Thursday, October 11, 2012

AMERICAN NINJA (1985)

Exactly like Greta Garbo in GRAND HOTEL, American Ninja just wants to be left alone.  But, oh no, the bad guys can't have that.  One day American Ninja is driving a truck when his convoy (he's in the military) is attacked by ninjas!  American Ninja kicks a bunch of ass, but then when the colonel's daughter runs off in the jungle, he goes to save her. They fall in love. Aww! Stuff happens and American Ninja discovers that the ninjas who attacked his convoy actually work for an arms dealer who is in cahoots with his girlfriend's dad.  Lots of asskicking ensues including all kinds of awesome ninja stuff like throwing star fu, two sword stab fu, laser fu, electrician fu, fire fu, water hose fu, helicopter fu, motorcycle jumping fu, hook fu, chain fu, needle fu, climbing on moving truck fu, arrow fu, smoldering look fu, testicle squeezing fu, climbing fu, pointy stick fu, rock hard abs fu, disappearing fu, swing set fu, smoke bomb fu, hand signal fu, bucket on head fu, climbing over a railing after you've been shot fu, rocket launcher fu and so on.

Call me crazy, but I really liked this movie and had a lot of fun watching it.  The pace was quick and the story didn't waste any time on nonsense.  The film opens with a big fight scene and it's just nonstop action all the way through.  The best part is how the bad guys kept trying to kill American Ninja...by sending ninjas after him over and over! Yeah, the budget was kinda low and the fight scenes looked staged, but it's still a lot of fun.  AMERICAN NINJA ranks right up there with COMMANDO, PREDATOR and INVASION U.S.A. as some of the greatest 1980's action movies of all time.  Check it out!

Part 2 - American Ninja 2: The Confrontation (1987)
Part 3 - American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt (1989)
Part 4 - American Ninja 4: The Annihilation (1990)
Part 5 - American Ninja 5 (1993)

 This guy climbs over the rail and falls after he got shot.

 Ninjas have lasers now!?