80's Ninja Movies Retrospective Part 1: Enter the Revenge of the Domination

About a month ago, I was watching the awesome new HD channel on satellite called MGMHD, and they started playing the Cannon Films classic from 1981, "Enter the Ninja". I had a blast watching that movie, because at the time it came out I was about 8 years old and I didn't see it till a few years later, and by that time the 80's Ninja craze was at an all time high. Now these movies were never any good as far as deep cinema goes, but as a kid I wanted to be a ninja because of these movies. How could you not want to put on the black outfit and take out dudes with stars, swords, blow darts, and other assorted weapons. I even went over to an older kid's house one time where he had built a Ninja fort which had weapons and a throwing star range. He even showed us some secret ninja magazines that were not available in the states where you could purchase secret Ninja weapons from Japan. Suffice to say I did not become Ninja, I did however take Tae Kwon-Do in college and got a belt or two. But the one thing I always dug no matter how bad they were were the 80's Ninja movies. So this will be a 3-part retrospective of those movies I thought were cool back in the day.



This retrospective will not cover any Asian made ninja movies, that is a whole other ball of wax. This will cover just the American made ninja movies. Part 1 covers the original Cannon Films trilogy starring Sho Kosugi that began with Enter the Ninja, Revenge of the Ninja, and Ninja III:The Domination. Part 2 will cover Cannon's American Ninja films 1-4. (We don't count part 5..more on that later) Part 3 will be an assortment of Ninja films, like Rage of Honor, Pray for Death, The Octagon, and 9 Deaths of the Ninja. So let's throw some smoke bombs and do this.



ENTER THE NINJA (1981)

This is the first Ninja movie I probably ever layed eyes on. And its sad to think that, because it really isn't the greatest ninja movie ever. As a kid it was a lot of fun. So this movie stars Italian actor Franco Nero from "Django". If you had seen "Django", a (spagetti western classic) before you saw this, you might not like this movie. I didn't so it didn't bother me at the time. Now that I've seen Django recently in fact, going back and seeing Nero in Ninja is odd. In "Django" Nero was a very slow moving loner, but could shoot fast when needed. In Enter he is a back flipping ninja with super human martial arts skill. So it's a bit of a leap of faith. (no pun intended) This films starts with Nero as the white Ninja being chased in Japan by a bunch of red Ninja and a evil black Ninja played by the legendary Sho Kosugi. Franco playing a Vietam vet is in his final test of becoming the first American ninja, even though he is Italian... stay with me. The black Ninja is upset because he thinks it is against tradition to let an ex-spagetti westerner to become a Ninja. The head Ninja in charge disagrees and allows him to become a Ninja. Nero packs his white suit up and heads to the Phillippines to chill with his land mogul Nam buddy who happens to have a hot wife played by Susan George. A crazy real estate gangster played by Christopher George tries to bully his buddy into giving him his land which sets in motion the conflict. Nero destroys about 80 of George's henchmen before the 50 minute mark.



George sends someone to Japan to find his own Ninja to fight Nero. They of course find Sho and he comes back for the final confrontation. Some of my favorite scenes include Nero's buddy telling him that he can't "get it up" anymore for his hot wife, Susan George. So instead of saying hey its all good man, just keep trying, Nero goes back to his best buddy's house and does his wife, so she won't have to suffer anymore. WOW! Great friends are hard to find. As expected the Nam buddy dies before the hands of the evil Ninja played by Sho Kosugi, but not before a Nam flashback reveals that he saved nero's life back in Nam, setting up a final battle in some sort of elaborate cock fighting ring. And this is another of my favorite scenes here as Christopher George who demolishes all scenery in his award winning performance as the bad guy. I mean this has to be the worst acting I have ever seen...



At then end Nero wins and all is right with the world as expected with a Django Ninja in the Phillippines. Now the fighting scenes are what people payed money to see these things at the time. There are some cool Ninja fighting scenes, by 80's fighting standards I suppose, but those mostly are the ones involving Sho Kosugi. Nero was in fact in no shape to be a Ninja. So his fighting scenes were all doubled by fight choreographer Mike Stone. The film is directed Menahem Golan who was half of the Golan/Globus producing giant, Cannon Films. His direction here is sub-par at best. He just kind of sets the camera down and waits for shit to go down. Very little energy.

On my Ninja scale I give this 2 throwing stars and half a blow dart. Enter the Ninja is not on DVD, so if you see it on VHS somewhere, grab it, it might go for something on ebay. Enjoy one more Christopher George performances please...



REVENGE OF THE NINJA (1983)



In this follow-up to Enter the Ninja, we go a new route and find Sho Kosugi playing a different character this time around in Japan protecting his family by deadly Ninja's. While Sho is chatting with his buddy Dave, a group of Ninjas show up and kill his entire family except his baby boy. Dave tells Sho that he must go to America to get away from the Ninja insanity that is his life to protect his son from any future Ninja attacks. So he does of course. Because all Ninjas must eventually live in L.A. and open some sort of store that will get robbed. Now Sho teaches his son, played by his real life kiddo the art of the Ninja but not to practice it on people, only honor the tradition. WHATEVER! This little dude can ball! He kicks four little kid's asses then beats the shit out of his Dad's big breasted girlfriend. In fact this actress continues the tradition of bad Ninja acting... Oh it hurts me!



This movie still suffers from stiff direction although new director Sam Firstenberg has a better feel for the action this time out. Being his first feature he has some nice sequences here with Sho taking the baddies downtown and back again. There are some decent fight scenes and a cool van chase. There are stars to the head, more exploding smoke balls, and by far the best scene in the film, torture by by hot tub jets. Classic. Sho fights his friend Dave, who of course happens to be a Ninja and has been shipping heroin in Sho's Japanese antique dolls. This is just a thought, but if you were a Ninja and you had a best friend, wouldn't you know he was a Ninja too? The final battle takes place on top of a roof in LA on a Tennis court... Yes a Tennis court. Is there a deep meaning here? No, it's just a Tennis court.



Sho is good here. His acting is horrible, but so is everyones. What set's this movie apart from the others, is Sho and his skills as the Ninja. Much more believable than Franco Nero in the original. I give this one 3 throwing stars and dirt with leaves to the face. Revenge of the Ninja is available on dvd so you can netflix that bitch or buy it on the cheap HERE.

NINJA III:THE DOMINATION (1984)



"No thanks I don't use soft drinks." This classic line of dialog is just one of so many in my favorite titled film in the Cannon Ninja trilogy. I couldn't find this one anywhere around town, and let me tell you i think I would rather ask for the porn, Manhammer than Ninja III:The Domination again at the video store. I had to search deep into the web to find a copy of this one. But alas I have it! The Domination!!! Ninja III has nothing to do with the other two as far as I can tell. But let me tell you something, you have NEVER seen a Ninja film like this. This film is FAR out there. I'll try my best to sum it up...

Lucinda Dickey, star of director Firstenberg's "Breakin' 2: Electric Bugaloo" stars as Christie a telephone pole repair person that finds a Ninja that has just survived about 10,000 bullet hits from the police and is possesed by the dying Ninja's spirit. Yes this ninja is supernatural people. So now we got ourselves a female Ninja. Well she keeps the sword and reports the dead Ninja to the cops. This is where we get this stirring scene of drama...



Soon she discovers her ass kicking skills by fending off goons outside a gym. She then falls in love with one of the cops that killed her previous Ninja self. As the killings around the city mount, Sho Kosugi is called in to kick bitchy ninja ass. This time he does not play himself from Enter or Revenge but a new character named, Yamada who wears a strange eye patch. Christie lives in a VERY 80's art deco place and even has her own arcade game inside. One night after screwing the cop, a glowing sword floats out of the closet on two strings. The next night the arcade game comes on and she is possessed again by the spirit of the Ninja only this time its "Tron" style...check this out!



Next she goes out and kills some more cops responsible for the death of her Ninja spirit. Now if getting possessed by a video game isn't enough fun for you it gets even awesomer. She goes to some S&M dungeon where James Hong (Blade Runner and Lopan from Big Trouble in Little China) tries to perform an exorcism on her. So now we have a female video game possesed exorcism crazed ninja non-soft drink using beotch. But fear not, Sho is on the way.

I did learn some things about a Ninja's skill level in this film. First, when doing a standing back flip over a ten foot high chain length fence it is necessary to remove your leather jacket before doing so. Second, If you are a Ninja attending the funeral of a cop that you killed it is good to hide in the trees and assassinate as many other cops as you can using your bow and arrow while they all fall into the same grave. Good use of surrounding resources. When fighting Sho Kosugi you might want to mention you starred in Breakin' 2: Electric Bugaloo. Who knows, he could be a fan.



Christie and Sho battle in a Shaolin Monk temple in the end and she turns into a Zombie Ninja and then turns the monks into an army of living dead kung-fu fighters against the mighty Sho. As silly as this movie is, it really is entertaining from all the horrendous 80's cliches of headbands, aerobic leggings, and bad synth scores it's too much fun to not recomend. Director Sam Firstenberg has a better feel for the action this time around. Sure it's ludricras from start to finish, but who gives a crap it's a Ninja movie!The only way this movie could have gotten four throwing stars is if during the final battle Sho told Christie that the Ninja spirit inside her was in fact Sho's gay lover. Now that's an ending. You can't get this movie anywhere unless you find it on an old VHS from '85. On ebay it was going for upwards of 80 bucks!



This is the end of part 1 covering the Cannon Ninja trilogy. There are reports of a new Ninja movie that will be called "Return of the Ninja" with Sho returning to his most famous part. But nothing new has been on that front for years it seems. Keep your fingers crossed! Look for Part 2 of the Ninja Retro soon!