Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

zellwood I own the DVD. I had to have it. It is just unfortunate that this piece of cinematic brilliance (Use your own judgment) only screened once in New Zealand (and as an ARTS film ?!?) when it received accolades in countries such as Finland and Bulgaria! I recommend it to anyone with a NZ sense of humor and also anyone who liked Kung Pow. I recommend it to all my friends. Then I hear that they recommended it to all their friends as well. I am still waiting for someone to tell me they did not like this move.Be sure to check out the special features too. Lord of the Ring's Peter Jackson displays a rare view of his acting talent. If he is for this movie - you should be too!

AwesomeWolf I know I use the word 'awesome' a lot, I just happen to watch a lot of crazy awesome movies. I can't help it. I don't actively seek them out, they just find a way of ending up on my TV or in my DVD player. Anyway, where was I? 'Awesome'. I use the word 'awesome' frequently, and I'll admit that I'm not even using it correctly in more than a few cases. However, 'awesome' is my way of indicating a given movie's coolness level, and such a little word is so much more descriptive than a silly rating system involving numbers and stars. For example, I believe I rated 'Wild Zero' as 10 stars, 'Versus' as 9 stars, and 'Battlefield Baseball' as 8 stars, but I do believe I said each one is awesome. Numbers are so inaccurate, and can't describe such movies. 'Awesome' is so much more descriptive.Now you may be asking "But how does all this relate to 'Tongan Ninja'?". Well, you see Billy, any number I give to 'Tongan Ninja' would be grossly unfair, as it would not be taking both the awesomeness of 'Tongan Ninja' and its value as a movie into account (see my review of 'Killer Meteors'. However, if I were to simply say 'Tongan Ninja' is crazily awesome, that would say so much more: it would say that anyone easily amused will enjoy it, and then people of any class and refinement should avoid it entirely.'Tongan Ninja' is crazily awesome.Sione (Sam Manu) is the Tongan Ninja. As a child, he survived a plane crash caused by Marvin (Jemaine Clement), who has since grown up to be an evil ninja and Sione's rival. Marvin makes it a point to frequently remind Sione that Sione's father survived, only to be eaten by a fish. The adult Sione is sent to New Zealand by their ninja mentor, Master Magasaki, to protect a restaurant in true 'Way of the Dragon' style. But the evil ninja Marvin is not far behind...In all its crazy awesomeness, 'Tongan Ninja' is a spoof on old kung-fu movies. Hell, the plot is taken from Bruce Lee's 'Way of the Dragon', just with some extra creative license. Its a funny movie, messing around with the stereotypical plot elements (dead fathers, "I am your father", the greatest fighter of whatever style), bad dubbing, and making most of the very limited budget they had instead of trying to hide from being cheap. The fight scenes serve to amuse as comedy, not as true fight scenes, and the action goes way over the top but manages to stay funny throughout the movie.Cheap and wacky, 'Tongan Ninja' isn't obviously going to appeal to everyone. However, anyone who likes their movies cheap and wacky (not to mention crazily awesome) will enjoy this.

Michael Clough I accidentally stumbled across this film while pay-TV channel surfing & I was left in stitches of this high farce. This film really does fall into the category of "it's so bad it's good".The great thing about Tongan Ninja is that it doesn't take itself seriously, it knows that it is cheap, silly & instead of trying hide from this cheapness, it revels in it.Dodgy stunts, bad & unnecessary dubbing, bad guys giving a runny commentary of themselves being beaten up by Tongan Ninja, a love story and a fearsome looking All Blacks rugby star, Tongan Ninja has it all! Catch it if you get the chance & leave your brains at the door.

mweston This is a wonderful parody of Hong Kong action films, and also of "Star Wars," "Titanic," Quentin Tarantino, and probably many other things I've forgotten.The film starts with two kids in an airplane piloted by the father of one of them, somewhere over the south Pacific. Marvin is not the pilot's son and is clearly Trouble--he refuses to stop kicking the back of the seat in front of him. Sione is the son of the pilot, and grows up to become the title character under the training of Master Magasaki. He doesn't *seem* much like a Ninja, though. He's more like a big, bumbling kid.The look is intentionally that of a low budget Asian action movie, which is probably at least partially motivated by the fact that *this* film has a low budget. None of the acting is very good, many of the characters are dubbed (badly, for effect), and it looks like it was shot on video. In one particularly funny scene, you see a microphone stick down into the shot, and you think that it is a mistake. The second time, you decide it's probably intentional, at which point you see one of the characters on screen reach up, grab the microphone boom, and begin to use it as a weapon.But wait! There's more! It's also a musical! And a floor wax! No, not really a floor wax, but it is a musical, complete with an Elvis, and with go-go dancers who suddenly appear for a musical number and just as suddenly disappear.This is a film of continuous little jokes, like a Ninja having to move his mask each time he wants to take a drink. Think of it like "Airplane!" for the 21st century.Seen on 11/8/2002 at the 2002 Hawaii International Film Festival, where an earlier showing was the U.S. premiere. Assuming it gets home video or theatrical distribution, you should definitely seek it out.