Mats Helge

Mats Helge, also known as Mats-Helge Olsson (born 1953) is a Swedish independent filmmaker, best known for movies such as The Ninja Mission (1984), and he is one of the most productive independent Swedish directors ever, with almost 100 titles to his résumé. He began his career with movies in the 1970s with movies the press called "lingonwesterns".

He also directed the immortal classic "I Död mans spår", with Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt and a couple of six-shooters, shot in High Chaparral in Småland, Sweden. Then he made candid camera with Per Oscarsson in Lidköping, and The Ninja Mission - which became the highest grossing Swedish movie of all time, sold to more than 54 countries all over the world, even achieving cult-status in Asia.

Then he went on to make a few movies with the famous American actor David Carradine, and action-movies like Blood Tracks, Eagle Island, Spökligan, SilverHawk, The Hired Gun, Animal Protector, The Forgotten Wells, The Mad Bunch, Fatal Secret, The Russian Terminator, Babysitter and the short-lived Robert Aschberg-series Nordexpressen.

Like the famous Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, Mats Helge also escaped from Sweden for a while, because of its socialistic oppressed regime that wouldn’t let him make free movies in the country, without giving him high taxes for no reasons.