Revenge of the Ninja (1983)

[Joven 373]

This movie has actually quite a bit of ninjas and revenge, but it really isnt even about any revenge of the ninja.

 

The story starts when our hero, an overlyguylinered Sho Kosugi was out for a relaxing stroll with his buddy, discount Will Farrell, to have a talk about how to exploit the growing craze of importing Japanese crap to gullible Americans (how meta.) So, while he's gone, his house is besieged by a group of slow moving ninjas/semaphore enthusiasts, and they kill most of our hero's overly Japanese family.

 

 

So Sho easily dispatches the foes, and we find that only his infant son and his elderly mother made it out alive. So, who are these enemy ninjas who visited this horror upon this seemingly innocent group of people? What was their purpose? Who is their leader which Sho must surely get revenge on? Well, who gives a shit, its time to move to America to sell dolls!

 

So, now we're in America getting the new Japanese doll gallery set up, discount Will Farrell (DWF) inspects the product and finds them great, "this gallery will be the best thing to happen to this town since...umm.....*walks off camera* (actual dialogue, no really.)

 

These dolls are really something, DWF's girlfriend or whatever inspects the ninja doll which has its fake sword sharpened to a razor edge, as if thats not enough, Sho's dumb kid knocks the geisha over and all its heroin spills out (these dolls are gonna be recalled so fast.)

 

So its at this point (20 minutes in) we're introduced to what passes for plot in this movie, DWF is actually using the dolls behind Sho's back to smuggle what can only be quite small amounts of heroin into the country (his first shipment, consists of 12 or so like 15inch porcelain dolls that have drugs inside them), which he then sells to the local stereotypical Italian mafia which is headed up by a real life ninja turtle.

 

 

However, the deal goes sour because of reasons and DWF is out to get revenge, also he's a ninja...so I guess this is supposed to be his story? But he's the bad guy, and its not so much revenge as it is just a fight between 2 criminal organizations.

 

DWF throws some things in his ninja briefcase and proceeds to assassinate some of the crime boss' family, so in revenge he sends his most trusted goon to go and steal all the little dolls. (he just screams 'enforcer for italian mafia')

 

 

A fight with Sho breaks out and the baddies get away, but DWF was planning on ambushing the bad guys at the doll shop...only he was like super late for some reason, and all he managed to do was murder Sho's mother, who is also a ninja. After murdering her, he takes off both his masks (he has a ninja mask, and a shiny silver demon mask, because its harder to see the stuntma...i mean because it looks badass), This causes Sho's dumb kid, who is also a ninja, to see him and they kinda fight and the kid gets away, and goes into hiding.

 

Now, Sho is helping the police deal with this mess, as he's considered their expert on ninja stuff now and wants to find his son, so him and his karate police buddy hit the street to find out information and decide to try and get some information from a gang of toughs.

 

 

So a crappy fight breaks out, Sho and his police buddy beat them up and leave without questioning them, mission accomplished. Then a bunch of stupid crap happens, theres a fight between the dumb kid and DWF's girlfriend, who may also be Sho's girlfriend, not sure. DWF attempts to kill both the kid and her via a hot tub and a sauna while he goes and murders the human ninja turtle, a dumpy guy in sweatpants thinks superman is real, and then a never ending ninja fight ensues between Sho and DWF.

 

The final clash of two highly trained ninjas is particularly epic, between the matryoshka ninja weapons (basically, if youve ever seen anything in a cheap mail order catalog labeled 'ninja weapon', its probably in this movie), robot doubles, and the flame throwing powers, combined with the slow telegraphed movement of two 70 year old drunken fat guys. Its really everything you would expect from a Golan Globus ninja movie.

 

Also, if you watch it, theres a free rifftrax type commentary track thats quite good, available here - https://archive.org/...vengeOfTheNinja

[IRONicmerMAN 391]

Bump. I've been on an 80's ninja binge this week (American Ninja 1 & 2, Ninja III: The Domination). If the gang is up for another on the heels of Ninja Terminator, I think any of these would be great. Revenge seems like a good pick.