I’d like to talk to you today about narwhals. These animals are proof, if any were needed, that whatever consciousness is in charge of things, possesses a wicked sense of humour and a fondness for real ale. For narwhals are the sort of animal that would only make sense after a long session down the pub – “lishen, Gabriel, let’s take a whale…and…and…lishen…let’s STICK A GIANT CORKSCREW ON ITS HEAD!” [Sound of a deity falling off a barstool] Between the narwhal, the sawfish and the hammerhead shark, I suspect God spent lunchtime of the fifth day down Home Depot, and that somewhere in the depths of the Pacific Oceans lurks a fish inspired by a Black & Decker Workmate.
Not only did the narwhal start off in life with an evolutionary disadvantage – though I suppose any predator would likely be too busy sniggering to chase them – they also don’t get the kind of press other members of the whale family do. You don’t find members of Greenpeace defending them in inflatable boats, though this is because rubber dinghies and animals with sharp, pointy noses are probably a bad combination. Nor do they get movies made about them – imagine how much better Free Willy would have been with a narwhal instead of a killer whale. He could have skewered the irritating child actor during his leap to freedom, and swam off into the sunset with a kid shish-kebab.
Here at Trash City, Chris and I feel such a creature deserves recognition, and so we did what we usually do in such cases – typed ‘Narwhal’ into Ebay’s search engine to see what comes up. We were impressed with the Huge Rare Antique Ivory Narwhal Tusk Nice!!!, which went for a cool $4,250. We particularly liked the photo of it lounging on the seller’s couch. Now that’s what I call a conversation piece – albeit in the “Will you please move that thing off the couch so we can sit down?” kind of way. Note the use of the word “antique”, to prevent the seller from being firebombed by animal-rights activists, rather than “newly hacked off and still bleeding from the stump”. We also found the Whale Narwhal Toy Rubber Replica 11″ Rare Toy appealing – even tossed our hats in the ring on that one, but lost out to a bidder named whaleshome1. Clearly a cetacean fetishist, if ever we saw one.
So, for the moment, we remain in a state of rubber narwhallessness. It’s an intriguing idea though, and we wonder if somewhere in a back room at Sanrio lurks the discarded concept of Hello Narwhal, with huge eyes but no blowhole. We yearn for someone to set up an Adopt a Narwhal scheme, whereby you get quarterly letters from the aquatic mammal of your choice, detailing life north of the Arctic Circle. We enliven tedious moments by sticking a straw to our forehead and doing narwhal impressions. Next week, it’ll quite possibly be sea-otters, but just for the moment, we’re in a narwhal state of mind…
Vijay Amritraj. Good tennis player. Top Asian for 14 years, reached the Wimbledon doubles semis with his brother. But an actor? That he has a supporting role here tells you something. That he doesn’t stand out as particularly awful tells you more about this semi-Bond wannabe, that wavers between jaw-dropping incompetence and incoherence. We know we’re in trouble from the opening credits, featuring Kosugi (a low-rent Sonny Chiba at the best of times) doing kata surrounded by leotarded ladies, in a bizarre yet chaste 007 ripoff. It even has a strikingly crap song, strangely comparable to All Time High.
Set in the Phillipines (another reason for bad movie fans to sit up), it starts with a busload of tourists being kidnapped by terrorists, having missed subtle warning signs such as a man in dark glasses by the road-side muttering into a walkie-talkie with a three-foot antenna. Mind you, given the stultifyingly banal tour guide, I’d be grateful for the diversion: once the native dancers appear, capture by sadistic goons would seem a welcome alternative. This is especially so, when the leader of the gang is named – and we rewound the film to check this – Colonel Honey Hump. She is a lesbian, naturally, though one for whom English does not appear to be a familiar tongue, going by her performance.
She is, however, a model of restraint and understated acting, compared to her boss, Alby the Cruel. He is German (why he is in the Philippines is never made clear), in a wheelchair, and has a monkey with a diaper in lieu of the traditional white Persian. Played by the wonderfully-named Blackie Dammett – let’s just say that again: Blackie Dammett (in real life, the father of Red Hot Chilli Pepper Anthony Kiedis!) – he has kidnapped the group in order to force the release of Arab terrorist Rahji the Butcher, a character whose dialogue consists almost exclusively of “BWAH-HAH-HAH…”
To rescue the hostages, the government call in the DART team, a threesome led by Spike Shinobi (Kosugi), although not until he has a flashback on a sun-lounger (why does he take his samurai sword with him poolside?) during which we learn he was expelled from Ninja Academy for letting his emotions get the better of him. You may be excused for thinking this is an Important Plot Point. Don’t bother: it is never referred to again. Chief sidekick, Steve Gordon, is played by Brent Huff – with his roles here and in Gwendoline, he is the first man to have starred in multiple Incredibly Bad Films, alongside actresses Sybil Danning and Yukari Oshima. [Michelle Bauer has managed three, but two were minor roles]
Our heroic trio end up in a museum, where they are attacked by midgets. It’s sentences like that one, which keep me going through all the long, dark dull movies, y’know. Despite having all his dialogue dubbed, Kosugi looks suitably flummoxed by this. Well he might, as a fall of perhaps a yard, tops, kills the guy they’re after, even though he lands on his feet. They don’t make villains like they used to. “That was his last jump,” adds Shinobi cryptically.
Despite the presence of an international hostage crists, the good guys take time out for a few drinks, and seduction in Gordon’s case. But Alby and his henchmen have turned the Phillipine jungle into a Bavarian drinking hall too, so they’re not exactly losing ground. The government, however, is left with no option but to release Rahji. Who, in keeping with fundamentalist terrorist tradition, heads straight for the nearest whorehouse, pausing only to exchange his car for a horse and buggy.
Tracking the manic laughter, Shinobi follows Rahji, clings to the escape ‘copter, throws him from it, visits a floating brothel, leaps overboard, is chased by scuba divers (clearly always on standby) and finds the terrorists. Thus passes the middle 1/3. We know we are heading towards the final, climactic, all-out assault but get two classic lines first: “It would take a tougher man than you to pull apart industrial epoxy” and, “Do you understand? PIG HEADSSSS!” from Colonel Hump.
The end battle has an almost Zen-like approach. Witness the following sequence:
Medium shot of waterfall
Sound-effect of shuriken flying through air
Close-up of guy holding shuriken unconvincingly to eye
Medium shot of waterfall.
This is cinematic genius on a par with Welles or Lean – the midgets earlier suggest Alston may be a pseudonym for Fellini. I note that “Alston” has not apparently worked on anything since Fellini died…By now, we are deep into “Eh?” territory, with Shinobi fighting evil ninjas for no readily apparent reason – between Germans, Japanese, Arabs and the locals, it is truly a terrorist United Nations. Rahji is dispatched with a detonator in the mouth, while Alby is trampled to death by a herd of stampeding polo ponies. At the risk of repeating myself, sentences like that sum up the reasons we lurk in the “under $10” section of less-discerning movie outlets: an unfettered imagination is a good thing, and when it goes utterly berserk, it’s even better. One can only wonder at the script meeting where they came up with this ending for the villain.
In keeping with traditional badmovie ethics, the title is meaningless, as far as I can tell, since at no point in the film do nine ninjas die. The German title translates as Nine Lives of the Ninja, which might make more sense. But what else would you expect from a film where Shane and Kane Kosugi play characters called Shane and Kane, while Vijay Amritraj plays one called…yep, you guessed it, Vijay. There’s one extraordinary appropriate line from the film that sums up the whole surreal experience: “Too many drugs this time, boys, too many drugs.” For the makers, perhaps – for Chris and I, not even a 151-proof rum-soaked pineapple proved sufficient to mask all of this film’s delicious flaws.
Yesterday was mid-term election day here in the States, something I could watch as a detached observer, being disenfranchised because of my status as an alien. It’s all rather different from what I’m used to, not least because you get to vote for a lot more things. In Britain, it’s pretty much just local council, House of Commons, European Parliament – here, there are school boards, judges, and even the state mine inspector to be elected. This is actually kinda disturbing: if I was a miner, the last thing I’d want was Joe Public choosing the guy in the corner, prodding at the pit-props. Especially when, looking at the ballot, the electorate require detailed instructions (with diagrams) on how to vote.
This wealth of choices perhaps explains why turnout is so woefully low. In this, the land of the free, if one in three voters exercise their right, it’ll be about what’s expected, which is a pretty sad state of affairs. Mind you, just as in Britain, it’s easy to understand such apathy – no matter who you vote for, a politician is still going to win. The choices for governor of Arizona were particularly poor: the current attorney-general, a woman of dubious ability, versus a Mormon. Truly a choice of the lesser of two weevils.
Another interesting US/UK difference is the presence here of various ballot measures, ranging from the obscurist (municipal debt limits) to the controversial (legalizing the use of medical marijuana). The most contentious here in Arizona were three separate propositions, regarding casinos. At the moment, slot-machines, etc. are only allowed on Indian reservations, but there was a huge spat between the tribes and the racetrack owners, who want a slice of the action. The various groups spent almost $40m on advertising during the campaign, and the outcome is still murky, with quite possibly none of the suggestions getting voter approval.
Such are the joys of democracy in action: whoever has the largest bank-balance usually gets in. Every candidate swears they’re going to stick to the issues, but eventually out will come the nasty adverts, insinuating their opponent is homosexual/soft on crime/racist/a borderline psychopath. Voters say they don’t like these tactics, yet they happen in every campaign, and the slot-machine debate was largely each camp telling you loudly how bad the others were.
A weird concept on the whole though, handing out legalised vices as compensation for past injustices. If the Indians get gambling, should we give African-Americans a monopoly on cigarette sales? And maybe the Eskimos could run the liquor stores? I’ve been to an Indian casino – once – and the air of desperation was in sharp contrast to the surreal-but-fun atmosphere in Vegas. The irony is, it seemed as if the main customers there were our local underclass, the Mexicans. One set of oppressed people turning another upside-down and shaking their loose change out. Brings a whole new meaning to ‘scalping’ though.
