Die 1000 Augen der Ninja

Sho Kosugi stars as Akira a closet ninja who goes back to his shadows when a mobster Limehouse(James Boothe) kills Akira's wife and almost kills Akira's son. Pray For Death is a cut above most "Ninja movies" the action is crisp and the movie is fast paced. Pray For Death may make more noise then sense, but for action fans PFD delivers the goods.

A man wants to leave his country behind and start a new life in America.

Unfortunately, he runs into gangsters that thought he stole a necklace from them. His family is in danger, and he reverts to his true calling - a ninja - to get justice.

Shô Kosugi gives us a great martial arts/revenge flick. His acting isn't the greatest, but his fists speak loudly.

He warned them, and now, they will pray for death.

Gangsters, crooked cops, and the most dangerous man in California are no match. Even the kid (Kane Kosugi) is dangerous with nun-chucks and darts.

They had to really stretch credulity at the end as he fought James Booth. He sliced thought a dozen men, but they stretched this battle out.

Springing forth sprightly from the unlikeliest of Kung Fu scriveners, James Booth, 'Pray For Death' is arguably the second best VHS-era beatdown from Cult Japanese pugilist, Shô Kosugi! The honourable Kosugi clan moves to the US in order to construct a shiny, prosperous new American Ninja Dream, only to inadvertently find themselves dangerously embroiled in the increasingly malign machinations of ruthless gangsters, due to the presence of illicit booty stashed under the floorboards of their only recently purchased business premises, their innocent lives are very soon inhospitably besieged by all manner of sinister scum and villainy!

Booth's prosaic plot is very soon overwhelmed by a fearsome flurry of mystical martial arts mayhem, as the enraged Patriarch, Kosugi unleashes his (bruised) balls-to-the-wall Master Ninja justice! Pray For Death's scintillating series of acrobatic Ninjutsu sequences are executed with brutal efficiency by nitro-Ninja, Shô Kosugi! There are still some who refute the uproarious entertainment value of a mid-eighties, Kosugi classic; but one must never be swayed by the ill-considered protestations of the sober majority! In the halcyon days of Betamax & VHS, rising video star, Shô Kosugi reigned supreme, and it would seem that in this increasingly banal era when any lumpen Hollywood popinjay can appropriate the spurious crown of action hero, one could do a whole lot worse than root down, adjust one's beer goggles, and marvel at the Ninja-tastic, 'Pray For Death', wherein the ferociously fleet-fisted, wickedly weapon-savvy, gravity defying, sword-slashing, Shô Kosugi slices n' dices a gang of bovine thugs into strips of wet sushi!!!

Sho Kosugi stars as closet ninja who becomes Ninja once again when mobsters (Searching for a priceless necklace) kill his wife and try to kill his kids, Kosugi warns the mobsters, tries cooperating and even giving clues to get the mobsters off his back but of course it just never ceases to be and because this is a ninja movie, Kosugi tries to dispatch the mobsters one by one. Pray For Death is of course a ninja movie that was better than average for the genre, reading various comments which vary in opinion, I tend to lean with the crowd who likes the movie since I myself was never bored with the movie. It certainly had a few slow moments and an action sequence which wasn't very impressive at all (Kosugi sneaking in a boat party) but there are some good action sequences (Especially the climax) and the movie moves quick enough to not concern the audience about how unlikely it all is. Still its a ninja movie and rarely do they even approach respectability. Pray For Death at least works as a guilty pleasure.

* *1/2 out of 4-(Pretty good)

It seems easy to forget that in the early days of Home Video, Sho Kosugi was very much a celebrity, making Ninja-themed movies like this. The plot is a revenge story, but the idea of Kosugi as a ninja who has hidden away his identity as such brings the film to a super-hero level as we have this man who is, along with his family harassed here in the Good Old U.S.A. because they bought a shop in an old building where some theives had hidden their loot. The action sequences are fascinating, a few interesting ninja techniques are shown and the fighting is fast and furious. Kosugi does not have the acting range, it seems, to handle heavier dramas, but he is ideally suited to the unique 80s genre of "Ninja Flick". Highly recommended. Not recommended to those fed a steady diet of computer generated "special effects" and cannot remember a time when athletic ability was required to nake a martial arts movie.