Surf Ninjas (1993) | Attack of the Drive-In
“Porta-Sand? Ew, I give up the throne.”
While in Patusan, guests of The Revolution stay at the Mecrob Hilton. That's the Mecrob Hilton. Serving strange things and shells since 1207.
There’s some movies that are made for the drive-in. Take the 1957 classic The Giant Claw for instance. An antimatter space buzzard isn’t going to be making anything except a mess and midnight movie notoriety. Other movies have the drive-in thrust upon them. If it has Rob Schneider on screen for more than a few seconds — it’s probably one of them.
Such is the case for the 1993 family-friendly classic of ninja-based kickassery, Surf Ninjas. A box office bomb so bad it nearly knifed Schneider’s then-fledgling career in the cradle. But thankfully, Schneider has since managed to knife his own career by catching waves in his own mental conspiracy thriller. I’d say it’s a shame, but the real shame is that this movie didn’t get enough credit, and deserves a seat at the cult classic table.
Why? Well, I mean, what’s not to like about surf-fu flicks? What’s also not to like about a turn by Leslie Nielsen as a pacific ninja-pirate supervillain? How about video game placement that doesn’t totally suck? In a way, this big kahuna was ahead of its time. It does a mess of things right. Where else can you see “Funky Cold Medina,” man Tone Loc playing opposite of Nielsen and both Ernie Reyeses (senior and junior), Dark Shadows’ John Karlen is here, and Neal Israel (Police Academy) is at the helm. You have a character who’s psychic by way of his SEGA Game Gear.
You know what would be really great is if you'd run like a mother and get Winky the One-Eyed black belt!
Israel takes it into b-movie territory, appropriately enough. This is the guy who brought the world Bachelor Party, and his writing partner in Dan Gordon steered it off the tollway and into an utter trainwreck of a teen comedy and Malibu-fu popcorn flick. It should’ve worked much better in its day, but alas. The world wasn’t ready for one of the greatest American ninja flicks quite yet.
The story goes like this: a couple of high school kids, joined by their third wheel, Rob Schneider, are saved from a solid ninja-ing by a one-eyed mystery man, Zatch. They find out they’re heirs to the throne of a magical southeast Asian island, Patusan, taken over by Leslie Nielsen and his gang. Our heroes are joined by supercop Tone Loc (I have to wonder how much different the world would be if this guy had ended up with Ice-T’s job on Law and Order. Flying cars, probably).
Along the way, one of the brothers figures out his Game Gear (playing Shinobi) doesn’t just tell the future, no — he can control it with his Game Gear. How he manages to go more than five minutes without the thing dying is never explained in the film.
For those of y’all among my fellow Texicans — the original release was split between Evansville, Indiana and home of the flattest land around, Lubbock. Oh yeah, Tech’s there too.
On the whole ninjalada, you can think of this as a Kaybee Toys-funded homage to surf movies and kung fu classics. It’s one of the closest that live film’s ever gotten to feeling like a cartoon. In the 90s, well, if you wanted cartoons, you had cartoons. Today? We have TikTok influencers. If you’re wanting an overlooked cult classic from the 90s, you can do worse. Best watched with friends or lovers willing to reenact Game Gear based surf-fu scenes with you.
THE SIZZLE REEL:
• One of the precious few majority-Asian casts in between Bruce Lee’s death and the rise of Jackie Chan.
• Producers from Golden Harvest (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze) told Ernie, Jr. that “We’re going to make you into a human character in Ninja Turtles II.” That’s exactly what they did.
• Originally, the Game Gear was going to be a Game Boy. Nic Cowan, who played SEGA console wielding Adam, actually brought his Game Boy to the casting call, not knowing that was in the original script.
• Most of the movie was filmed on-location in Thailand. The crew was mostly Thai, except for a small, core Hollywood crew.
• Lost about two million freedom eagle dollars, but won our hearts.
• Purportedly a kids’ movie, so if you’re wanting tittynado (except for Reyes, Senior) you’ll have to look elsewhere. No ping-ponging either. Lots of surf-fu junk-kickery.
You can pick up your own copy here, and we can compare notes. If you do buy after you click, I get a small commission at no extra cost to you.