The Ninja Mission (1984)

Film review #483

Director: Mats Helge Olsson

SYNOPSIS: Scientist Karl Markov is defecting to the west from the Soviet Union, and the CIA are planning to undergo the operation to extract him. However, the operation is interrupted and the Russians extract him instead under the guise of being the CIA agents. Markov is taken to what he believes is Sweden, but is instead a Soviet facility, where he is finishing the work he is undertaking. In order to undertake a new rescue mission. The CIA decides to send a team of ninjas to get Markov out, led by Agent Mason, and prevent the Soviets from completing Markov’s work and tipping the balance of power in the Cold War forever in their favour…

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: The Ninja Mission is a 1984 Swedish martial arts action film. Set in the depths of the Cold War, the film opens up with an operation to aid in the defection of Karl Markov to the west led by the CIA. Markov’s research will tip the balance of the Cold War into the favour of the Soviets, and so he wishes to defect to the west to maintain the current balance. However, the rescue mission is botched, and the Russians pretend to be the CIA agents and take Markov to a Russian facility to complete his work, which he believes is a UN facility in Sweden. The CIA mounts another rescue mission to get Markov out, with agent Mason leading a…team of ninjas to carry it out. The plot of the film is way more complex than it needs to be, and a lot of the runtime is devoted to explaining this overly-elaborate plot that constantly slows the film to a crawl and bloats the film with unnecessary exposition. What you really want to see in a martial arts movie is some martial arts and cool fight scenes (surprisingly), but the film just doesn’t deliver on it for the majority of the runtime. Things pick up in the last act, and boy does it overcompensate for the lack of action by making the climax utterly ridiculous with exploding henchman everywhere, but the first two acts of the film are really slow and misdirectioned such that by the time you get to the third ac, you may have already tuned out.

The characters are a typical bunch of 80’s action tropes, with the rugged action lead, the sole female character, the cold war setting, and so on. The plot concerning Markov and his estranged daughter really serves no purpose and only further complicates the film. The question that primarily arises from this film is probably why are the CIA undertaking operations using ninja operatives? As expected, there is no rhyme or reason for this, so you just have to go along with it. The martial arts stuff that we do see is fine, but there’s nowhere near enough of it.

The Ninja Mission is a low budget, low-end production; of that, there can be no doubt. The English dub of the audio is pretty bad, but that’s something you somewhat expect of martial arts films of the era, so it fits in, in a roundabout way. The car chase scenes aren’t too exciting, and there’s far too much standing around talking when there should be action on the screen. As mentioned, the film does pick up in the third act, when soldiers start being shot with syringe bullets (?) that make their heads explode, and there’s finally some martial arts on screen, but nothing that’s too special. The body count in this film is utterly ridiculous: lines of soldiers just casually get gunned down in single scenes, and its so overblown it’s quite funny. I’m not sure the film gets into the “so bad it’s good” category due to the problems mentioned with regard to the pacing which sucks a lot of entertainment value out, but some parts definitely stand out. The film has earned a “cult” status and strangely become one of the highest grossing Swedish films ever, by being redistributed across over fifty countries. Overall, it’s not a particularly memorable film, but fits into the 80s martial arts genre with its low/no budget and poor dubbing. Some parts are entertaining in a ridiculous way, and other parts are so bloated with dialogue it ruins any kind of pacing. It’s a mixed bag that be forgotten apart from maybe one or two scenes.