S1.E1

Max

Episode aired Dec 3, 1984
TV-14
1h

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Demi Moore and Timothy Van Patten in L'homme au katana (1984)

In the opening episode of this series John Peter McAllister is introduced as an American who remained in Japan after the War and became a Ninja. He has just discovered he has a daughter afte... Read allIn the opening episode of this series John Peter McAllister is introduced as an American who remained in Japan after the War and became a Ninja. He has just discovered he has a daughter after many years and decides to go to America to find her. On his way out he is wounded by a f... Read allIn the opening episode of this series John Peter McAllister is introduced as an American who remained in Japan after the War and became a Ninja. He has just discovered he has a daughter after many years and decides to go to America to find her. On his way out he is wounded by a former protégé who vows to track him down to stop him from breaking the Ninja code. Meanwhi... Read all

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IMDb RATING

4.1/10

134

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

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4Prismark10

Max

Lee Van Cleef was well known for westerns. So not a person who immediately comes to mind for a martial arts series.

Maybe this should had been a 1980s version of Walker, Texas Ranger. Instead it is ninja hokiness with words such as occidental to mean westerner.

Lee is McAllister, a westerner who became a ninja. Now he has returned to the USA to find his daughter and he is being pursued by his former ninja pupil Sho Kosugi.

In the first episode McAllister comes across Max played by Timothy Van Patten who has a slight resemblance to Sly Satallone.

Max is a hothead with a good heart. He comes to the aid of Holly (Demi Moore) who is being pursued by a corrupt sheriff. A wealthy landowner wants to buy up her father's small airport and the sheriff is in cahoots with him.

The premise of the show is The A Team with martial arts and even more cheesiness. Max even has a van that is similar to the one Mr T drove around with. I think the same stuntman who had to put on a bald wig for Mr T does the same here for Lee Van Cleef. At least the stuntman did not have to black up.

It is not the most inspiring of opening episodes and Lee Van Cleef just looks miscast.

10rcoates-661-22249

"A ninja does not betray his destiny. You will die."

These are lines uttered by the antagonistic ninja played by Sho Kosugi (Revenge of the Ninja) in this episode of The Master, a dose of classic television kitsch from the 1980s, that golden decade of ninja schlock.

Western star Lee Van Cleef is miscast but still cool as the only occidental American ever to be trained as a ninja. He's returned to the U.S. to locate a long-lost daughter and along the way he meets freewheeling, van-driving Timothy Van Patten (notable as the scariest punk in Class of 1984), joining him in combating an evil real estate developer (Clu Gulager from Return of the Living Dead) looking to put up a mall on Demi Moore's father's land.

Fast-paced, easy-going viewing, and fun in innocuous 80s fashion, the show features exotic ninja weapons, the expected ninja wisdom, and the absolutely obligatory scenes of ninja martial arts training. For the curious, this episode is included in Mill Creek's Ninja Assassins DVD 10-Pack along with some other glorious ninja crapola.