Ninja III: The Domination (1984)

Directed by: Sam Firstenberg

Writer: James R. Silke

 

 

After the great Revenge of the Ninja, it seemed that the producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus have found a winning formula for ninja movies. Ninja III: The Domination has the same writer and the same director as the previous movie, Sho Kosugi is here again in one of the leading roles, this time sporting a nice eyepatch over his left eye, and yet this movie is easily the weakest in the series. It's even worse than the first one.

 

The main problem, as it often happens, is a lack of quality action. Sho Kosugi is almost totally wasted here - he doesn't really start kicking ass until about one hour into the movie and only has time for one final fight with some bad guy, which was OK, but certainly nothing special. In the meantime we have some mainly uninspired killings by a girl who's possessed by some evil spirit, which leads us to another problem...

 

... which is that the story is stupid beyond belief! I don't know what kind of weed did Silke consume when he was writing this, but he made some kind of horror-action story that features evil spirits, possessions and even an exorcism! Take that, William Friedkin! Your movie may also have demons and exorcism, but it certainly doesn't have any ninjas! While I'm generally not against this kind of genre mixing, here it simply doesn't work. There's no memorable antagonist and the lame "horror" scenes consume valuable time, which could have been better used for some real ninja action.

 

Actually, the only reason to ever watch this is an amazing opening scene, which is perhaps the best sequence in the entire series. It features an evil ninja (actually another man possessed by the evil spirit or some evil sword or similar crap) killing some people on a golf course and then having an encounter with the police. You don't see such a carnage every day and it will surely fill your heart with joy to see so many dead policemen. This ninja is one mean mother and the way he kills dozens of cops with so little effort is simply amazing. For example, he gets rid of a helicopter pilot by throwing a shuriken at him with his foot (!) and kills some other cop by blowing a dart into the barrel of his gun.

 

Unfortunately, when this wonderful encounter ends, you can just turn off the movie because the best part is over. While this was the end of the Golan-Globus Ninja series with Sho Kosugi, they immediately went on to create another legendary ninja brand, American Ninja. We will talk about that one (and its sequels, of course) some other time.

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!



Enter the Ninja (1981)

Directed by: Menahem Golan

Writers: Dick Desmond (screen story and screenplay), Mike Stone (story)

We're gonna take a short break from all those horror movies and go into something completely different - a ninja movie! Having ninjas in movies warms my heart and fills it with joy. I know nothing about martial arts, but I sure like ninjas! Having said that, this movie was rather crappy :-(

 

Franco Nero plays some American guy who at the beginning kicks some serious ninja ass and kills many people, only it turns out that they're actually not dead because it was all part of his ninja training. Why would they bother with all those special effects, I have no idea. For example, his final step was to cut off the head of some old dude (apparently his teacher or something), but it turns out he didn't really do it, it was just a doll. Anyway, he becomes a ninja (sporting a cool white ninja outfit) and everyone's happy except Sho Kosugi, playing a mean spirited black ninja who, as I have understood, hates the fact that some whitey has become a ninja.

 

After finishing his training in Japan, Franco Nero travels to Philippines to visit some old friend and his wife. They own some kind of property, complete with fruit, workers and stuff, but they have problems with a rich bastard played by Christopher George, who wants to buy the land from them by force because there's oil there. Nero steps in, kills an insane amount of people and goes for Christopher George and his goofy henchmen.

 

There are two main problems with this movie: First, it can't decide whether it wants to be a comedy or straight action film. Nero is dead serious in the lead role (and he looks like Oliver Reed, too!), while Christopher George's villain is some kind of buffoon who you simply can't take seriously, which takes a lot of the impact of the action. Speaking of action, that's the second problem - there are some good fights, but there's simply not enough ninja action! Franco Nero kick ass left and right, it's true, but he rarely wears his supercool white costume. Sho Kosugi is good, but he doesn't have enough screen time. The inevitable fight between the two of them at the end is too short. So, the best part of the movie happens to be the opening credits, where some guy dressed in black (Kosugi himself, I presume) does some ninja stuff over some nice percussive music.

 

This is the first part of a "trilogy" of ninja films which have nothing in common except that all of them are produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus and have Sho Kosugi (but each time in a different role). I have already seen the "sequel", Revenge of the Ninja, and I can tell you already that it's much, much better than this one. It will be reviewed in a few days.