If you were alive in the late ‘80s, you’ll remember that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were all the rage. If you were a youngster in that era, you probably even saw the Turtles movies in theaters. However, you probably haven’t seen this South Korean rip-off that actually beat the first Turtles movie to theaters by about a year. Sure, it’s bad, but it’s better than about half of the movies in the “official” Ninja Turtles series.
A space princess and her team of Turtles are being pursued across the galaxy by the evil Shark Gang. Their ship crash lands on Earth where they are befriended by a young Taekwondo expert, a bumbling idiot, and a kid with telekinetic powers. Eventually, they all team up to put an end to the Shark Gang’s tyranny.
The Turtles costumes aren’t bad, all things considered. They look almost identical to the Playmates action figures and resemble a high-end Party City costume rental. In fact, they’re the most memorable thing about this spotty would-be cult item.
To be fair, there’s a lot of memorable stuff here. Like the fact that the so-called “Shark Gang” are actually rat-men (who look like Master Splinter, if you can believe it). Or the fact that the space sequences, mech battles, and flashbacks are shown in the form of stolen footage from a Go-Bots cartoon. There is also one legitimately funny scene where a kid dresses up like a vampire to scare his friends, and the Turtles, thinking he is the default human form, transform themselves into vampires to “blend in” with the earthlings.
As much goofy shit is in this movie, the highlights are just too infrequent to certify it as a WTF masterpiece. It would, however, make for a good Copywrite Infringement Triple Feature with The Dragon Lives Again and 3 Giant Men. It’s not quite the camp classic I hoped it would be, but the crappy movie connoisseur in me is certainly glad I saw it. I mean, how can you not want to see it with screengrabs like this:
