Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles “A Chinatown Ghost Story”
Hey, look, guys! We got another new show to review! See what I think of the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode, “A Chinatown Ghost Story,” after the jump!
There are just some tropes that never go away, “damsel in distress” being one of them. This week, April is the damsel, and she needs to get saved from a ghost sorcerer named Ho Chan. Please, stop me if you heard this before. However played out this plot is, it wasn’t a bad retelling of the trope.
Nick’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles celebrates the original cartoon in a lot of different ways, and that’s what hooked a lot of the older viewers. Let’s take this for an example. Ho Chan was telling the three goons from the Purple Dragons where to find a girl with the powers needed, and delivered what was probably the line of the night. “I see a girl with red hair and a yellow jumpsuit, no, it’s just a t-shirt.” It’s nuances like this that make the adults who grew up with the Turtles appreciate this version a bit more. Don’t worry, we still don’t talk about the early 2000’s Turtles.
One of the best things that the show has going for it, is that TMNT doesn’t take itself too serious, nor does it make itself look completely retarded from being too silly. For instance, not everyone had the silly demeanor that Mikey has. Leo is serious, Raph is an angry rage-case, and Donnie is a tech-head. That was one of the major reasons the early 2000’s series was so bad. Each of the turtles acted the same. That’s great for an episode or two, but for whole seasons, that can get really grating.
In case you didn’t notice it yet, this episode was heavily influenced by one of the oddest movies to come out of the the 1980’s, Big Trouble in Little China. It ran so deep, James Hong voiced Ho Chan. So, do you want to go meta? Ho Chan was inspired by Hong’s character, David Lo Pan in Big Trouble. If you are a fan of Big Trouble in Little China, watch “A Chinatown Ghost Story.” It’s a worthy satire of the movie.
I wasn’t a real fan of April at first, mainly because she looks like a 12 year old kid. Barely a teenager, she trains with the Turtles to hone her ninja skills. The only redeeming quality is that the writers gave April an ability to see into a human, or Mutant’s soul, and that became the reason Ho Chan needed April so he can become human again. This is cool, for now, but sets up the silly plot hook of April being an alien or something.
Speaking of April, the very minor plot line of Casey and Donnie trying to one-up each other to win April’s favor. Of course, this leads to the Purple Dragon members to escape with a dagger, and April gets pissed at them. Somehow, April ends up going out with Casey, just to get nabbed by the now superpowered Purple Dragon members. Most of “A Chinatown Ghost Story” is the feud between Donnie and Casey. It seemed to me that April’s affection was worth more screen time than April herself. While I really enjoyed “A Chinatown Ghost Story,” there was too much emphasis on Donnie and Casey feuding over April, just to have this feud to seemingly end at the end of the episode.
Overall, “A Chinatown Ghost Story” was a good episode to watch, in spite of the overuse of tropes. It reinforces the feeling that this new Turtles series is a worthy successor to the 1987 series. The season ends in a couple of weeks, and no one knows if Nick will keep a steady show on at this time slot. TMNT is the third show in about eight weeks to be in this slot, with very little success. TMNT has some promotions, so the show is that much further along than what Korra had for the same time.
