All posts by Gregory J. Smalley (366weirdmovies)

Gregory J. Smalley founded 366 Weird Movies in 2008 and has served as editor-in-chief since that time. He is a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and his film writing has appeared online in Pop Matters and The Spool.
Capsules

CAPSULE: THE EMPIRE (2024)

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L’empire

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Anamaria Vartolomei, Brandon Vlieghe, Lyna Khoudri, Julien Manier, , Camille Cottin

PLOT: Rival races of aliens, the Ones and the Zeroes, possess humans in a small French town.

Still from The Empire (2024)

COMMENTS: The Empire is an epic pitched in a very odd and minor key, and we expect nothing less from Bruno Dumont. It’s best described as a deadpan satire where alien factions battle for the fate of earth, but spend more time scouting, strategizing, swimming, and sleeping around than fighting each other. Why aliens chose a sunny and sleepy fishing town in northern France for the site of Armageddon is anyone’s guess—and maybe an essential part of the joke.

Much of what plot there is seems arbitrary and almost beside-the-point; in fact, it’s not entirely clear what the point is. The aliens possess villagers at random. The evil Zeroes have a prophetic Antichrist-like baby of destiny, but the good guy Ones don’t have much of a coherent plan to deal with it. They decapitate someone, maybe as a warning? An abduction resolves in an easily thwarted anticlimax. Mostly, the two teams cast sideways looks at each other when they pass in town, and take time out to confer with their respective leaders: La Reine for the Ones, who hovers in a cathedral spaceship complete with stained glass windows, and Belzébuth for the Zeroes, orbiting Earth in a craft that looks more like the palace of Versailles. The Empire‘s most fabulous character, Belzébuth dresses in a puffy white suit with a black bow tie, and is something like a cross between Evil from Time Bandits and a depraved Pee Wee Herman. Fans of Lil’ Quinquin‘s Captain Van der Weyden and Lieutenant Carpentier will be frustrated; the comic gendarmes put in a couple appearances, and Dumont teases that we may follow their investigation into the decapitation, but they actually play no role in the plot. (I’m a bit concerned about ‘s health—Van der Weyden barely mumbles one line here.)

The Empire is loosely a parody of science fiction epics—Jane and Rudy even wield (slightly modified) lightsabers—but it’s far from Spaceballs 2. If there’s a satirical target here, it’s the simplistic Manicheanism of humanity (and humanity’s blockbuster movies) . Despite their grand pretensions, the great cosmic struggle between the Ones and Zeroes is constantly subsumed into the minutiae of daily provincial life. Carnal attraction crosses battle lines. And the final showdown between the forces of good and evil is cheekily subverted, to say the least—as if both sides had been wasting their time all along.

The premise has a mildly amusing level of base absurdity, but the film is virtually free of laugh-out-loud moments. Fabrice Luchini’s clownish prince of evil amuses as he watches black blobs twerking, and a scene or two with Carpentier supplies possible chuckles. Still, the movie is well-shot and scored, the architecturally-minded spaceships are unique, and there are points of visual interest (and I’m not just referring to Vartolomei and Khoudri, who both have nude scenes and who are both stunning). It’s tempting to dub this The Empire Strikes Out. But although the mock-epic is a bit underwhelming, if considered as another thread in the tapestry of the expanding paranormal North of France Dumontverse, it’s scenic enough to make it worth a visit for the director’s fans.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a bizarre yet movingly humane satire that exposes the philosophical deficiencies of the movie genre that dominates global film culture… In Dumont’s eccentric way, The Empire forces the sci-fi genre to represent Western culture’s deepest mysteries. It’s like a Classic Comics version of a Robert Bresson movie with Spaceballs thrown in — a manifesto opposing the most corrupt and childish film genre.”–Armond White, National Review (contemporaneous)

The Empire [Blu-ray]

The Empire [Blu-ray]
  • The Empire
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Capsules

CASPULE: NINJA TERMINATOR (1986)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Jack Lam, Jonathan Wattis, Jeong-lee Hwang

PLOT: Three renegade ninjas each capture a part of a golden statue that will give them magical powers; they frequently call characters in a completely different movie who, through the magic of re-dubbing, deal with assassinations and kidnappings that appear to tangentially involve ninjas.

Still from ninja terminator (1986)

COMMENTS: Pity poor Jaguar Wong. He just wants to be a too-cool-for-school ass-kicker rescuing, then bedding, hot chicks, but he keeps being interrupted by telephone calls coming from another movie entirely from disinterested ninja Richard Harrison. Adding insult to inconvenience, the incoming calls are made from a Garfield phone! That’s right, Godfrey Ho is at it again, taking an undistinguished ninja-free catalog film (in this case, Korean chopsocky The Uninvited Guest) and adding newly shot footage to make an all-new movie all about then-trendy ninjas! Or at least, that’s the idea. As always, the plots of the two badly-fused movies make about as much sense as an owl’s head stitched onto a turtle’s body.

I have watched this film multiple times and am still not 100% certain how the theft of the ninja statue is supposed to fit into the Korean guys’ plotline1. I just know that Richard Harrison telephones the good guy (on a Garfield phone) and Jonathan Wattis telephones the bad guy (not on a Garfield phone; Garfield phones are reserved for good guy ninjas). But most of the time, Jaguar Wong just does his thing, and the ninjas do their thing. From the viewer’s perspective, it’s like flipping back and forth between two UHF channels showing competing martial arts flicks on a Saturday morning in 1986.

Absolutely no one is watching Ninja Terminator for the plot, anyway. They’re watching for the action scenes and for the bizarre directorial decisions that continually crop up. And the film disappoints on neither score. Of all the Godfrey Ho cut-and-pastes, Ninja Terminator may have chosen the best fighting to paste in. Jack Lam has a Bruce Lee (or at the very least a Bruce Le) quality about him. He fights effortlessly, moving as little as possible, letting assailants waste their energy before knocking them down with a standing kick to the head. No one’s a match for him until he faces endboss Jeong-lee Hwang (Drunken Master, a fighter so legendary that it is said he once killed an attacker with a single kick to the temple—in real life). All the fights are athletic spectacles, and the final battle is both epic and ridiculous. (Meanwhile, the ninja battles are athletic enough but look more like gymnastic exhibitions, with ninjas doing a lot of pointless cartwheels in the middle of combat). As far as strange touches go, take your pick, from the infamous Garfield phone to toy robots delivering messages from the evil ninja empire to a crime boss in a blond Prince Valiant wig to ninjas slicing watermelons for target practice to a random domestic crab attack to ninjas who wear more eyeliner than J.D. Vance. To top it all off, the film is scored by Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, Ennio Morricone, and others (without their knowledge, of course—Ho’s musical taste greatly exceeds his scruples).

Ninja Terminator is the rare movie that’s impossible to recommend—yet everyone should see it.

Ninja Terminator sits in an odd situation regards our Canonically Weird List. Ho’s work is already represented there by Ninja Champion, which lacks the wind-up toy robot but has a shot of the iconic Garfield phone along with other highlights, such as ninjas who wear headbands reading “Ninja” and dialogue that is absurd even by Ho standards. Terminator, however, is probably the best-known, best-loved, and overall most-watchable of Ho’s ninja franchise. You can substitute Terminator for Champion in a pinch and still earn full credit on your weird-movie transcript.

Cauldron Films’ 2025 Blu-ray edition of Ninja Terminator has all Ho fans could ever want and more, including two (!) commentary tracks and interviews with Godfrey himself.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…an incoherent mess that someone manages to engage and entertain throughout.”–Michael Den Boer, 10K Bullets (Blu-ray)

1. Wikipedia actually does a good job of reconstructing the plot, but, inspired by the spirit of Godfrey Ho, the summary includes nonsensical sentences like “Meanwhile, Ninja Master Harry and Ninja Master Baron, each the other has already tried to assassinate them.”

Ninja Terminator [Blu-ray]

Ninja Terminator [Blu-ray]
  • Years after being assaulted, a young woman (Juliet Chan) seeks bloody revenge on the five men responsible.
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