American Ninja

If you are watching this movie expecting anything more then action then you're a bit touched in the head. Action indeed, but a special form of action! IT'S 80'S ACTION! All that's missing from this show is "I love it when a plan comes together", as offered by the immortal Hannibal Smith from "The A-Team" as played by the venerable George Peppard.

Make no mistakes. This movie is le grande fromage, but it is fun. Even the super evil ninja with the cute little star tattooed below his right eye is downright adorable. Who doesn't like cute ninja's? Even those with lasers? Highly recommended (if you have enough booze and detach yourself from any form of realism). Fun.

For those who know Michael Dudikoff, he most-likely became a household name thanks to this movie. Who knows where he would be today had Chuck Norris not passed on the film. (Probably busy as a child psychologist since that's what he originally wanted to be). This is a film I virtually grew up with as a kid, thanks to it being on cable seemingly every other day. Anyway, Dudikoff finally got his shot at headlining a movie with this cheapo chop socky flick about an Army G.I. in the Philippines going up against a secret Ninja army and an international weapons dealer. Dudikoff is at his most wooden in the this part, but as someone who's a fan and has see nearly all his movies, I can see the progression of him as an actor over the years, and he has certainly improved since this movie. Steven James co-stars in the first of three collaborations with Dudikoff, and the two work well together, but they're basically the best part of the movie. There's the usual B-movie acting, ranging from stiff to lame over-the-top performances, but pretty co-star Judie Aronson fares well. Of interest only to chop socky fans.

Yes this is unrealistic and far fetched and whatever word you wanna call it, but its fun. Dudikoff is a speechless loner in the army. In the first five minutes a convoy is hijacked and big Mike defends everyone all by himself, one of many good, if unbelievable, sequences in the movie. Several times Dudikoff is asked to dispatch small armies of ninjas and even though its too Superman-ish, they're nicely choreographed, so you just sit back and shake your head smiling. There's also good chemistry from Dudikoff and James, his buddy through the whole thing. And this probably sets a record for most crushed testicles in a movie, as there are several moments when theyre grinded with heels, knees, or palms. I still laugh 14 years later when James gives the "saw" to a bad dude (or was he saying "sir?"). According to Joe Bob Briggs, this set a record for most deaths in a movie with over a hundred. Even without counting that wouldnt surprise me, though some movie expert claims that Chuck Norris' "Invasion USA" holds the record for most dead, which came out the same year. What a double-bill that would be. This gets my vote for best martial arts film of the 80s.

I think this should be required viewing for any male child 13 years or younger. I have no idea how many times I saw this movie growing up, but it is easily over 15 times. Maybe twice that. It has everything a boy who plays with action figures could want, NINJA's, G.I.Joe's (for god sakes his name was even Joe), lasers, flips, sai's, cat's claws, wrist lasers, machine guns, sword fights while in knee deep water (fights in water are always WAY cool), buff dudes with muscles, motercycles, a chick, characters with a disrespect for authority, a butterfly knife being flipped back and forth as Joe cooly leans against a truck, guys getting kicked in the nuts, did I mention flips? Anyway it goes on and on. All the cheesy effects make it all the more fun to view. I just watched the DVD after not having seen it for a few years and I just caught another good effect. When Joe and Patricia jump off the roof, there is an obviously inflated balloon on the roof that they land on. I remember my brothers and I putting sweat wrist bands on our hands as a child and pretending they were the cat's claws thingies that the black star ninja and Joe had. We had some awesome battles. I was probably a ninja for at least 3 Halloweens when I was a child as well. I was an "army guy" for another few Halloweens. I was the coolest. Anyway American Ninja rocks. By the way I don't know the name of the movie (I'm sure I could find it out here on imdb easy enough if I cared to look) but a few years back I was flipping throught the channels and I came across a movie where the Michael Dudikoff and Mark Hamill were fighting. Luke Skywalker fighting the American Ninja!??! I kids dream come true. So go see this movie. Or even better, show your young son, nephew, or whoever this movie.

Most people today have forgotten, or just don't know, that AMERICAN NINJA did quite well (for an independent film, at least) when released to theaters, grossing 35 times its 1 million dollar budget. The sequels (that were released to theaters) didn't do as well, the chief reason probably being of Dudikoff's performance. For his first starring role, Dudikoff is pretty underwhelming in the lead. He has a blank expression in his eyes a lot of the time, and other times he seems plain nervous, as if he doesn't seem to know what to do. And it's clear that he was far from an expert in martial arts, seeing that the choreography has him doing pretty simple moves much of the time, and that for the most part he does only one or two moves before the editing cuts to another angle.

Most of the action (with or without Dudikoff) isn't terribly spectacular, and many viewers will probably get a little impatient between action scenes, since the movie isn't wall-to-wall action. Still, the movie never gets to be seriously boring; there are a few decent action scenes, and the goofiness of ninjas bouncing the story around does give the movie an entertaining cheesiness. Plus, there is the presence of Steve James, who (despite his limited time) really gives a likable and entertaining performance, and gets to show his genuine martial arts skills. He got to show more of all this in the sequel, which unsuprisingly is a significant improvement over this entry.