I'll take a sack of black powder and your best throwing stars

Where have all the ninja’s gone? I ask you this because there is a seriously steep drop off of in quality ninja movies. Gone are the days when I would sneak out of bed late at night to watch HBO and maybe catch something with Michael Dudikoff because if I did I was guaranteed a least a few throwing stars and if I stayed up long enough I might be to see the final duel. The final duel always consisted of one man usually with a rocking mullet or man perm taking on the entire population of the Philippines. For some reason these movies took place there, must be because they used the Islands as a pseudo Vietnam for the majority of ‘80s action/war movies and Imelda needed the money to buy all her shoes.

Now people can say well the Ninja’s have just moved to cyber space. There is a whole virtual war between Pirates and Ninja’s because if you didn’t get the memo they don’t like each other. I want the celluloid ninja’s the cheesy 50K budget movie that had bad dubs and actors that looked like they just got off the boat.

I really have no idea what this post is essentially about I just wanted to shed some light on the ninja. And give my personal favorite ninja movies that must be seen. For the more cultured people in the lodge you might scoff at this but I am not looking for the next big thing from Japan or Asia I want to talk about the crap I watched on cable back when cable was still taboo, when you had to watch the playboy channel through the squiggly lines.

So here is my stab in no particular order.

1. ENTER THE NINJA (1981): Basically what I remember about this is it stars Franco Nero. He plays an army vet who goes through “ninja training” then helps eliminate the bad guys from a Pilipino farm. The movie is dubbed for some reason since I think most of the cast spoke English. The dub is a little off but that just adds to the quality factor.

2: REVENGE OF THE NINJA (1983): Wow, what is better than a group of immigrants moving to the US to start a new life and open a doll shop? Well its better when you add a drug smuggling ring that is using the dolls to ship heroine. This can only lead to one thing those immigrants got to use there ancient ninja skills to drop a few round houses. The swords and stars fly and so does the body count. The only real drawback is that it wasn’t filmed in the Philippines.


3: AMERICAN NINJA (1985): I think the tag line says it all… The Orient created the world’s deadliest art. Now there is an American Master. Norris himself was originally cast to play the lead but for some reason passed on it to do we can only hope Bradock: Missing and Action 3. Michael Dudikoff plays the master in a movie that spawned numerous sequels. Also it was directed by Sam Firstenberg, the master of ninja movies. He later went on to direct Breakin’ 2 electric bugaloo.


These movies made the train who he is today. For a period of about 3 years I couldn’t go anywhere unless I had my plastic throwing stars and sword. Not to mention my sleek black ninja uni-tard. I doubt any of these movies are on DVD but you might catch them late on a weeknight and for that I still love America.