Review of American Ninja (1985) by Tina C — 02 Mar 2010

"Have you ever heard of ninjutsu sir?".

"What's that?".

"The secret art of assassination.".

"Yeah of course I have!".

"Well according to witnesses testimony and evidence, this massacre was the work of ninjas.".

God bless Guich Koock and the late Steve James for delivering that little gem with straight faces and God bless The Cannon Group for their penchant in the 1980's for releasing wave upon wave of the cheesiest action movies you'll ever see in your life. Combine this with the 80's ninja craze and you get something along the lines of American Ninja.

The story sees a young US Army private by the name of Joe, who was given the choice of joining up or going to jail (cliche #1. The first of many...), stationed in the Philippines. Unknown to everyone, including himself since he suffers from amnesia (!), he was found in the jungle as a child and trained in the art of kick-ass by a Japanese soldier who didn't know the war was over (!). Soon enough he becomes entangled in the shady dealings of his corrupt superiors and a local crime lord who protects his gun smuggling operation with a personal ninja clan (!!). Cue lots of ridiculous action sequences including vehicles chases (naturally vehicles explode for no apparent reason and there are always lots of random ramps, fruit carts and other obstacles around so we can have some cool stunts), ninja ambushes, shootouts and of course the Final Showdown (tm) where the last tiny morsels of reality that remain are thrown out of the nearest window. Yes it's a classic OTT Cannon cliche-a-thon but that's what makes it so much fun and since you've got ninjas thrown in for good measure, flipping out and killing people with all manner of traditional ninja weapons: sais, katanas, shuriken... as well as some that are not so traditional: miniature flamethrowers (!) and laser cannons (?!!!)... "awesome" doesn't even begin to describe it.

When Cannon regular Chuck Norris became unavailable for the lead role - and I'm not even kidding about that - they decided to replace him with the relatively unknown Michael Dudikoff... who sucks. Luckily though his lack of fighting skills and any kind of personality or charisma is made up for by the sheer audacity of action sequences as well as the ninja factor and the ever-present cheesiness. Dudikoff is joined by a classic selection of cliched characters including Steve James as the tough black sidekick, Guich Koock as the grouchy Army Colonel, Judie Aronson as the whiny bitch/love interest (you're crazy if you didn't think there was a soppy love sub-plot), Don Stewart as the crime boss, Tadashi Yamashita as the evil ninja leader (who's completely awesome by the way) and John Fujioka as the wise old ninja master.

Saying this movie is merely "entertaining" simply doesn't do it justice. You'll be laughing and hollering all the way through. It's epic, cheesy, ninja-flavoured 80's excess at its finest.