REVENGE OF THE NINJA (1983)
I was poking around G'naut the other day and noticed something was missing. At first I couldn't put my finger on it and then it hit me like a shuriken to the larynx....NINJAS! Where in the Hell are the ninja reviews on this site?! Nowhere. That's where! Well never fear Friends Of Ol' Gorillanaut, Moon Boy is here to help.
I really wanted to start with a run down of 1981s ENTER THE NINJA, but the video tape was somewhere in the garage...and Cousin Giacomo won't let anyone into the garage while he's trimming his mustache, so I was shit out of luck on that one. Luckily (for you), I do have a copy of the second ninja film in the Golan/Globus trilogy, 1983s REVENGE OF THE NINJA!
Admittedly, it's been a long time since I've revisited any 1980s ninja film...far too long. I had forgotten the childlike amazement I had for ninjas and all their ninja-y ways. The cool ninja outfits, the radical ninja weaponry, and don't forget the most awesome arterial spraying...it's all here in Sam (BREAKIN' 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO) Firstenberg's first foray into the wild world of ninja cinema, REVENGE OF THE NINJA! Sorry, I just can't stop saying the title... The plot is fairly simple: Cho Osaki (ninjitsu badass Sho Kosugi) is chilling in Japan when some evil ninjas show up and massacre his whole family except for his mother and infant son. And when I say massacre, I fucking mean it...his oldest boy gets a throwing star to the forehead and his wife is mercilessly stabbed to death, not by one, but by five or six ninja assassins. Bastards! Well, Cho's American business partner, Braden (played by Arthur Roberts...that's right, Mr. Johnson from 1988s NOT OF THIS EARTH), convinces Cho to take his mom and son to America to open an art gallery and escape the evil ninja's constant surprise attacks on the family land.
It's never really explained why the evil ninjas are so concerned with wiping out Cho's family, but since Cho comes from a "ninja family" I guess it all goes back-a-ways and has something to do with honor, revenge, clans, and some other serious old school Japanese things. But it doesn't really matter because Braden gets his way and Cho and his small family make the move to America and we never hear from the evil ninjas again.
Cut to six years later...Cho, Grandma Cho, and Lil' Cho (played by Sho's real life son, 9 year old Kane Kosugi) have a cool new art gallery with a nifty ninja training room in the basement so they can practice their ninja traditions. But practice is all that they'll do. You see, Cho has made it perfectly clear to his son that fighting is not going to be tolerated in America and under no circumstances will there be any ninja antics...like assassinations, espionage, stealth, camouflage, unconventional warfare, specialized weapons...you know, all the cool shit that ninjas do. Cho has even "sealed his sword"...which is totally a big deal in the ninja culture. And we all know what happens when someone (especially a certain someone who is trained in the finer arts of the "10,000 ways of death") makes a promise like that....
....It turns out that your trusted American business partner, Braden, is really smuggling heroin from the Yakuza in Japan to the Cosa Nostra in the states! And he's doing it with your help, 'cause he's using your art gallery as a way to sneak the drugs into America! What's a ninja to do?! Well, if that ninja is Cho, all there is to do is ignore all the evil doings and refuse to ninja-up...that is until his art gallery is trashed, his mother's murdered, and his son is kidnapped...by his so called friend, Braden! You see, Braden is actually a ninja himself! What the?! But he's a Gaijin? That's right...and he trained for 20 years in Japan and is a totally awesome, kabuki mask wearing, death dealing, American Ninja! But not a Michael Dudikoff-type American Ninja, oh no, Braden is all bad!
Braden had big plans on making a small fortune on all the heroin he was smuggling, but the Italian mob boss, Chifano (Mario Gallo - who you might remember as the 2nd guy to get knocked off the giant log in [the superior to all other versions] the 1976 KING KONG film), decides to cut Braden out of the action. Well, this really pisses Braden off and he starts killing off Chifano's men in typical ninja ways: killer punches to the chest, blow gun, throwing star to the eye...you know what I'm talking about. The local police get all in a tizzy about real live ninja induced deaths popping up in their fair city, so they recruit Cho to help them figure out just what in the Hell is going on.
From here on out, it's a nonstop ninja onslaught! Ninja versus ninja versus Italian gangsters verses various cops, the ex-con Village People Gang, kids, karate chicks, and a real-live double tomahawk wielding Indian! The 1980s did not disappoint with the action, kids! You'll see more ninja tricks than you can shake a bo staff at in the last 45 minutes of this fine piece of cinematic history. There's fan fighting, throwing star belt buckles, deadly star-nail spitting, smoke bombs, ninja hypnotism, and even a guy getting half of his mustache cut off.
I'm serious when I say, the final multi-rooftop fight between Cho and Braden will have you so pumped up, you'll feel the need to karate chop the next asshole who cuts you off in traffic right in his fucking throat! If you're not sure by now, I loved this movie so much, I wanted to take it out back behind the middle school and get it pregnant. Do yourself a favor and revisit any ninja film of the 1980s...you won't be sorry.
No need for thank yous...
Moon Boy