Martial artist/DIY filmmaker William Lee's Super 8 epics get the Bleeding Skull treatment in American Genre Film Archive's Blu-ray of TREASURE OF THE NINJA AND THE FILMS OF WILLIAM LEE.

When ousted archeologist-turned-millionaire madman Stephen Chase threatens the U.S. government-funded expedition of Dr. Melissa Stewart to find the lost treasure of Kamchia, the government brings in martial artist CIA agent Magneta Faze (Lee) and his fourteen-year-old genius partner Monique to root out the spy who is leaking information to Chase. While Monique goes with Stewart and her partner Dr. Robert Richards to Kamchia, Faze is too busy battling formidable ninja El Kazi when the expedition disappears, so a gun-toting female detective duo is sent to rescue them instead. Faze eventually ends up in Kamchia, and just in time, since Stewart and Chase discover that the legend of zombie ninjas that protect the treasure is indeed true.

A Super 8 film shot any and everywhere in New York on weekends and edited with public access TV studio equipment, TREASURE OF THE NINJA is an epic 105 minutes of exposition – with a handful of actors dubbing several characters since the film was shot silent without even a guide track – punctuated by fight scenes of varying degrees of excitement. While the film might not have a wide appeal, it is quite obvious that Lee's affection for Chinese martial arts films and his exposure at the time to the English versions carries over to the film in the exaggerated foley effects, stilted dubbing, and the use of library music cues in the style of those sometimes stolen and used in the Asian originals or used to replace them in the U.S. prints. That's not to say that boredom may not set in for viewers who are now just awed by the fact someone with more enthusiasm than resources would just set out and make a movie with a large cast and variety of locations, however it turned out. Director Lee made one more direct to video film in 1991 titled EDGE OF TOLERANCE, becoming part of the faculty of the University of Louisville, and resuming his DTV career 2003 and is still going with his latest release in 2020 and IMDb listing a couple in-production projects.

Edited and finished on 3/4" videotape, TREASURE OF THE NINJA was released to VHS in 1988 in limited quantities on Lee's Cinema Lexzikon Productions label, and again in an actual limited edition by Massacre Video in 2014. American Genre Film Archive's 1080i60 MPEG-4 AVC 1.33:1 pillarboxed fullscreen transfer is derived from the 3/4" tape master with the expected limitations of the format in addition to an eighties Kmart processing of a Super 8 source and TV station telecine. Shadow detail is almost nonexistent as a result of the location lighting and highlights blow out (although the ninja whites remain relatively stable), but there really is little that could have been done to improve the master. The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono audio fares better with entirely post-synched dialogue, foley effects, and scoring that is most lively during the theme song renditions (in contrast to the library cues). Optional English SDH subtitles are also provided.

The film is accompanied by an audio commentary by Lee moderated by Bleeding Skull's Annie Choi and Joseph A. Ziemba in which the director is "in on the joke" about the film's shortcomings while Choi and Ziemba convey an affection for it as well as awe at his achievements with only available resources. He discusses his affection for martial arts films, his training, his film schooling, and working at a television station where he was caught by his boss shooting some of the film (which ended better than his guerilla shooting at his school). He also discusses the technical aspects of shooting on Super 8 and the frustration of not being able to know what needed to be reshot until he got the "dailies" back from Kmart processing.

The 1987-lensed TREASURE OF THE NINJA was not actually Lee's first feature film, and his unreleased 1984 film DRAGON VS NINJA is not only more coherent but seems more accomplished even if it is not as ambitious. When dojo master Chun decides to leave his school to favored pupil Will (Lee), his son Ray hires ninja assassins to take both of them out. Chun and Will's girlfriend Tracee are killed in the ambush while Will is rescued and nursed by Miko and the inhabitants of the Lun Tong temple (just down the river from Burbank). Ray is sitting pretty until his younger sister Cherone reveals her hatred for her father and pays the ninjas to take out Ray as well, with the promise of a share in a hidden treasure, half of the map of which is in the possession of Will. As Cherone sends her ninja force to take on the temple, Will trains in the art of the ninja to avenge his master and his girlfriend. Far more straightforward in terms of its familiar plot, DRAGON VS NINJA may actually be the film where Lee worked through his mere reverence for martial arts movies and decided to make something more ambitious and "complex" with TREASURE OF THE NINJA; indeed, the latter film may be the one the viewer is more likely to revisit.