Venom of the Ninja was a new one on me being that I had never heard of the series before Crash Cinema announced it as a future DVD release. Upon closer inspection I was surprised to find very little to no info for the series online. I couldn't find anything on the IMDB about it and a GOOGLE search only brings up a limited amount of info (most of which pertains to this pending DVD release). Venom of the Ninja is being released as 3 individual DVDs or the set can be purchased as a 3-disc box. The first disc is split up into two episodes that run about 40-minutes a piece.

Episode One begins with a fierce and bloody battle in which a young princess and two kung-fu masters are bombarded by Japanese ninjas. The princess entrusts the care of her child with one of the masters after she's struck. The surviving master escapes with the child in hand - flash-forward 18-years. The young boy (called Tiger) is now in control of a very successful Chinese brothel. Seemingly overnight a competing Japanese brothel has opened up nearby and the Japanese ninjas have also returned to finish what they had started 18-years prior. The ninjas manage to execute a couple of precise (yet unsuccessful) attacks, as Tiger is luckily skilled in the art of Kung Fu. Master fears for the worst knowing that Tiger has confidence, but is no where near the level he needs to be in order to compete with the Japanese ninjas. Master puts Tiger through a series of grueling tests in order to train him at a higher level of kung fu (by spitting snake blood on him?). Master also takes the time to explain the legend of the ninja to Tiger, which includes a bizarre flashback sequence with some even more bizarre (and unexpected) soft-core erotica footage. The first episode comes to a smoke bomb induced halt as an evil minion of the japanese warlord strikes (aptly named Devil Mask).

Episode Two opens as Tiger is hustled into the Japanese brothel, of course it turns out to be an ambush that he manages to sneak his way out of. Meanwhile Master has returned from his battle with "Devil Mask" only slightly worse for wear. Tiger's training continues, and he's given some instructions by master that will enable Tiger to seek out some new knowledge. In the mean time, a young girl seeks out Tiger thinking that he's her master because of a temporarily appearing as well as disappearing Plum tattoo on Tiger's chest! Tiger's brothel is taken under siege and many of the girls are either captured or left for dead, while "Devil Mask" makes another appearance, only this time Master discovers that the mysterious "Devil Mask" may actually be his brother thought dead for 18-years! It seems as if the evil warlord is using some sort of "magic flute" to control whomever lies behind the evil Devil Mask. Master also learns that the princess may also still be alive and well and takes some time after his fight to explain a little more back story to Tiger and the audience alike.

I'm hoping that I got everything as accurate as I could here, this is one hell of a complicated story! At this point, a lot of it makes very little sense, but I'm going to assume that as the series progresses, many more explanations will follow. There's obviously a certain level of magic or sorcery taking place here and the tattoo on Tiger's chest that appears and disappears, really has me confused! In flash back we see the tattoo being applied to a baby (Tiger?) but very little is actually explained as to who, what, why, where and how? In any event, despite its flaws, I dug the story so far along and its energetic execution only strands to enhance the whole experience.

The thing about Venom of the Ninja (so far at least) is that it's pretty much a non-stop barrage of kung fu action. The violence and action remains fairly relentless so the viewer really doesn't have to go long at all between ninja attacks. As stated earlier, there are even a few scenes of eroticism that even took me by complete surprise, along with a bizarre bit concerning a few captured girls being whipped and tortured for informationby the evil warlord. Bottom line here is that Venom of the Ninja is chock full of just about every exploitation element that would stand to drive genre fans crazy in delight. It's heaps of fun, and I've only gotten through the first disc so far. Part one of the first disc is a lot more frantic than the second as part two starts off a bit slow and doesn't have nearly as much action. However, it still manages to deliver the goods and is a lot of fun. While the story remains extremely complicated (and confusing!) I was still thoroughly entertained from start to finish, really good stuff here!

In an unfortunate turn of events, discussing the discs quality is probably what will turn a lot of potential viewers off. Quality ranges the spectrum of bearable to quite upsetting. Colors are extremely drab and muted while surprisingly enough - print damage is not as prevalent as one would expect (which is a definite plus). Don't get me wrong, there IS print damage, but not a whole lot, and it's not nearly as much of a distraction as what comes next. Source materials for this DVD were obviously tape, as there are quite a few troublesome video glitches to be found (part two has a reall bad glitch at one point) as well as a heck of a lot of video noise. Video glitches compounded with video noise and grain from the original film transfer onto video equals - well, I think you get the idea. The widescreen framing looks accurate for the most part, there were only a few moments that led me to question its accuracy (tops of heads chopped off - bad framing?). The transfers are no where near the quality that DVD is able to deliver, but if this title is as elusive as it appears, is this the best we could ever expect?

The English dubbed audio is quite atrocious, which is to be expected. The mono track is acceptable with some of the original sound still heard behind the English dub (hard to explain - but weird nonetheless). There's really no major evidence of distortion to speak of either, audio sounds about as good as one would expect from a title/transfer of this caliber.

Extras include trailers for a few other Crash titles (and only two chapter stops, one for each part!). Here's the question that arises - Is this the best we could ever expect for Venom of the Ninja? Perhaps these are the BEST (or only?) materials that exist? If so, would we rather have no Venom at all or Venom like this? Pick yer poison, because I dug the hell out of Disc 1 for pure entertainment value alone. Purists will most likely be disappointed by the quality of the transfer, while others who are a bit more tolerable (and curious) will probably just enjoy the fact that they are watching Venom to begin with. It's important to note that each disc can be found for under 10 bucks while the box set can be found for about 25-30 bucks.

For more info, visit Crash Cinema online by clicking here!