Trailer
Plot summary
Two weeks before his sixteenth birthday, Johnny and his younger brother Adam live in Los Angeles with Mac, a Marine veteran. Johnny surfs; Adam plays a handheld video game. Ninjas raid the house, and a warrior named Zatch, who wears an eye patch, beats them back. A second raid leaves Mac captured, and Adam sees the events around him mirrored on his game screen. Zatch then tells the brothers they are the sons of the king of Patusan, an island state whose throne Colonel Chi seized when they were small, and that their destiny is to return and free its people. In a Los Angeles district called Little Patusan, Johnny meets Ro-May, the princess betrothed to him since infancy. Ninjas attack again, and Johnny's fighting skill as a warrior prince appears.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Surf Ninjas (1993)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- New Line Cinema and Sega of America established a financial relationship in which a Game Gear video game would be developed for the film; designers began work on Surf Ninjas when the film was only in its scripting phase, receiving creative input from director Neal Israel, and Sega partially financed the film in turn.
- Chris Pula, the president of theatrical marketing at New Line, released the film early in Evansville for its family-oriented audiences, the first time a major film was released there before its national opening without any local ties; he said "Evansville is traditionally a strong family market".
- The Surf Ninjas video game was released in August, before the film's release, and it was considered the first movie-based video game to precede the film itself.
- Stephen Hunter of The Baltimore Sun thought the film's lead, Ernie Reyes Jr., was too old at 20 and too muscular to be received believably as a 15-year-old, though he otherwise found the Reyeses impressive in terms of their fighting skills.
- Surf Ninjas was filmed during the summer of 1992, with filming locations including Thailand and Hawaii; the second half of the film was shot first, and the crew then moved to Los Angeles to film the first half.
