Thunder of Gigantic Serpent & Ninja Force of Assassins OST

Music scores were also an important fact that made IFD & Filmark movies interesting. Filmark movies used to credit Tom Lee as music composer / supervisor. Well, if you are familiar with Hong Kong life, you may know Tom Lee is chain of shops that sells all kind of music instruments.  You can check their website here.

In the other hand a guy named Stephen Tsang was the music supervisor at IFD. Opposite to Filmark musicians, Stephan Tsang was a real guy who has been working as music composer in many movies from the 70's to present time, some of his credits including him as sound editor in Jackie Chan's Twin Dragons. It has taken me long time to guess that Stephen Tsang was the IFD name for Chang Gong-Wa (aka Tsang Kong Wah).

 Any way, Listening the different scores used on the ninja movies produced by IFD, it seems  Mr Tsang was very  interested on New Age & electronic music.

But what it makes him very interesting for me is he chose a score titled Isadora from a Spanish group named Azul y Negro ( Blue and Black) for the title credits of Thunder of the Gigantic Serpent.

Even more interesting is the fact the same score was used on Filmark Ninja Force of Assassins opening credits. So the question is Was "Tom Lee" another name for Mr Stephen Tsang? Surely it was...but he is the only one who can confirm it. Meanwhile we only can enjoy this delicious theme in those movies

Or enjoy the original video from the spanish composers.

I am glad to know that Spanish musicians were on the mind of the makers of these two insane but greatly funny movies.

Good ninjas enjoy superb music (part 2)

The last post showed us how Stephen Tsang, music supervisor at IFD, used in a perfect way new age & progressive rock themes on most ninja movies produced by Joseph Lai. IFD was very innovative in this way because most of kung fu movies from the previous years used "can music" or they just "borrowed" some tunes from Morricone & other italian composers who made us happy with their creations for the famous spaguetti westerns.

IFD offered modern fashionable movies using old source movies ( what a paradox!!!!) containing western actors & the newest music of that time. We can tell IFD movies were Post-modern movies & Joseph Lai was a visionary & extremely smart producer.

Here you can enjoy some more examples how IFD knew how to choose the best music for its modern ninja movies.

Ninja Operation 5: Godfather the Master ( aka Power of Ninjitsu) opens with Richard Harrison doing some cool movements & "pose" while we listen a hooking melody



Stephen Tsang used a very famous tune from A-HA title The Sun always shines on TV.



Then we have Ninja Operation 2: Sword of Revenge ( aka Ninja Strike Force) that opens in a very ( really ,very very) closed way as Ninja Operation 5: Godfather the Master


But this time our pal Stephen Tsang chose a theme from Alphaville titled Sounds like a melody. The titled of the song was maybe the reason Mr Tsang took it for this Ninja movie!!!


But sadly, one day, Stephen Tsang became lazy ( well, maybe it was the copyright policy) & he decided not to use full tunes from famous groups & he went to famous movies and...



Yes,yes, the last duel of Ninja Knight: Thunderfox ( aka Ninja Empire) was scored using a tune we prevously listened at Nightmare in Elm street.



Eventually IFD music department went to TV ( the international copyright policies were becoming stronger & stronger). At the time IFD ninja movies were being produced, the coolest TV series were the several seasons of Miami Vice. So Stephen Tsang thought Miami vice ending titles score would be prefect ( and he was not wrong at all) for the most ambitious ninja movie ever produced by IFD: Ninja Operation- Knight & Warrior ( aka The black ninja).





IFD ninja movies music score history was writing in this way. I just can add it was a very smart way because those movies were scored with the popular music of that time ( middle 80's) plus the themes of big & small screen successful movies & TV series. Indeed, they were movies that could not fail in the video markets where they were being sold.

Good ninjas enjoy superb music (part 1)

If you are an avid fan of Kung fu movies & Spaguetti western, you surely noticed long time ago both genres shared similar stories, plots, chararacters & the tale how a good, innocent or idealistic man becomes into a killing machine in the search of the main topic from this kind of movies: revenge, vengeance when his world has been savagely destroyed by evilish people.

So, we didn't get surprised when we listen Ennio Morricone's scores in countless kung fu movies from the 70's. I only mention Morricone but music from dozens spaguetti westerns from different composers can be enjoyed as well. Music is a prefect link between european & asian movies that share and tell the same kind of stories in different enviroments.

Then, here IFD enters... and here IFD movies prove they were movies of their times just because of the music. Lets explain it with some examples:

Rage of a ninja offers us a new age music that fits perfectly to the action


Then we find the original music video from Clan of Xymox & I can't imagine it used in other movie.


Cobra Against Ninja also shares similar music that makes ninjas to be COOLER than they are. Cobra Against ninja also offers us a Spaguetti Western moment during the first duel seen in the credits.


Here we have the original score from Aleph in different versions.








And then we have Ninja Dragon that used a more traditional asian score for its credits.


The music was borrowed from a japanese anime titled Dagger of Kamui


Someone named Stephen Tsang was the responsible person at the music department at IFD. He was always credited as music supervisor but never as composer. Indeed he had an exquisite & refined music taste!