The Action/Adventure Section — A regular column that will exclusively highlight and review action movies. The most likely suspects? Action cinema of the 1970s and 1980s. But no era will be spurned. As the column grows, the intent will be to re-capture the whimsy of perusing the aisles of your local video store with only ragingly kick ass cover art to aide you in your quest for sweaty action glory. Here we will celebrate the beefy. This is a safe place where we still believe that one lone hero can save humanity by sheer force of will and generous steroid usage.
For a brief and glorious period of time, I was writing for Ain’t It Cool News under the alias of Terry Malloy. I had a crazy-ambitious column I was working on called Cannon Fodder, and the goal was to literally watch and review every single Cannon Film from the Menahem Golan / Yoram Globus era. In other words, the glory days. Some day I dream of picking that mantle back up and continuing on until every single Cannon film has been expounded upon by yours truly. I never got around to any of the Cannon ninja films because I simply wanted to save them for later down the road. But founding Cinapse took precedence in my life and The Action/Adventure Section was a way to keep me watching and writing about seedy old action movies from the greatest era they were produced in without being bound to Cannon titles. That said, I feel I’ve almost ended up avoiding Cannon titles. And that just ain’t right.
RIP Menahem Golan: 1929–2014
I actually chose American Ninja as this week’s Action/Adventure title and even began writing this piece before news came out that Cannon Films producer (209 projects credited to him on IMDb!) and all around rocknrolla Menahem Golan had passed away. A larger than life personality and filmmaker, he and his cousin Yoram Globus are responsible for producing the action movie template that has informed my love for cinema more than any other genre. I’m deeply thankful for the risky and shocking way that Golan/Globus went out there and got their movies made. While he may not be remembered for sterling business practices, I genuinely believe many of his turbo-charged action films will live on throughout history, and I know they’ll be on rotation in my home for the rest of my days. Thanks for all the movies, Mr. Golan.
And so, the time has come, and we, the white people, must once again assume another culture’s deepest and most secret arts and (obviously) be better at them than anyone else. It is time to talk about American Ninja.
When standing perfectly still and silent, 1980s action star and actor(?) Michael Dudikoff almost gives off a James Dean vibe; so it is fortunate that so much of American Ninja asks him to do just that. Almost to a weird extent. Filled with angst and loaded with a backstory spun over countless long bits of exposition, Dudikoff’s Joe Armstrong is both American, and a ninja… but he also has amnesia and was discovered as a boy by American troops after some kind of explosion or something and ends up being the Little Orphan Annie of the US Army. He doesn’t remember how he got his skills, he just has them. In other words, The Bourne Identity totally ripped off American Ninja.
Director Sam Firstenberg is basically Cannon Films royalty, with some of his earliest directorial work being for Golan/Globus, including Revenge of the Ninja and Ninja III with Sho Kosugi, in 1983 and ’84, respectively. He then helmed Breakin’ II: Electric Boogaloo before jumping on that Dudikoff train. I don’t know about you, but I love that there was a time in history when a man could direct 4 movies in a row, and three of them would have “Ninja” in the title, and the other would be a seminal break dancing film. I guess only director John M. Chu is even approaching playing on Firstenberg’s level, moving from the Step Up films to GI Joe: Retaliation. But I digress… we’re talking about ninjas here.
And whew boy, does American Ninja deliver on the ninja front. You’ve got the villainous “Black Star Ninja”, whom you recognize because he has a black star tattooed on his face. Black Star Ninja is the ultimate evil ninja, in part because he eventually shoots a laser beam out of a device on his arm which isn’t set up in any way and never mentioned again after its appearance. But also because he’s the kind of villain who wants to kill Armstrong solely for being a forbidden white ninja, while he himself is hiring out his ninja army to a practically mustache-twirling Frenchmen who actually wears white suits and lives on a giant mansion compound worthy of the finale of Commando. (Note: No other element of American Ninja is worthy of comparison to Commando). Black Star Ninja has an entire army of ninjas just stone cold training 24/7 on drug lord Ortega’s compound. So you also get that training sequence that no ninja movie can go without, and it even includes Black Star straight murdering one of his guys just to show a potential business partner how awesome he is as a ninja. Perhaps most importantly of all, beyond the fact that there’s at least 3 or 4 full on ninja battles in the movie which involve throwing stars, those little smoke grenade things, and even bow and arrows, is the fact that ninjas in full regalia also stand around in the daylight sometimes and help load up trucks and stuff, too. A true ninja always offers a helping hand, after all.
But for as much ninja as you get in American Ninja… you also get a whole lot of America. Joe, being an Army man, is initially outcast because he stands up to some bandits on the road who are trying to steal trucks from the US motorcade. In the battle (which they blame Joe for escalating) it is revealed that ninjas are behind the attack, and Joe breaks out his ninja skills too. There’s also a girl that he saves, naturally, and much time will be spent on their love story. But we were talking about America! Our fine country is represented fairly dubiously in this film, with the aforementioned broey military, but more in the patriotic plus-column, you’ve got a rousing theme song for the film complete with such high pitched brass/trumpet that you may find yourself reflexively saluting. (Other tracks have a whole lot of jazz flute in them, too, as an aside that should make you want to immediately watch this movie).
At any rate, beyond that theme song, American Ninja mostly portrays a pretty sucky take on America. There’s totally a bunch of corrupt dudes at the top colluding with the mustache twirler, and they go out of their way to pin everything on Joe. And all the guys hate the quiet and angsty Joe, until he is confronted by Jackson, the Army’s martial arts instructor. Once Jackson is bested, man to man, he kind of says, “Hey guys, Joe’s alright”, and then everyone is bros again. America… where a good fist fight can solve just about anything.
Jackson is played by veteran action star Steve James, who passed away far too young, and whose own IMDb profile suggests he was often cast as action heroes’ sidekicks in films despite being a better actor and martial artist than the stars. That couldn’t possibly be more true here. And as a reward, James’ Jackson character actually goes on to star in the same amount of titles in the American Ninja franchise as Dudikoff himself ultimately did. (I believe there are at least 38 American Ninja movies… and I won’t rest until I’ve seen them all). Jackson is most definitely relegated to sidekick status here, but James makes the most of it.
As a matter of fact, having watched American Ninja at least 38 times as a small child (one viewing to represent each of the entries in the series), I vividly remembered Jackson and always thought fondly of that character… and how many sidekicks can you say that about? The truth is that I’m not actually sure how many times I’ve seen American Ninja, but it has to rank way above a bakers dozen. Interestingly, though, all of those viewings have to have been in the 1980s. I think it has been at least 20 years since I last took this film in. It is remarkable how much of it came flowing back to me, especially considering I don’t even know the mutiplication table and forget the birthdays of most everyone I love. American Ninja does squeeze in a whole lot of ninja tropes, fights, and even a climactic cartel compound battle. And you simply can’t deny the greatness of that theme song. But for as many times as I watched this film growing up, I don’t believe it quite holds up like I hoped it would. There’s a whole lot of time spent on romance, and while I realize that makes me sound like a five year old boy grossed out by kissing, let’s just say I’m not oppossed to romance… I just like it to have a spark of chemistry to it. Perhaps one of the reasons I’m so fully in love with Isaac Florentine and Scott Adkins’ Ninja series begins with how much I loved American Ninja as a child, and how clearly they are paying homage to Firstenberg’s oeuvre with those films. But Florentine and Adkins have upped the ante so far with the legitimate martial arts and filmmaking skills of their franchise that American Ninja is somewhat relegated to beloved relic in the Cannon canon (that I will continue to watch throughout the course of my life, regardless).
And I’m Out.