Review for The Ninja Trilogy

Anyone who loves a bit of seventies Kung-Fu, mixed with eighties cheese and straight-to-VHS style horror will think they’re arrived in heaven watching this set. It’s a curious bit of licencing as this is released by Eureka, more typically associated with high quality ‘Criterion’ style releases under their ‘Masters of Cinema’ banner. I had to keep reminding myself that this wasn’t an ‘Arrow’ release which would, arguably, have been the so-called trilogy’s more natural home. But actually – who cares? This is a great release of a superb set and it’s indefensible, mind-numbingly entertaining stuff from start to finish.


Produced by the now legendary Cannon Films, a low-budget independent who did so well that their movies were soon being distributed internationally by major studios, the ‘Ninja’ trilogy picks up perfectly where films like ‘Enter the Dragon’ left off a few years earlier, and sprinkled in a generous dose of 80’s action movie cliché’s to taste. The results are incredibly fun and relentlessly action-packed, perhaps with the exception of the somewhat slower third instalment which makes up for it by introducing a strand of eighties horror. But more on that later. (As a side-note, I’ve yet to see the Cannon films documentary ‘Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films’ which I’ve added to my wish-list).


The presence of the incredible Sho Kosugi, a breath-taking martial artist, is the only real commonality between the films, bar a tenuous narrative thread. But that doesn’t matter a jot. It’s the action that will win you over, not the sophisticated story-telling. Indeed, Kosugi never appears as the same character twice so greet each instalment as if it was a brand new day.

Enter the Ninja



Clearly stealing its name from ‘Enter the Dragon’, the first in the series was released in 1981; a full year or so after it was shot.


Italian spaghetti western star, Franco Nero (Django) actually does a very good job as a highly convincing Ninja. Playing ‘Cole’, after earning his Ninja stripes, he looks up an old army buddy, Frank, (Alex Courtney) who’s busy drinking himself to death in the Philippines, trying to run a farm with his beautiful wife, Mary Ann (Susan George). It’s clear that all is not well.


The whole town is under threat from the protection racketeering Venarious (Christopher George), a hook-handed ‘evil villain’ if ever there was one. It seems that they want Frank’s land so they set about trying to scare off his labourers and put him out of business. Whilst Frank would rather hit the bottle than face the music, Mary Ann is a lot tougher. She’s determined not to let the land go.
So, after a cool start, it’s not long till Cole decides he needs to step in and lend a hand. He soon deals with Venarious, humiliating him in front of his gangster cohorts but bigger challenges lie ahead. It seems Venarious is working for a bigger crime syndicate, and when that a Ninja is holding the fort they decide to fight fire with fire and hire a Ninja all of their own. Enter a second Ninja, an old ‘colleague’ of Cole’s, Hasegawa (Kosugi), who was unhappy about an American being a Ninja in the first place.

Apart from the action there’s a weird love triangle afoot with Mary Sue happy to have a physical relationship with Cole despite her obvious love for her (drunken) husband. The action sequences are fabulously choreographed and, as long as you’re happy to suspend your disbelief (can one man really tackle so many others, particularly when they’re holding guns?) you’ll have a blast.



Revenge of the Ninja



The follow up (and indeed the third instalment) were taken on by first time action-film director Sam Firstenberg , who openly acknowledges the debt he owes to the crew who had been ported over from the last film who pretty much guided him every step of the way.


Released in 1983, ‘Revenge’ opens, like a Bond film, with ten minutes or more of relentless bloody action. Sho Kosugi is no longer a baddie – he plays the part of an artist, Cho Osaki, also a ninja warrior whose family get brutally murdered in the opening sequence. That includes his wife and a small child (who is shockingly killed by having a nanchuck embedded in their forehead). The only survivor of the bloody ninja attack is a tiny baby.


So when his American friend, Braden (Arthur Roberts), suggests he moves to the US with his child (played later in the film by his real-life son, Kane Kosugi) and his mother, he decides to go. After all, his friend is going to fund a gallery for Japanese art and Cho is to be the curator. What’s not to like?
Well, plenty as it turns out, but we knew that. All is not what it seems and it’s not long before Cho (and his ninja mother and son) are fighting old ninja demons, as well as a crime syndicate importing drugs inside Japanese stautues. Despite having hung up his nanchucks and renouncing his ninja past, Cho soon changes his mind and decides this is one battle he’s not going to back out of. Cue stacks (and I mean stacks) of ninja action. It’s all utterly ludicrous of course, but fun nonetheless.

Ninja III: The Domination

So on to the third and final part of the so-called trilogy, released in 1984 and once again directed by Firstenberg. This one is as nutty as a fruit-cake and you really need to have seen the first two to get your head into a space where this is watchable. You’ll need to suspend every ounce of your logical disbelief for this one – a film that mixes martial arts with dark magic and ends up being very much a ‘best of both’ movie, as long as you’re a fan of super-cheesy 80’s cult movies.


So forget everything you saw and heard in the first two movies; this starts off like a sequel to a different movie. The film opens with one of the craziest extended fight scenes ever, with a Ninja Warrior taking on what seems like an entire police force. Seemingly bullet proof it takes a few dozen men with guns to eventually halt him and even then he crawls away.


A sassy and beautiful aerobics instructor and telephone maintenance girl, Christie (Lucinda Dickey – Breakin’ and ‘Cheerleader Camp’) happens to be in the area and the Ninja somehow possesses her with his spirit, moving from her body into hers. So starts a film that has much to do with excorcise as exercise, mixing eighties aerobics with ghostly kung-fu.


Unwittingly, the Ninja takes over Christie from time to time, usually to kill more policemen, but occasionally to finish off the neighbourhood bullies, which is a lot of fun.

When she starts up a relationship with a young cop things start to go very wrong and he’s determined to help, only believing that she is possessed by the ancient ninja when he sees the transformation with his own eyes. As only a ninja can kill (or de-possess) a ninja, Yamada arrives in town (Sho Kosugi), all the way from America, having travelled to dispose of the evil ninja.


The even mix of Flashdance style aerobics, 80’s music, horror and kung-fu make for a cheesy if potent mix, but if it sounds like fun to you, then it probably will be. I enjoyed it far more than I really should have.

Picture quality is excellent throughout all three features although they certainly have an unshakable eighties vibe that no amount of high definition scrubbing up is going to shake off.

There are also a couple of decent special features including two audio commentaries (for the latter two films) with Sam Firstenberg, who directed both, along with stunt co-ordinator Steve Lambert.
There’s also a filmed introduction to ‘Revenge of the Ninja’ with Sam Firstenberg, as well as trailers for the first two films.

Wrapping things up is a smart booklet with production stills and some all new writing on the films.
The set is simply a must have for fans of the genre, or of eighties cheese or both. Fantastic fun.