A Sombra de um Ninja

Sho Kosugi dons particularly cool looking ninja togs in this fair martial arts actioner from 1985.

The plot (of sorts) more or less resembles exactly that of Kosugi's earlier, superior 'Revenge Of The Ninja'.

Similarly (and infuriatingly!!!) just as in the aforementioned film, Sho is yet again incredibly reluctant to get into his full ninja gear and whoop ass even after repeated attempts on his families life by the movies villains.

However, inevitably and true to that staple cliché in these types of films, at least one of his family MUST be killed off thus prompting our hero to swear the obligatory oath of revenge. The bad news is that it takes until well over the hour mark before our man Sho actually gets his full ninja act together to get stuck in proper.

Still, to be fair, the resulting action makes it worth the long wait and the villains invariably buy it in style at Sho's deadly hands and feet.

The climatic battle between Sho's character and the evil (but ridiculously named) Limehouse Willy (played by none other than James Booth!) proves to be surprisingly evenly matched (a chainsaw being ostensibly a weapon that ninja are not specifically trained to defend against) but of course, such a repulsive low down, low life miscreant can only meet a suitably grisly end here and Sho certainly makes sure that he does!

Whilst this isn't my personal favourite of Sho's movies, it's still a fairly enjoyable romp. If you're at all into the 80's ninja film craze then you could do a lot worse than to check this out.

After all, nobody embodies the ninja better on screen than Sho does.

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 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.

I just watched Pray for Death on Showtime at 2:30 in the morning. This is a totally sweet movie about ninjas, in which Sho Kosugi is this bad ass super ninja who kills a whole bunch of people before moving to America, where he is framed for drug trafficking, and his wife is raped and murdered, and that is the point where he totally flips out and kills dozens and dozens of people. I did find it odd that while his family is from Japan, Sho's wife doesn't look terribly oriental. But otherwise this is a totally sweet eighties action movie with lots of killing and flipping out.

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)