Brothers
movie is the classic example.
It's, it bears no resemblance tothe games, but hey, there's this

(01:03:50):
weird folk singer called Toad.
Oh, you, yeah.
Yeah.
Gotta have that.
He's got a Bertha, a swirly haircut.
Like

DK (01:03:57):
a mushroom.
You better believe it.
Uh, yeah.
That reminded me of anotherthing, but I, it's gone now, so
I guess it wasn't that important.

Chris (01:04:06):
Okay.
Well if it, if it comesback to you, chime right in.
Sure.
Was it about Street Fighter, the movie?
I

DK (01:04:14):
mean, it should have been.
It should have been.
Ah.
Nope.
I don't know.
It's gone.
No worries.

Chris (01:04:20):
Yeah, I guess we also, shortly before this we see that
Chochi, he impales some guy, one ofthe SBE clan with his, his dreads.
Right.
So that's cool.
Throwing a little violence in there.

DK (01:04:31):
Well, and that is an attack he does in the game, so it makes complete

Chris (01:04:33):
sense.
The three heroes steal a flying sled.
They crash it right into Kiki Castle.
They race towards the chamber ofdarkness to rescue the princess
where they're greeted by Ry May.
And there's another fight witha bunch of mechanical ninjas and
a bunch of energy beam, visualeffects and all sorts of crazy shit.

DK (01:04:53):
That was the thing I was gonna say.
Yeah, those, those energyeffects, they're all hand drawn.
Mm-hmm.
They look so good.
It's.
I, I'm, I'm real.
I can't believe how stoked I amon this movie, but it was, there's
so much good stuff in there.
It shouldn't be abandonedand forgotten forever.
Like, I hope peoplewill actually see this.
'cause it's like, it'spretty goddamn cool.

Chris (01:05:15):
Yeah, so that's one thing I gotta say about Keto Mia's movies is that he
has these ideas and he will do whateverit takes to realize them on screen.
So in one of those common writer moviesthat I just watched, for instance,
there's Suit Mason, there's miniatures,there's early CGI, there's stop motion.

(01:05:37):
It's like he has the ideaand budget be damned.
He's gonna figure out a way torealize it on screen, which is
what makes his movies so strong.
And I think it's apparentin this one as well.
Totally agree.

Yeah, I was gonna say, the one thing with that energy swirling
around it really reminded me of how theydid the final quickening in Highlander,

DK (01:06:01):
you would be talking about Highlander Water,

shut your damn mouth, keep Highlander on, and then your mouth.
I just

DK (01:06:07):
watched, uh uh, the, what's that movie called?
The Witch Guy.
The witch one?
Uh, w Warlock Warlock.
I watched Warlock Warlock.
I just watched Warlock one and two.
Okay.
And Warlock two has some, not exactly,but like, some, some similar effects.
Right.
But they're, they're better in this.
Yeah, it really was.
Although I got it.

(01:06:27):
I have to recommend Warlock two.
Warlock two don't come in a crazy movie.
The Rules, I

Chris (01:06:33):
haven't made it that far.
I watched the first one 10 years ago.
Do you on to two or three?

DK (01:06:39):
Do you wanna watch a movie?
That is so goddamn fun.
Where the villain just gets to go onthis crazy tour of he, he's basically
becomes like a Freddie Kruegerand just, or like a pinhead even.
And he's like serving you like aweirdly ironic murderer and having
a great time while he does it.
It feels like it could be a hell, likea hell, uh, sounds movie almost Wish

Chris (01:07:00):
master.

DK (01:07:02):
I'm basically it, it's, I also just watched Wish Master
like the same week, I think.
Yeah.
Um, wish Master is a little bit more dumb.
Uh, fair.
This, this was more imaginative andfun and like, you, you really enjoy it.
Wish Master's like, okay.
Yeah.
I get it.
He is gonna turn that personinto, he froze that lady.

(01:07:22):
Okay.
Or he puts Tony Todd in the, okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But no.
Yeah, this, I, I, I'mjust gonna, just, just

recommend, uh, check it out more, like is a lot more Winnie
than what Wish Master ever thoughtabout being when it comes to, and I,
I'm just gonna say this, him taking

DK (01:07:35):
people out.
Yeah.
Warlock two is my preference.
I would rather watch itagain than Warlock one.
Even though Warlock one's a bettermovie, warlock two is so much more fun.
Watch it with a group if you can.

Chris (01:07:46):
Oh, I don't have any friends, so that won't be happening.
Okay.
Sorry.
I'll watch it.
Sadly, in my Chamber of Darkness.
Uh.
There's crazy shit on the screen.
And, uh, Shei cuts open thepulsing tree to find the

(01:08:08):
desiccated husk of his human body.
He now knows that he will neverbecome human again, and he
takes out his frustration ona couple of mechanical ninjas.
But in the chaos, Ry may grabsJira Maru and shoots an energy
blast through his chest.
Sheer Annunu calls out to JiraMaru, and in his dying moment,
JIRA Maru finally realizes thatsheer Annu is his dead brother.

(01:08:31):
Unbelievable.

DK (01:08:33):
Uh, there's also another little Star Wars reference here.
It's, it's a bit of a stretch, butthere is, I think, um, the Fujita
guy says, I, I should have knownyou're the source of this stench.
Something along those lines.
Oh, okay.
You know, Leia says, that'sa tarkin on the death star.
Right?
Wow.
I didn't recognize your foulstench when I was brought on board.

(01:08:53):
What a weird thing toreference to associate.
Yeah.
I, I can't say tell you for surethat that's what that is, but.
Hey, it's a Star Wars line thateverybody remembers and I'm sure
everyone remembers that line.
Everyone

Chris (01:09:07):
sheer annu attacks.
Ray May, who says us twocombined would be quite the team.
We would be invincible.
It's almost like Darth Vader tellingLuke with our combined strength, we
can end this destructive conflictand bring order to the galaxy.
It's a lot like that,
but Shei defeats rime with ablow from his spirit sword.

(01:09:29):
And Rime dissolves into apile of hand drawn tree vines

DK (01:09:34):
it looks like.
Yeah, like vines and wires and like,just sort of like dead plant stuff.
It's really cool.
And the whole, uh, the transformationfrom just regular corpse to that, it
happens pretty quickly, but it's likeyou could tell they took a lot of
care and then begin that look cool.
And it really does.
It's a pretty memorable, uh, visual.

Chris (01:09:51):
Yeah.
And when I was watching this the lasttime earlier today, I was like kind of
like, I don't really get the tree thing.
It's like they're evil,they're mechanical, but they're
also trap people in trees.
And they become trees when they die.
Die.
I have a theory.

DK (01:10:07):
If you want a theory.
Yeah.
Because they're mechanical and theywant to keep the human essence,
it's a, it's another living thing.
They need another living thingto trap the living thing.

See, I was Does that make sense in the opposite
way that it was like the mechanicalperverting the living life force.
Well, but it's, but it's in thetree and that's how they were used.
Yeah.
And I mean, the soul's in the tree, right.
So if the soul have towhat they're using, yeah.
They had to keep the

DK (01:10:32):
soul in the tree because they're both alive.

Look, it's just a theory man, because everything
El else is mechanical in den.
I, yeah.
I mean, we're kind of getting tothe same place in a different route.

DK (01:10:44):
Yeah.
Well, I said it

Chris (01:10:45):
first,

DK (01:10:45):
whatever

Chris (01:10:46):
son of

DK (01:10:46):
a

Chris (01:10:46):
bitch.
Yeah, I mean, that's a, thoseare as good of explanations.
I actually like, I didn'treally think about it.
I was just like, that doesn't make sense.
And then I moved on until nowwhen I brought it back up again,
a cogi feels freeze.
The princess from the pulsating tree, justas everything seems to be neatly wrapped

(01:11:07):
up, the solar eclipse hits and showers.
Kiki Castle with magnetic energy.

DK (01:11:12):
Arousal,

Chris (01:11:13):
yeah, magnetic arousal.
Arousal.
The dark overlord.
Kui reanimate himself into thebody of Sochi, which has somehow
transported itself into the castlebecause he actually died miles away.
'cause they had to fly toget to the castle plot.
That's funny.
Plot hole.

DK (01:11:30):
Yeah.
Uh, he hits him with likeGhostbusters, like, uh, plasma, like
from the, from the trap, the gun.
There's some crossing of streams in this.
Yeah, it definitely looks like that.

Chris (01:11:40):
Multicolored lightning everywhere.
Red, blue, green.
Three colors.
That's three right there.
She an UI and Oggi seemed to havefinally met their match, but she,
an UI gets the dark overlord in asword bind long enough for a cogi to
stab him in the back and pump a fewrounds from his spirit sword into Aui.

DK (01:12:03):
Is that the

Chris (01:12:03):
coolest moment in the movie?
Probably.
I think so.
He gets it in there andit's also very funny.
Oh, he's like, this is, oh God, it's cool.
It's so cool.
It really is sheer annu.
He finds the specially markedspirit sword bullet on the ground
from the very beginning of themovie that DK was telling us about.
He loads it into his sword andDecapitates Zagi, the heart of the sword.

(01:12:27):
Kiki Castle Sprouts some mechanical spiderlegs and what is not really apparent in
the movie, but is more apparent in thegame is that it's trying to run away.
There is a cut scene at the end ofthe game of this castle, sprouting
mechanical legs and running away.
But in the movie, theyjust kind of flail around.

DK (01:12:46):
And that brings me to my final show and tell which, Chris, you would've
already seen this, but I'll just show it.
Uh, just 'cause it's cool.
Um, and you know, we're an audioformat, so this is not helpful.
Right.
But maybe your reactions might be fun.
There's the throne room.
Oh yeah.
There's the dark, the dark chamber there.
Chamber of darkness.
I mean, they, they prettymuch nail that in the movie,

in the princess in the tree.

DK (01:13:07):
You the princess in the tree.
And they're showy there.
Yep.
Look how faithful showy is in the, Imean, it's, it's really good, right?
Even, even the little, um, this here,this, um, sort of mechanical background,
whatever stage, like stage platform thing.
Yeah.
That's in the movie.
Yeah.
It, it is.
It's pretty cool.

(01:13:27):
And then I also have this to show you,just because we're right there, right?
That's in the movie.
I. That is straight up.
That's what happens.

Chris (01:13:37):
I'm still seeing the same screen.
Yeah,

DK (01:13:39):
you haven't switched.
Oh my God, I'm so sorry.
I was like, we just

talked about that Yes.
Is important that in the movie, this is

DK (01:13:46):
important stuff and so what?
Oh, that's why it's not showingthe screen and showing the, okay.
Yeah.
Um, there you go.
That's what you get at the end.
Uh, which is fully in the movie.
I know we're not quite there,but we're basically there.
Right.
I just figured I'd show youthis now and then, uh, one
last thing and we saw all that.
No, there's one more.
Where is it?
Ah, in the credits for the game.

(01:14:07):
Here's the special thanks.
Here's all these nice names.
Also, we want to, we want tothank calendars and we want
to thank Ashtrays, ashtrays
special thanks to those ashtrays.
You know, they were smoking somuch when they made this game.

Chris (01:14:23):
Or maybe it's a brand of calendars, ashtrays,

right?
I don't know.

Chris (01:14:27):
Marie Calendars ashtrays.

Alright,

DK (01:14:30):
you're onto

it.

Chris (01:14:31):
Uh, yeah.
I wanted to ask though, 'cause I justkind of skipped through the speed run.
Is the final boss just chokey a secondtime or do you actually get to fight?
I was wondering if it was like abudget thing where they couldn't
afford to make like a, an extra suitfor the final bad guy in the movie.

DK (01:14:49):
I think there's a moment where you're fighting the, the big head.
I think the head comes out of the TVand you fight it, I'm pretty sure.
But that's it really.
It's chokey.

Chris (01:15:00):
Yeah, so I mean this is pretty much the end of the movie.
Like the UAE clan fires their pagoda railgun, which destroys the castle right as
the three heroes escape on a flying sled.
They exchanged some words about howthey've all suffered loss in the war
against the mechanical army and sheernui just base jumps out of the sled
onto a rock roll credits cyber ninja,

DK (01:15:23):
you deal with my dead brother.
Uh, gotta go,

just leaves some body there.
And then superhero lands on top of ourrock rock company, but it looks great.
And then they,

DK (01:15:33):
they don't freeze frame when he lands.
They freeze frame when hejumps away in action again.
Does a second jump cool as hell?
It's like it's election screenshot.
It looks great.

Chris (01:15:43):
So, yeah, I mean that's, that's cyber ninja.
I mean, what are, what are yourthoughts on this movie in general
in that last conversation?
They mentioned Black Falcon,they do bring it up once more.
I think it's the nameof a ship or something.
Or Yeah, but we

DK (01:15:58):
just, we just don't know.

Chris (01:16:00):
You know what, actually no, I think that's another translation thing
because what I was doing earlier, Iwas looking at the Japanese Wikipedia
article for this and translating it toEnglish because it's, oh, you clever.
It's more robust.
Yeah.
It makes more sense, uh, an evil spirit.
Why

DK (01:16:17):
didn't I think of that?

Chris (01:16:19):
So.
I'm trying to remember.

DK (01:16:22):
I think, I don't wanna get hung up on Black Falcon.
No, but I just thought it was funnythat this seems to be the first
reference to that in the movie.
Right.

Chris (01:16:28):
They bring it up during the scene where the flying sled attacks the Sue Abe,
which is why I was thinking it was a ship.
But actually on this, on the JapaneseWikipedia article, when he translate it
to English, the guy that they call URAin this movie is called Black Heron ami.
Mm-hmm.
So another black bird, maybethat's a mistranslation of,

(01:16:51):
between Heron and Falcon.
Okay.
Maybe we're talking about raa.
That seems to make sense.
I'm glad

DK (01:16:56):
I

Chris (01:16:56):
brought this up.
But yeah, what, what'd you guys thinkof good old cyber ninja from 1988?
Chris, go ahead.

Okay.
No, I had fun.
Like I said, I didn't understand hardlya damn word of it, but I mean, just,
just watching the action alone and, andjust looking at the design and thinking
about the, you know, the time when thiswas made, four, a low budget as it was.
I mean, how many times did you watch it?
A fun movie, three without subtitles.

(01:17:28):
So in some way, I think by the third timeI was starting to learn more in Japanese.
Just through osmosis of hearingthe language over and over.
In some way you had amore pure experience?

Chris (01:17:38):
Yes.
In some way you still haven't watched it?
I.

DK (01:17:44):
Yeah.
But, uh, same.
I mean, I, I watched it actually, I,I had, uh, I have a little group that
watches movies, uh, at lunch, uh, at work.
And we put this on, and Igotta say it was a blast.
We had some great reactions.
Like every couple minutes therewas a pretty big reaction for
one thing or another, so, right.
It's a crowd pleaser for sure.
Plus the fact that it's short.

(01:18:05):
It's always a plus.
Um, oh yeah.
So if, if you're the type of person, ifyou're listening, if you're the type of
person that likes to, like, watch movieswith friends, um, this, put this on your
list, it's, it's such a fun thing towatch, uh, as a group, you know, extra
points if you're into, you know, thoseold school, like we talked about, like
common writer or like, anything like that.

(01:18:25):
Yeah.
Um, even, even if you're justlike an anime fan, I would
say, uh, put it on your list.
It's, it's got a really unique look.
We keep, I know we keep saying it's a StarWars knockoff, it's a Star Wars knockoff.
But I would also arguethat it feels so original.
Mm-hmm.
It does feel unique.
Like, it, it doesn't to me go, alright.
I'm not rolling my eyes.
Like, oh, there's the Luke Skywalker.

(01:18:46):
Right.
And there's the Darth Vader.
It really isn't like that.
Yeah.
Um, it's like they took the rightlessons from Star Wars and said,
we're just gonna borrow this.
We'll give it back when we're done.
Uh, just a couple little things.
Don't worry.
You won't even miss 'em.
Uh, but yeah, if, if you like anyof those types of movies, if you're
into this sort of interestingunknown Japanese film, I mean, you,
you need to see that it really is.

(01:19:07):
We're, I'm, I'm not just hypedup 'cause I got to watch it
and talk about it on a podcast.
Right.
This is a cool movie.
You should check it out.
Yeah.
Is it available to own atall in a, in the modern day?

Chris (01:19:17):
Um, so there's a DVD release.
I don't know if there's ever anAmerican DVD release, only a Japanese
one, but I'm pretty sure that I. Imean, I think it's just available on
archive.org or possibly YouTube for free.
So, I mean, it's out there,people can watch it and hey, just
ask me if you wanna watch it.

(01:19:38):
I, I mean,

DK (01:19:39):
this is the type of thing where I would love to have like an amazing 4K.
Like, I, I would watch endlessly thespecial features and the designs and, um,
in the making of thing that I watched,they were just putting on the screen,
like pre-visualization stuff and like thedrawings and like just the helmet and like
the different versions of the helmet, likebefore they landed on the final thing.
It's really cool stuff.

(01:20:00):
Um, so yeah, I, I, if anyone's listening,they can, uh, just make that happen.
Gimme a 4K, I'll buy it.

Chris (01:20:06):
Yeah.
I mean one of the things when I waswatching Common Writer zeo, which is
one of the films he directed earlierthis week, it was like first 15 seconds.
This is amazing.
Like, because that did get like a, a,a nice restoration because it's from
a much more famous property, right?

(01:20:26):
And it looks great.
Like this guy, this is film.
Like this is what filmmaking is to me.
There's just such a joy in the movieshe makes and it's like, I just love it.
I think a big, a big difference betweenthis and like all of the other Star
Wars knockoffs that we've seen issomething he said in his message on

(01:20:47):
the VHS is that he truly believedthat all of this lameness is cool.
Did you just

DK (01:20:54):
discover the joy part of stealth joy cloud device side story?
Yes.
I think, I think we cracked it.
I think we

Chris (01:21:00):
cracked it and that's, but it's like, you know, he is, he realizes that
there's something kind of inherently dumbabout grown men dressing up like ninjas.
But he embraces it andisn't cynical about it.
It's just, it's so good.
I think you, I think you

DK (01:21:17):
nailed it.
I think the lack of cynicism and the joyof, we're just telling you a fun story.
We're just delivering you action scenesand we put a lot of care into them.
It doesn't get better.
I, you're right, it's, it's Cinema baby.

Chris (01:21:31):
Yeah.
It's just like, it's, I've seenwhat, like five or six of his movies,
they're all four stars or above onletterbox, which I don't know if anyone
has seen my bell curve on letterbox.
I don't really give out thathigh of ratings very often.
But it's just like, there's, there's thissense in all of his movies of just fun
action, a true love of, of just makingthese fun movies that I find so enjoyable.

(01:21:57):
And, uh, I'm glad you guys likedit because I don't know if I
could have taken it if you didn't.
No, absolutely.
It was a ton

of fun and like DK was saying, you know,
we're calling it a Star Wars.
It really just like took someof the hits of Star Wars.
But not really copying, you know?
Yeah.
There's a lot of those knockoffsthat are like one for one.
This took just some of the,the beats of Star Wars, but

(01:22:27):
not really the story itself.
So enjoyed, inspired byversus copy from Exactly.
Is is a pretty big difference, right?
Yeah.
I mean, you tell it wasinfluenced, influenced heavily.
Yeah.
There's, there's, there'splenty of things that

Chris (01:22:41):
we could and did poke at poke fun at, of like, oh, this is from Star
Wars, but it's like, like both of yousaid, it is reductive to just call
this like a Star Wars rip off becauseit's, it's just so much more than that.
Yeah.
And it, it, I think I speak forall three of us, hopefully when
it's like there's not like.
I wanna be sure thatpeople understand this.
There's not like an ironic love of this.

(01:23:03):
It's just like this is just actuallylegitimately good for what it is.

DK (01:23:07):
Yeah.
I have to agree.
Yeah, no, there's no irony here.
This isn't, yeah.
Look, and I'm a huge watcher ofthese types of movies and I will
watch them ironically and laugh.
Ironically, I do that.
That's a huge part of movies that I watch.
I like to watch bad movies.
Mm-hmm.
That's just as part of myDNA, but this No, no irony.
I'm not telling you towatch it 'cause it sucks.
I'm telling you to watchit because it rules.

Chris (01:23:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
You'll, if you're not on board withinthe first five minutes, well it's keep
going because it's only 68 minutes long.
So like, what

DK (01:23:37):
else are you gonna do?

I was gonna say,

Chris (01:23:38):
yeah.
Um, but yeah, I mean.
That's Cyber ninja and thank you guysso much for going through this with me.
Uh, but before we get out of here, Ihave a little trivia game for you boys.
Oh my God.
Oh boy.
I like to call it notable ninjas.

DK (01:23:54):
Oh boy.
It's

Chris (01:23:55):
just simply a series of trivia questions about
famous ninjas in pop culture.
And you guys buzz in by calling outyour name and giving me the answers.
Simple enough, right?

Yeah.
Okay.

Chris (01:24:08):
Alright.
Number one, notable ninja.
This 1998 martial arts comedyfilm features three young brothers
fighting to save an amusement park.
Go.
Three

DK (01:24:19):
ninjas.
Oh, three ninjas.
Is it three Nins, three.
Oh, I fucked that up.
Something mountain.
Something Mountain.
It has Hulk Hogan.
Fuck is that wrong?

Chris (01:24:28):
I'm gonna finish it and I gotta give Chris, Chris the chance to answer
'cause you didn't get it quite right.
Martial arts comedy film featuresthree young brothers fighting to
save an amusement park from anevil mastermind with the help of
former TV action Star Dave Dragon.

Oh God.
I can see the cover ofthis damn video in my head.
And, and TK was right and so isit three and Inches Kick Mac?

Chris (01:24:55):
No, no, it's, that's the second one I believe.
Second one, Chris.

DK (01:24:59):
Even I knew that

Chris (01:25:00):
dude, Sean, up.
Did it come to you?
Dk.

DK (01:25:03):
It's something mountain I, I can't remember, isn't it?
It is

Chris (01:25:07):
Three ninjas high noon at Mega Mountain.
Mega

DK (01:25:10):
Mountain.
That hurts me so bad.

Chris (01:25:13):
So zero.
Zero.
I watched it anybody's last year.

It's game.

Chris (01:25:17):
Okay.
You won.
Watched it last year.
Wow.

Gimme some slack.
I watched it last year.

Chris (01:25:23):
Okay, next question.
This 1997 martial arts comedystars Chris Farley as an unlikely
ninja raised by a Japanese clan.
I heard DK first, oh,

DK (01:25:33):
Beverly

Chris (01:25:34):
Hills ninja.
That is correct.
One to zero in favor of DK Nextnotable ninja originally rumored
to be a glitch in Mortal Kombat.
This red clad ninja was laterintroduced as a real character
known for his telekinetic powers andbeing a fusion of countless souls.
Dk dk.
That's iMac.

(01:25:55):
That's correct.
Fuck you two to nothing in favor of dk.
This deadly assassin.
First Bringed to Life.
In Daredevil Comics is known for wieldingtwin size and has been both an enemy.
Chris?
Chris.

Oh my God.
Why?
Electra?

Chris (01:26:14):
Yes.
Electra

spit on a drink.
Chris.
Oh my, my, my mind wentcompletely blank for a minute.
I'm like the son of a

DK (01:26:22):
inch

Chris (01:26:22):
electric

DK (01:26:23):
nachos.

Chris (01:26:24):
Alright, Chris, catching up two to one in favor of dk.
This immortal Mastermind leadsthe league of assassins and sees
Batman as both a worthy adversary.
And Chris.
Chris.
I heard Chris

ul.

Chris (01:26:38):
It's correct.
We're all tied up two to two bullshit.
This environmentally conscious alienwarrior, first appearing in the early
nineties battles pollution and villainslike Lord contaminants, to protect the
universe from ecological destruction.

DK (01:26:55):
DK

Chris (01:26:56):
dk,

DK (01:26:57):
is it zen?
The intergalactic ninja?

Chris (01:26:58):
That's correct.
Oh.

DK (01:27:00):
Oh my God.

I was

DK (01:27:02):
born

for

DK (01:27:03):
this.

I was like, holy hell, no.
Oh, that one.
I would've never beenable to my heart race.
I would've never been ableto answer on that one.

Chris (01:27:13):
I actually used to have an action figure of Zen, the intergalactic ninja.
So good.

I was going to, how the hell is Captain Planet in Baldman in,

DK (01:27:24):
oh my God.
I'm two, I'm shaking.

Chris (01:27:28):
First released in 1988.
This action packed Game followsRio Hayabusa, a skilled ninja
on a quest to avenge his fatherand stop an ancient evil.

DK (01:27:39):
Chris, you don't.
Go ahead.
Okay.
Dk dk, is it Ninja Den?
It is Ninja Guide.
I

knew I, you know what I wanted?
We already already talkedabout it was gonna have it.
I, I thought that was too easy.
I thought for sure

Chris (01:27:54):
you were gonna buzz in before I even finished.
I know.

DK (01:27:57):
I, I was legitimately let you, letting you have that one.
My mind was goingeverywhere else, but that.
Hey, I couldn't rememberthe last Jedi earlier.
It's okay.

Chris (01:28:07):
Final notable ninja.
This 1984 martial arts horror film blends,ninjas, possession and aerobics as a
young woman becomes the host for thevengeful spirit of a slain ninja assassin.
Chris.
Chris.

Was it revenge of the Ninja?
No, it's not.
God, go ahead.
I fucked it up.
It's, it's

DK (01:28:27):
a sequel.
I, I know the movie.
What is it called?
I, uh, something two.
Isn't it?
Something two.
Okay.
I'm wrong.
I don't know.
I, I, I, hold on.
Can you gimme, can, can I have a clue?
One more time.
Can I get one of his

points?
Because I know it's Show.
Kazuki is the actor that plays the Ninja.

Chris (01:28:43):
I do believe he is in that movie.

Alright.
He is.
Give it to Chris.

Chris (01:28:47):
It is Ninja Three.
The Domination.
Domination.
I knew it was a sequel.
Yes.

DK (01:28:52):
I was trying to get, I was trying to get there and I knew it was a third
one, so I was thinking it was two.
Yeah, it

was a third one.

DK (01:28:58):
I, I have to admit I haven't seen it.
I haven't seen it yet.
That's a good, that's ago-to like yearly movie.
I know that.
I'm going to love it.
It's one of those whereI'm like savoring that.
Just that I know I'm gonna love it.
I've heard it described abunch of times and it is been
recommended to me so many times.
Yes.
I'll watch it

when the aerobics instructor gets possessed by show Kazuki
spirit after he is like gunned downby a group of cops and he like buries
himself in the middle of the desert.
It sounds amazing.
I will see it eventually

Chris (01:29:28):
pretty.
I mean, I think that's the only oneyou guys didn't collectively get right.
So sounds like you guys know your ninjas.
I mean, Zen has to be themost obscure one of the bun.
I've done that.
Yeah,

that's a, that's a golf clamp from DK on that one
because he just arranged back thereand pulled that right of his ass.

Chris (01:29:48):
Yep.
So yeah, that was, uh, cyber ninja.
Um, thank you guys for comingon and breathing life into
this dead format with me.
Tell the fine folks out there where theycan find you in anything that nerds, geeks
in the kitchen sink has in the works.

DK (01:30:04):
Chris, you want me to take it?
Go for it.
Let the people know.
Alright.
Of course, if you wanna hear Chrisand I, we cover things like the, your
Marvel movies and your comic books andyour, uh, I, I talk about horror a lot.
I talk about whatever at once.
See the whole thing is turnsgeeks in the kitchen sink so we
can kind of talk about anything.
And we do quite often talkabout, like any movies we watch,
anything we read, whatever.
But we, we tend to cover likethe pop the popular stuff.

(01:30:27):
You know, again, like yourMarvel movies and all that.
We are biweekly.
We often have guests.
We've been on a string of, um, indiecomics writers, which has been really fun.
Um, there's been some really cool stuff.
We've, and we've met some neat people.
But, um, so check that out.
If you're into comics or any of thatnerd stuff, if you wanna hear references

(01:30:47):
like Zen, the Alactic Ninja on aweek, biweekly basis, check us out.
I would also just say,Hey, uh, I have, uh.
A music project called Home is Midnight.
I want to, if, uh, people areinto like, sort of synthy type
stuff, check out Home is Midnight.
We will have a full lengthalbum out soon enough.
Uh, that's all I got reallyto talk about right now.

(01:31:09):
Awesome.
You got anything

Chris (01:31:10):
Chris?

No, I'm pretty much that is, uh, you know,
just find us all on the socials.
We're everywhere.
And then we do have a YouTubechannel, so you can see our ugly
mugs on top of, uh, getting to listento our Dolls and Tones podcast.
Yeah.
If you'd rather podcast, if you'drather watch on YouTube podcast.
Yeah, you

DK (01:31:28):
can.
But you can

find us on all the

DK (01:31:29):
podcasts platforms.
But we wanna say thank you for havingus because this has been a blast and
like a legitimate, like heartfeltThank you for showing me this movie.

Chris (01:31:39):
Yes.
It

DK (01:31:40):
was really good.

Chris (01:31:41):
Well, that's, that's what this show is all about.
So, you know, it's like I amnever trying to, well, with the
exception of sometimes I will callout like, hey, this is a bad movie.
But I do put thought into.
Which guests I think wouldgo with which movies.
So it's always, I'm always glad to hearthat people actually like it because, uh,

(01:32:02):
it's what I'm going for and it's reallyjust an excuse for me to introduce people
to all of these weird things that I love.
So I'm glad you guys enjoyed Cyber Ninjaand, uh, I'll also say that, uh, you can
get a double dose of dk, uh, two weeksfrom now when he is back on the show to
talk about trial of the Incredible Hulk.
So, oh yeah, whoa, look forward to that.

(01:32:26):
But, uh, hello nutshell on behalf of theother Chris and dk, I am Chris, and this
has been another episode of Dead Formats.
If you have any questions about the showor if you have a dead format topic that
you'd like to hear me cover, or if youhave any suggestions for potential guests.
Please reach out.
You can email me at Dead Formatspod@gmail.com or you can reach out to

(01:32:50):
me on Instagram at Dead Formats Pod.
Thanks for listening.

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Cyber Ninja (1988) with Nerds, Geeks, & The Kitchen Sink

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