Welcome back to B-Movie Enema and welcome back to me going through my backlog of movies that I’ve either picked up from conventions or, as is the case with this month, bought from Vinegar Syndrome.

I think we might have something of a special little movie this week. We’re going to be looking at John Liu writing and directing himself into Ninja in the Claws of the C.I.A. which was originally known as Sah shou ying as well as simply Claws of the C.I.A. and there’s even a version called Made in China. I really don’t know what I want to reveal to the people who haven’t seen this movie, so… I think we’ll just start by talking about John Liu.

When I went googling for John Liu, something really awesome happened. All I was getting were links, articles, and information on John Liu, Democratic member of the New York State Senate. Now, my brain is utterly shattered and broken in terms of being able to work properly. So I think it’s safe for you to bet that I was thinking that guy and the lead of this movie were the same dude. Then, I began thinking about him bringing legislation to the New York Senate floor by way of kicking motherfuckers’ asses. Like, he steps up to the podium, asks for time from the President of the New York Senate, and then after casually removing his tie, he just walks over to some Republican he beefs with and they just kung fu fight.

I wish that was what really happens in state senates and congresses across the country.

However, in actuality, John Liu the martial arts master and filmmaker is, like, 20 years older than the state senator. He came from Taiwan and learned Japanese Karate and Chinese kung fu from his grandfather. You know how my brain pictured that… You know what? Never mind. He then learned Taekwondo. Once he got into film in the 70s and 80s, he became well-known for being a hell of a kicker. In fact, he was considered as good, or at least could be mentioned in the same breath, as Bruce Lee.

He set up a film corporation and directed three films, Zen Kwan Do Strikes Paris, In the Claws of the C.I.A., and Dragon Blood. These were set in Paris and Mexico, but none of the films ultimately did well at the box office or with fans. I want to mention exactly what his Wikipedia article says about the films not doing well. It reads, “Ever since the downfall of his directed films…” The DOWNFALL. That’s a far more epic way of saying “the movies didn’t do so well at the box office.”

Anyway, Liu made a fourth film that I will talk about very shortly, but he semi-retired from film. He appeared in a few more movies but he opted to develop his own technique called Zen Kwan Do which he brought to France when making Zen Kwan Do Strikes Paris. It’s not a popular form of martial arts, but there are practitioners in France since it was brought there in the early 80s.

So, what was that fourth film of Liu’s? It was a movie called New York Ninja. This was a movie that he shot in New York City, but the footage was never edited and languished away in a film lab for, like, 35 years. Vinegar Syndrome came along, purchased the footage, finished the film, and released it. Interestingly, finishing the film wasn’t just editing it and releasing it. They only had the visuals. They had no sound. They hired actors to dub the dialog and brought in foley artists to fill in sound effects and such.

We’re gonna get to New York Ninja someday. Trust me. For now, though, let’s focus on Ninja in the Claws of the C.I.A. and why I chose it to buy and eventually write about. That reason is boiled down to two words: The Trailer. Look at this masterpiece.

We’ve got kicking, ass kicking, ass slapping, babes, more kicking, bad dubbing, and action. What more could you possibly want? Plus, the box art takes a page from the James Bond series and For Your Eyes Only.

That’s a masterpiece. But we shouldn’t judge this by its cover. You really can’t do that because Vinegar Syndrome is really good at packaging and sometimes the movie inside isn’t as good as their lovely artwork. With that, let’s dive in and figure out how this Ninja finds himself in the claws of the C.I.A.!

The movie opens with a car speeding toward us on a bridge. The driver gets out and speaks to a woman waiting for him. She asks when the Russian is due to arrive. She says that Mr. Chan says they need to be very careful because the KGB will stop at nothing to get him back. There seems to be a great deal of intrigue in these early scenes. A Mr. Bruno is apparently defecting and these two Hong Kong intelligence agents are there to stop Bruno from leaving with a not-too-cool adversarial country. It’s hard to say because, frankly, we’ve hardly been told about who is doing what and what their importance is. I just know there was something apparently trying to defect and this guy and girl from Hong Kong was not down with that.

Let’s try to sort this out, shall we? Mr. Bruno was intercepted by the two agents from Hong Kong. They sent Bruno to the United States. There, he’s asked about a technique he’s been developing that makes agents deadly without guns. This technique is not a new one and is something that Chinese martial artists are aware of. Get this… Basically, the technique is through the use of a very specific martial art, the user is subjected to self-hypnosis. The fighter needs to still be well-trained in several techniques, but the self-hypnosis will place him into a trance-like state that allows him to kick all the ass I guess.

I can only say “I guess” at the end of that previous paragraph because there’s something that is really distracting throughout this entire exposition scene. Let’s see if you see it in the below picture:

I’m guessing the production crew had to figure out exactly how to dress the room in an American government building to play this scene out. American flags? Check. Some plushy chairs? Sure. Maybe the lacy tablecloth is a little weird but whatever. We’re classy, man. The chimney that is completely shuttered off from having that fuckin’ Santa Claus, the greatest enemy agent from the KGB, sneak in to get the goods. That all checks out.

Apparently, in 1981, Lyndon B. Johnson is still our President. What’s the most wonderful thing about this is that every single scene with American government or military personnel has that exact same photo of LBJ. It’s just right there. It’s hilarious. It’s not even trying to hide it in later scenes. Anyway… Back to the movie.

After discussing this new technique, Bruno and the CIA walk out of this supposed safe house. We see a couple guys with guns sneak up and hide behind hedges and planters. They shoot Bruno. The American guys who just met with him gun down the two assailants. As Bruno dies in their arms, he leaves them with a real fuckin’ zinger when he asks, “Is this your idea of freedom?”

Ouch, man.

Okay, so Sanders, an Army guy, and, apparently, the American expert in martial arts, is tasked to find a new guy to teach that Russian technique of fighting. He’s told to go find his Chinese connection. This turns out to be Mr. Chan. Chan taught Sanders everything he knows about martial arts. He walks onto Chan’s property and a couple guys come up and tell him to get lost unless he wants his face rearranged. Sanders is no pussy, though. He rearranges their fucking faces instead.

Those first two guys aren’t the only ones either. He wipes out everyone who approaches him.

He then finds Mr. Chan who, I guess, he originally mistakes for being the Asian gardener of this property because he jumps into frame, and asks two sunbathing beauties where Chan is and they’re like, “Uh, dummy, he’s right there behind you.” He was there the whole time, Sanders. Ostensibly, you were his student for a while. Probably at this very compound. You know he likes pruning his flowers and hedges. The fuck is wrong with you, man?

Anyway, Sanders says he wants to find someone who can teach this Russian technique. Chan says he’s been aware of this technique for a long time. Not only that, there’s a guy who teaches the technique right here in America – John Liu. Yes, the writer/director/producer John Liu named his character after himself. This is surely not an ego project, is it?

Liu is a two-time world champion of… kung fu? He served in Vietnam and returned disgusted with war. His technique is called Zen Kwan Do. Liu’s identical twin brother is still serving in the army. Sanders’ boss who sent him on this mission to talk to Chan tells Sanders that maybe they should bring the brother home on a recruiting mission. Sanders says that fate has already played her hand. The brother, once he got Stateside, got into a car accident and is now wheelchair-bound.

That is a VERY weird plot point. We’re told he has a brother. That’s not the weird part. It’s not weird that the brother is in the military. That’s especially because John Liu is going to be pretty leery about doing anything that sniffs of militarism when Sanders comes calling. But to say he got injured off-camera? That’s weird, man. Such a weird thing to introduce to this movie as a nearly off-handed comment.

It’s also VERY clear that John Liu wanted to play two roles in this movie. How do I know this? Well, he’s written, produced, and directed this movie for one. For two, he’s playing two parts with the only differences between the two brothers being that one is able to stand and the other is in a wheelchair and they have different parts in their hair. Then, Liu in the wheelchair is at the edge of the pool (a seemingly dangerous place for a person in a wheelchair but what do I know) and John Liu is way the fuck over there on his back patio and they are basically shouting at each other. That’s how far away they are from even having a split screen with two John Lius in this movie. It’s crazy.

It’s not nearly as crazy as this is one of those classic examples of a world in which everyone knows kung fu and will use it. A pretty lady comes out of a store carrying a box of groceries and a guy, I think one of the guys that Sanders beat up at Chan’s place comes up and starts hassling her. John Liu approaches and starts to white knight that shit by beating the hell out of these guys. However, these guys fight back with kung fu. Just not as expert in kung fu. When he clears out the goons, she invites John back to her place where she serves the two of them Coca-Colas and invites him for a swim.

Liu’s pretty keen that this might just be a trap so while she swims, he swaps which glass is which. Sure enough, the girl drinks a drugged Coke and passes out. As he backs up to get the fuck out of there, Sanders holds a gun to Liu’s head and tells him Uncle Sam wants him to serve his country. That’s… That’s some bang-up recruitment work, Sanders.

Liu declines the offer to lead up the new martial arts flat. But Sanders says this wasn’t a request, it was an order. This isn’t about past service to the country that Liu might have served out in Vietnam. This is about him still being a subject of the United States government and he has to do what Sanders says. Oh, and the babe that Liu saved is Sanders’ wife. So he can tell the authorities that he was trying to drug and rape her and he’ll be off to San Quentin if he refuses.

I guess that’s enough for Liu to agree to these terms.

Sanders has set up a good old-fashioned ninja training camp where Liu and Sanders will train these folks up to be… an army… of… ninjas… for… the United States? Oh whatever, this is good dumb action business. Anyway, Sanders says everyone here is a graduate with top honors in all sorts of academic stuff. So, clearly, they are all well-trained in the traditional martial arts. As, you know, college honor grads are.

God I want to live in the world of this movie where everyone is a martial arts badass.

Liu gets a tour of the place. There’s a guy who talks and looks like a mad scientist and he says he’s in charge of the computers. He introduces John to Caroline, a lady who apparently has her fingers in everyone’s private business. He then meets someone who puts people through crazy endurance training that apparently comes across as pretty awful torture. Admittedly, this scene is kind of just dropped in there. He’s being shown around by this guy and then it smash cuts to the torture scene. We will see exactly what this guy is doing to the recruits and how he uses this technique to control these guys.

The guy who was tortured was a plant by Mr. Chan. He begs Chan to get him out of the program because of the torture. Chan says that’s all standard operating procedure in the training courses. I mean… yeah. Of course, that’s the standard army training – especially in the kung fu branch of the army. Anyway, Chan tells the guy to fuck off, so the guy says he’ll kill Chan if he doesn’t get him out. Chan calls his bluff, gives the kid a gun, and says he’s too chicken shit to kill anything. The kid pulls the fucking trigger. Chan looks to be shot dead, but he gets back up and reveals it was all a trick with blanks and squibs.

This guy, Johnny Wong, starts doing some pretty sweet kung fu flexing as he works out some frustration about being trapped in this program.

Watching on, Liu realizes this Johnny Wong might have something.

Something fucking bonkers happens… I mean ANOTHER fucking bonkers moment happens. There’s a woman apparently going through the endurance training too, but that mad scientist dude is overseeing this project. She’s strapped to a chair and it looks like she’s all fucked up and turning into a Night of the Living Dead-style zombie complete with graying complexion. He’s apparently using intense therapy to show her women being abused by men. It’s like a combination of the torture shown in A Clockwork Orange and brainwashing to make her distrust men or something. He speaks entirely in Italian. He’s not dubbed. He’s not subtitled. He’s just… Speaking a completely different language.

Guys… I cannot accurately put into words how insane this movie is. I’m less than 30 minutes into this movie. We’ve seen all sorts of kung fu fighting, intense torture, double-crosses, and a mad scientist. All this movie seems to be is training CIA agents to fight against other agents with super kung fu. I know there’s a twist coming but there’s just crazy kung fu every 30 seconds of runtime.

The girl who was going through endurance training is Susan Armstrong and she has a Master’s degree in the Arts from Vasser. I’m guessing John Liu thought the Masters of Arts program at Vasser was short for Masters of Martial Arts at Vasser because she’s here to join the program and kick ass. She’s cocky and brash and Liu says she’s mouthy and thinks it gets in the way of her keeping her eyes from being pulled out of her fucking skull in a fight. I will give her credit for being sexy and when he asks to see her legwork, she has phenomenal legs. So I guess I agree with him bringing in this girl without any kind of underwear and spectacular legs.

I will give Liu credit for one thing. He does seem to have a lot of great moves. I mentioned previously that he was known for being a good kicker and in the same league as Bruce Lee. I agree. He’s got a really good balance and he often is showing people how to use their feet and he can kick multiple times while perfectly balanced on his plant leg. I know he is not kicking and punching people because this is a kung fu movie, but I really do believe he has a lot of power in his moves. So, I do give him credit for being well above average in terms of kung fu stars with real ability.

If the training scenes aren’t enough action for you, for some reason, we have a couple trainees who decide to try to rape Caroline. Why? I dunno. Are they going to be kicked out of the program or reprimanded for trying to rape a member of the staff? Nope! We just get more John Liu action where he beats the shit out of some guys. It also opens the door for a love affair between Liu and Caroline.

Also, some of the people around the training camp aren’t so sure about Liu. Why? It’s not entirely clear, but it leads to Liu being tested by members of the brass at the base. The guy who runs the torture department of the training says he can’t stand by as Liu destroys the morale of the trainees. Everyone apparently hates him. We’ve not seen any reason to believe that. I have seen reason to doubt that Liu would be the reason why people in the program would hate those training them. Especially when that guy saying Liu is destroying team morale is literally torturing them. Anyway, he also says that he doesn’t like how Liu is bringing a bunch of crazy “Oriental mumbo jumbo” here to teach the students with (I paraphrased that). However, my dude… You, sir, are an Asian man too.

Anyway, they also try to use “Sexy Susan” to try to seduce Liu to discredit him in front of the brass. That doesn’t quite work as it’s more or less revealed to his face that she was supposed to try to seduce him. There is something they might be able to use… for some reason. He did spend the night and had sexy times with Caroline. She works in the “computer department” so that apparently means he’s a shitbag or not a good person to lead the training of new kung fu agents or something.

This movie is kind of bad. However, it is juuuuust crazy enough to keep you guessing and invested. When it’s really crazy, it’s incredibly fun. Again, the recruits, who, I might remind you are all honor student graduates, decide they need to go a-rapin’. They find Susan jogging alone and surround her with the plan to assault the holy livin’ hell out of her. She beats the shit out of them and moves on.

Liu discovers that all the recruits are gone. Caroline says it’s because whenever the Colonel comes in, they go on a field mission to show off for the brass. Liu was not made aware of this so he and Caroline go out to figure out what the hell is up and what his standing is with, well, everyone. He delivers a birthday present to Johnny Wong – a rabbit. Johnny was born in the Year of the Rabbit so Liu thought that would be a nice way to ingratiate himself to the troubled kid. That goes over really well… Until Pascho, the other Asian guy who runs the torture wing, starts speaking Spanish or Italian on his radio which triggers some of the officers to fall asleep and for Wong to get really angry and bitchy at Liu.

By the way, when the radio transmission from Pascho hits Wong, he takes the rabbit that he was holding and petting, spikes it into the ground, and starts trying to rough up Liu. Kind of funny. Definitely bonkers, though. The other men at the site murder the rabbit with their bare hands. See? This movie is weird, but goddamn there are so many moments of batshit insanity.

This totally feels like a “first draft movie” if you know what I mean. There is nothing here that feels like a real movie. The CIA wants ninjas. So they order the Army to train college graduates of various honor programs to make ninja soldiers and/or agents. None of that makes any goddamn sense. Part of their training is literal torture. There are not enough action scenes in the training, I guess, so it requires sexual assaults. They become bloodthirsty rabbit murderers when Pascho tells them to be. Nothing makes any goddamn sense.

What’s more, Caroline KNOWS what’s going on. But because she’s part of the computer department, she can’t tell him. Why on Earth would you bring in a guy to train your crazy CIA Army ninjas and immediately antagonize him and try to wash him out? Shouldn’t everyone be on the same page here? The CIA guy told Sanders to get a guy specifically for this mission. Why would he then want Pascho to undermine him? These are things that are more clearly sorted out in future drafts.

What’s more, what Vinegar Syndrome has is not a complete translation either. That scene I mentioned earlier with the mad scientist-looking guy? That just wasn’t dubbed. It just wasn’t. When Pascho turned everyone into hateful fucks, he spoke his commands in, what I have to assume to be, Spanish (because I suspect this was a Filipino print of the movie they acquired). The rest of the scene played out in Spanish. Later, there’s a scene in which Pascho uses his hypnotic control over Susan and Wong as they watch Liu. Susan is made to get horny and Wong is made to attack Liu. He then apparently has some control over Liu too. When? How? Why? This is Liu’s technique. How can what Pascho says over the radio, which is a product of his “endurance” training, have an effect on Liu? Liu didn’t go through that. Again, this would be something that gets figured out in a later draft of the movie. The translations being incomplete seems to be just what Vinegar Syndrome could get and it was not possible to dub what wasn’t there.

This Susan Armstrong character is still smoking hot, though. Keep all of her in this movie. And future drafts of this movie’s script. And my dreams tonight.

Again… Crazy ass shit happens with this control business that Pascho gets into. He sends Wong in to try to defeat Liu while he also, somehow, tries to control Liu. Liu blocks him out and can handle any attack from Wong. Pascho also sends in Susan who, I guess, her only training is in seduction. He thinks this will finally prove to the CIA guy that Liu sucks. What we get is Liu doing sweet kung fu flexing while she tries to get him to, um, rise to the occasion.

Pascho reveals himself. Apparently, Liu expected something like this to happen. He asks Pascho if he passed his test. Pascho tries to fight him to finally get the best of Liu but Liu defeats him faster than he did Johnny Wong. Liu goes to the CIA guy and says he wants to resign. He says he can’t teach Westerners self-hypnosis. That’s racist, but I’ll allow it. The CIA guy tells him that he won’t accept the resignation. He also says that he’s in the claws of the CIA.

Liu laments he can’t leave to Caroline. She says that he is basically a slave to the CIA and they can exercise whatever authority over him however they feel fit. Caroline suggests they escape across the border to Mexico. Pascho already knows what their plan is and uses his mind-controlled recruits to try to stop them. They fail. Liu and Caroline get into Mexico where they have a flight to Paris the next day. They have to fight off people trying to bring them back in.

It’s like a comedy movie in this section. We see Liu and Caroline in the market and they have to fight off some agents. They are in another part of the market and they have to escape agents with machine guns. Then they are on a boat where they try to get in some sexy time and there are agents scuba-sneaking onto the boat. These guys also fail… at first. One of the guys comes back onto the boat and harpoons Caroline… KILLING HER.

That, in the comic book business, is called a “Fridging”. They killed John Liu’s girlfriend to give him some motivation to return to the United States, face off against the eeeeeevil CIA, and get revenge for trapping him and killing his lady love. I guess they had to do something for the final 30 minutes of this movie.

But no… He still goes to Paris. The CIA follows and plans to eventually find out what he knows about self-hypnosis. Apparently, he’s been in Paris for… a long time? According to this subtitle from yet another undubbed scene, he’s set up a school, and already hooked up with another lady. I guess Caroline was just chopped liver.

Also, it looks like he’s kicking the shit out of the Eiffel Tower.

Yes, the CIA has people everywhere and they are watching the hell out of Liu. They track him to a part of Paris where he and his girlfriend’s daughter are going to get some ice cream. He kicks the shit out of them. Instead of worrying about the girl being safe, he just says they need to move on because he doesn’t like the other diners at this place. She also was very excited about his ass-kicking ways by egging him on to beat them up.

I’m a little curious about exactly what this part of the movie is. He meets up with his girlfriend, Gisete. He tells her he’s got to go because they’ve found him. However, she doesn’t want to talk about it and wants to sex him. She’s super sexy. So, I’m guessing this was just for John Liu to get another sex scene into this movie.

The next day, CIA agents try to capture Gisete and her son. The son starts beating up one of the guys, but he’s just a dumb kid so that doesn’t work too well. What does work is that three identically dressed women who study under Liu can kung fu with the best of them. They are able to fight off the CIA agents. Pascho gets guns for the agents and basically tells them to kill everyone. A girl goes to Liu’s dojo to tell him that Gisete got a message stating that if he doesn’t give himself up, she’ll be killed. The agents chase her and they kill the girl with the message. Gisete barges in and tries to stop the agents from killing Liu, but Pascho kills her.

John Liu is literal death for his girlfriends.

Liu swears vengeance on Pascho. He fights them off with ninja stars but doesn’t kill them. His slipperiness only pisses Pascho off more. Liu trains to try to defeat Pascho. Meanwhile, his brother, James, says he needs to come home and turn himself in and return some classified documents. I still don’t know what these documents are. I feel like I either missed something or they can’t really appropriately say that they want him for his knowledge of self-hypnosis that is apparently desperately needed to finish the kung fu training.

I’m mostly making that part up there at the end, but whatever. I just know that I’m not entirely sure exactly what the CIA really wants from John Liu. There’s a whole identity thing that happens too. John is using James’ identity to escape Paris. Meanwhile, James is headed somewhere to go to the American Embassy to plead for John’s innocence in this matter. Pascho sets a trap believing he’s ambushing John, but he and his cronies kill James instead. He sends a message to John before his plane takes off for Spain to say he’s got his brother and he needs to meet him somewhere. He tells John to go to Boulogne. There, he discovers the dead body of James. Now he wants EXTRA revenge against Pascho.

Susan shows up to tell Pascho she signed up for surveillance and she knows John Liu is just being a typical wandering tourist in Spain waiting for him to show up to finish their business. She says she has the address of a place Liu wants to meet Pascho and while she gets the address John hides in Pascho’s trunk. They meet at a shop with a lot of pottery. If they start doing kung fu, there’s gonna be a lot of broken merchandise.

That is exactly what happens because they get their big final kung fu showdown. They kick and punch each other for a bit and then… the fight just stops. We switch locations. Other CIA guys are now at an airport and Liu is waiting for them while hiding in a plane. He starts kicking and kung fuing them. He takes the colonel guy who ran the whole thing and tells him to get into a plane and prepare for takeoff. The colonel is able to distract Liu and tries to take off in the plane to escape. While Liu deals with the colonel’s lackeys, a briefcase with important documents opens up and the colonel collects the documents and locks himself in another plane to leave.

However, John fakes being shot so the Colonel comes out to check. Liu pulls out a hand grenade that was originally intended to be a booby trap for when he found his brother. It seems as though the colonel will use his last henchman to kill Liu. That henchman is Johnny Wong. Wong says it’s time for them to kung fu and they do. The two fight and do their best impression of an epic showdown as if this is Professor X and Magneto or Anakin and Obi-Wan. But thanks to a lot of kicks to the face, Johnny Wong realizes that John Liu was a good dude all along. Wong gets shot by another goon but Liu uses a quick diversion to booby trap the briefcase with the grenade so that when the CIA guys open the briefcase, it will explode.

This movie is batshit insane. That’s the only way to put it. It’s a movie I highly recommend people watch if they want a fun bad movie night kind of schlock. It doesn’t have a cohesive plot. It’s not exactly interesting because it has no cohesive plot. Some of the characters are really goofy. It’s perfectly cool with killing off anyone who becomes a love interest of John Liu. It’s barely a real movie.

That said… It’s an absolutely fascinating movie to watch. I think it’s safe to say the first three movies of this month have been pure exploitation in the most exploitation sort of ways – and with varying degrees of quality. However, Ninja in the Claws of the CIA is a whole other beast. It’s a martial arts film that is unapologetically bonkers. That gives it a special kind of quality and charm. I believe a relatively scuffed version of this movie is available through the Wu-Tang Collection channel on YouTube. I do recommend watching it. It’s 88 minutes of pure insanity and well worth a look.

Next week, we move to a less crazy but similarly kind of silly movie. We finish out a month of 2023 Vinegar Syndrome releases with Charles B. Pierce’s hokey sequel to a cult classic, Boogy Creek II: And the Legend Continues!