Revenge of the Ninja (1983)

Directed by: Sam Firstenberg

Writer: James R. Silke

That's more like it! This "sequel" to Enter the Ninja is a vastly superior movie in every possible way. Better action, better characters, more interesting story, more ninjas (!), more deaths, all in all - much more fun.

 

Of course (we'll see this again in another "sequel", Ninja III), the film opens with some cool ninja action and a massive slaughter, which, unlike the one in the previous movie, happens to be real. Some nasty ninjas invade Sho Kosugi's peaceful home in his absence and kill his entire family. He arrives on the scene with an American sidekick too late to save the dear ones, but just in time to eliminate all of the attackers. The only person that survived the massacre is his newborn son.

 

Disillusioned with the ninja lifestyle that had cost him (almost) his entire family, Kosugi accepts his American sidekick's offer to move to America. Six years later, he's indeed in America, where he runs some kind of ninja gallery. His son is now a small schoolboy, but no less an asskicker than his dad, as we will see. Right at the beginning he easily dispatches a small group (five or six, I think) of annoying American bullies, but he does much more later in the movie.

 

The last person you should trust, if you're a Japanese, is your American sidekick. Sho Kosugi's American sidekick proves this when it turns out that he's actually a vicious heroine smuggler that uses his friend's (Kosugi's, that is) ninja figures to hide the drug. Bastard! Chaos ensues when the American sidekick gets pissed off at a mafia boss who's his potential buyer. He goes on murderous rampage that you have to see to believe it. He sports a black ninja outfit, complete with a scary mask that hides his face, so we technically don't know it's him, except that we do know it's him. But what's more important, he eliminates so many people so easily that it's just insane.

 

Then the town officials get concerned that this insane bastard might eliminate the entire US population, so they enlist the help of Sho Kosugi, because only a ninja can kill a ninja (!). And by the way, that other evil ninja also kidnapped his son in the process. As you might expect, the ultimate battle between the two ninjas (both of them wearing fine black outfits, the only difference being the bad guy's mask) takes place. I won't say it's as epic as, say, Bruce Lee's fight with Karim-Abdul Jabaar in Game of Death, but it's pretty damn close. Sure, they do a bit of that silly hand stuff at the beginning, but when it gets to the actual fight, it's great. This fight is also a bit silly at times, because the evil ninja for some reason teases Sho Kosugi with some special effects. For example, he reaches out of the pool and grabs his leg and when Kosugi cuts off his arm, it turns out it's an artificial arm. Weird.

 

All in all, this is simply a must see, not only for ninja fans, but for any action lover and B-movie fan in general. Almost non stop action, great choreography, charismatic bad guy, Sho Kosugi, even a cute blonde thrown in for a good measure... everything you could possibly want from a movie!