The opening credits to this movie are really cool, because they happen while the camera is focused on a pair of hands paging through what appears to be a ninja coffee table book, full of illustrations of ninja tools, some of them familiar (throwing stars), some of them novel (to me) but easily understandable (sharp-pointed metal thimbles to be worn on fingertips for ferocious enemy-poking), and some of them utterly inscrutable (weird rope set-ups that look like they should be anchored to to a bedroom ceiling to facilitate fancy sex positions more than they seem capable of being useful assassination weapons). When the credits end, we see an old-timey ruler of some sort (it's a period piece; everyone's wearing flowing robes and crazy hats) sitting in a chair holding the book while a coterie of retainers looks on. "This is a valuable book," he says in a deliberate, dubbed voice. "I'm going to have more copies made. Until then, take good care of it." And he gives it to some dude.
We learn that the guy is General Chi, and he is in the midst of a campaign against Japanese pirates who have been looting and pillaging towns along the Chinese coast. He wears a super-funny hat with drooping attachments that make him look like Goofy. He is routinely praised as a savvy general. After some strategizing, he and his crew go out to survey a looted village, which is in bad shape - everything burning, bodies everywhere, the regular. Then, suddenly, BAM, ninjas fly in the place! Oh snap! The Chinese footsoldiers quickly form a defensive circle around Chi and some other top brass dudes who are on horses. Ninjas keep setting off low-grade fireworks and then jumping off nearby rooves, swooping toward the soldiers with swords drawn, then swooping away. Frankly, it's sort of perplexing. Then, one of them gets stabbed by soldiers, and Chi and his crew go back to their base.
Now this is something I don't quite get: I always understood that Chinese and Japanese peoples historically had some hatred and lots of racism toward each other, and the plot of this movie fits in with that (as does one of the promotional titles listed on IMDB, "Hero Defeating Japs"), but when Chi et al are discussing the day's events, they seem totally perplexed about who those pajama-wearing attackers could have been, and they only conclude they were Japanese through some roundabout process of elimination. Couldn't they just take off the mask of the dead ninja and see that he was Japanese? Whatever. Chi and his main advisor decide they're dealing with Japanese ninjas, about whom Chi seems never to have heard (despite having looked through the ninja coffee table book earlier). "What will we do to combat them?" he asks his advisor. "Well," says the advisor, as though the notion of figuring out how to take on military enemies never ocurred to him, "there is this one old guy who lives near here who studied in Japan and knows ninja arts. He's called Master of Three Styles, because [wait for it!] he has mastered three styles of kung-fu. Maybe we could talk to him?" Convenient, right? Chi thinks so. He says, "I'd like to meet this old man." Advisor is like, "Master, those ninjas are clearly trying to assassinate you. You shouldn't go out into the community." Chi contemplates this and then his son - did I mention he has a son? he does; the son looks like a Chinese John Cusack - jumps up and says, "Father, I'll go meet the dude on your behalf!" and the camera zooms in on his face while intense music plays, as though he had just said something that really mattered a lot.
So Chi's son and a buddy go to meet the old guy, and they naturally run into ninjas, who were hiding in trees. A funny thing about these ninjas is that their pajamas, in addition to being beige in this scene ('cause it's daytime, I guess), aren't full-body and form-fitting. Rather, they're kind of loose and have three-quarter-length sleeves, which makes for a sloppy look. Nevertheless, they do have cool techniques. For example, when Chi's son (known as Mr. Chi, rather than General Chi) rides past a ninja's hiding place, the ninja shoots a little note with a bow and arrow to some other ninjas up ahead, who retrieve it, read the note, and in this way know that Mr. Chi is coming, Nextel direct-connect style. So they ambush Mr. Chi, and he fights them off a while and maybe the guy he came with gets killed, but I don't really remember, but then the ninjas abruptly go away (ninjas!) so he just keeps walking and immediately comes on the Master of Three Styles, who somehow knew he was coming (old guys!).
The old guy explains ninjas to Mr. Chi, saying that they are all trained in eight deadly arts, which he lists. I don't remember them all, but they definiteley included stealth, quickness, nimbleness, and gunpowder. But then, after listing the eight apparently essential ninja skills, he just goes on: "They are also very good at hand-to-hand combat, and escape." So is it ten skills no, MOTS? Chi doesn't press the issue. But after this brief rundown, MOTS is like, "Well, that's what I know about ninjas." So Mr. Chi is like, "Well, how do we beat them?" and now MOTS does like Gen Chi's advisor, and acts as though that question never would have occurred to him. "Hey," he suddenly says. I did one time train these three dudes in kung fu, except I trained each of them in only one of my three styles, and I did it separately, and they've never met, but they know the other ones exist and I've taught them a sign so they can recognize each other. Maybe they could help you." Chi, naturally, thinks this is a capital idea, and sets out to find the three. (The three specialties of these three fighters are armor-making, hand-to-hand combat, and climbing.)
I guess that when this epic took place, inter-town travel wasn't too frequent, because without any clues, Mr. Chi heads to a town and finds one of the trainees. At the time, the trainee is involved in dice game, and then a fight breaks out between the proprietor of the dice and some other dudes, and it's fairly convoluted, in terms of who is fighting whom, but then the trainee (who has a crazy, girly haircut with long bangs) is somehow on the ground in the midst of it, stealing people's money and tripping the fighters. He's the hand-to-hand combat one, we gather, because he is very good at quick, casual, awesome kung fu moves. Chi notices, and when trainee #1 and his confederate start to run away from the fight scene, Chi intercepts them.
After that, some other stuff happened, but I watched the movie a really long time ago and I've forgotten the rest. It was confusing.
