Revenge of the Ninja (1983)

All right! Man, it was this movie and a healthy diet of “How To Learn Karate” books ordered from Weekly Reader that actually brainwashed my 9 year old brain into thinking I’d soon be hopping from rooftop to rooftop, clad in black and engaged in some type of top secret ninja mission. No doubt friends, those were the fucking days. As you can tell, “Revenge of the Ninja” is a sentimental favorite of sorts. Now, I don’t profess to be an expert on ninja/kung fu flicks as that’s a bit out of my element, but what I can tell you is that this sucker is one kick-ass piece of exploitation filmmaking.

Brought to you by the Golan-Globus boys over at Cannon Films, this one is 90 minutes of straight up kung fu chop socky action. After his family is slaughtered by an evil clan of ninjas, good ninja Cho Osaki heads to L.A. with his mother and son upon the insistence of his American friend Braden. Braden and Cho plan to open an art gallery in the city featuring some fancy Japanese dolls in which Braden has filled, unbeknownst to Cho, with heroin. When the local mob outfit stiff Braden on his payments, Braden, who’s a ninja himself, starts to kill the mobsters in various ninja ways. Soon Cho and family are dragged into the mess, resulting in a big time bout for ninja supremacy between Braden and Cho.

Bad film mavens and fans of just out and out action will definitely have their hands full with this one. Cannon films were well known for churning out top-notch grade-B flicks (does that make sense?) and this one is no exception. The acting is god awful, but who needs acting chops when you get tons of karate chops? “Revenge of the Ninja” gives you a fight scene every 5 minutes or so, tons of ninja maneuvers and mayhem, a decent amount of gore, two pairs of boobs, one hell of a climatic ninja fight…all paced with a cheesy yet cool synthesizer score. Sho Kosugi kicks major ass as our good ninja, and surprisingly had a decent amount of onscreen charisma to him. The bad ninja Braden basically runs around in a silver mask and laughs rather creepily all the while offing mobsters and kidnapping Cho’s son. Along with all the ninja action there are also tons of unintentional laughs throughout, ever see a 70-year-old Japanese woman jump eight feet into the air all the while performing several back flips? If you’re a ninja’s mom you can do this type of stuff. Another scene that comes to mind has Braden changing into his evil ninja outfit in a men’s room just to kill one guy in the john…sorta made me wonder if Braden could fight without that ninja suit on. Grade-B (as opposed to A?) ninja flicks don’t come any better than this.