Revenge of the Ninja

After seeing "Enter The Ninja" in the movie theater that I worked at in the early 80's, I cringed of the thought of having to watch another American made martial arts movie when my boss notified me that "Revenge..." would be our next attraction. When the movie opened in 1983 and I watched the opening scene, I was drawn in and hooked!

Everything about this movie seemed perfect (except the acting). The locations were great. The colors and lighting in the film were great. And the fight scenes were fantastic.

I just purchased the DVD to see how well this has held up through the years, and I must say it has held up quite well. I didn't even remember this movie being so bloody and violent (I had to quickly usher the "under 10" crowd away from the TV). Even by today's standards, this movie holds on tight to its "R" rating for violence. There is very little profanity and very little sex in this film.

It's funny that a movie with such good production values would have such bad acting. I mean some of the lines in this movie are delivered so badly I had to laugh out loud. And the "thugs" in the park look like the Village People!

Honestly though, this is, in my opinion, a great action movie. And the characters, in spite of bad acting, are quite likeable (or hateful, whichever appropriate for the character).

I also thought the music track was excellent, and doesn't really sound dated now like a lot of early 80's movies.

I recommend this movie with eight out of ten stars.

Sho Kosugi stars as a ninja who had his whole family wiped out by a rival clan (We even witness his son take an arrow to the back) and when his entire family is killed, except for his mother and youngest son he decides to hang his jammies up and live out his life as a businessman however when his partner runs drugs and Kosugi's son witnesses it, Kosugi must protect his son and take on his equally proficient pal in the art of ninjitsu. Revenge Of The Ninja is quite possibly the best ninja movie ever made. (Ironically the best and worst ninja movies have Sho Kosugi. Worst one being 9 Deaths of The Ninja) In it we witness everything that makes a ninja movie so appealing, lots of cheesy zen philosophy, tons of fight sequences, lots of carnage and just tons of cheese in general. Revenge Of The Ninja also remains probably the best movie to date from Sho Kosugi and indeed it is just unfortunate he had his son also partake in what could have been even better without the kid. Still Revenge Of The Ninja is a very enjoyable movie and that is not even including the granny ninja.

* * * out of 4-(Good)

I can't say I remember too much about the film except it has all the normal ninja stereotypes in it with lots of blood. If that is what you want that is what you'll get. Don't get me wrong, when I watch a ninja movie I'm not looking for Shakespeare. I'm looking for sword slashing, shrunken throwing and bear claws to the face fun. And maybe a few heads getting lopped off. It is what it is.

The cool thing is how movies can bring back memories and I remember going to the movies with my mom and older brother and somehow convincing her that this particular movie was the one we were going to see. I'm not sure why she agreed to it and I'm sure she regretted it afterward as she is a conservative Christian woman. I was only 10 at the time and whining like crazy for us to see it. LOL I guess she thought, "It's about ninjas, how bad could it be!?" WRONG! This was the first rated R movie I saw in fact. All I have to say this movie is part of my life narrative now. Thanks Mom. I still remember the ending, but I won't spoil it for you.

I'm probably one of the few people who actually saw this in a theater.

Stunning action scenes and stunts particularly the final confrontation between Cho and Braden. Excellent plot and story. The acting was also good, I've always enjoyed American Ninja Part 1 until I saw Revenge of the Ninja which was and still is the best Ninja film yet.

By today's standards, yes. By the standard of fighting movies back then, sho kusugi was considered today's crouching tiger. No movies back then had swordplay or weaponplay or martial arts like this. Before this movie, all the movies of any category with any sort of fighting were all conan the barbarian type or the excalibur type. They took roughly 3 seconds to complete a swing of a sword, moved very slowly, etc. Sho kusugi brought speed and finesse to the screen, although his acting was subpar, his fighting skills were excellent. His martial arts sparring with the good guy cop was about the best martial arts ever produced on the big screen up to that time. The cop was also the only other extra with any real skills. All the other fighters in the movies were just that.....extras. They moved slow like conan movie guys, etc. The good guy cop was actually the guy wearing the bad guy ninja suit for all the fighting scenes if you look at the credits.

Basically, these movies with a true master martial artist like kusugi paved the way for movies you see today.

Revenge of the ninja was the matrix/crouching tiger of its time. Unmatched.