American Ninja (1985) Cannon Films/Action RT: 95 minutes Rated R (action, violence) Director: Sam Firstenberg Screenplay: Gideon Amir and Avi Kleinberger Music: Michael Linn Cinematography: Hanania Baer Release date: September 20, 1985 (Philadelphia, PA) Cast: Michael Dudikoff, Steve James, Judie Aronson, Guich Koock, John Fujioka, Don Stewart, John LaMotta, Tadashi Yamashita, Phil Brock. Box Office: $10.4M (US)
Rating: ***
American Ninja would have been easily dismissed as just another 80s B-level action movie if not for the fact that it’s the first teaming of dynamic duo Michael Dudikoff (Bachelor Party) and Steve James (The Exterminator). What a pair! And to be perfectly frank, I don’t think it would have worked as well without James because Dudikoff is as wooden an actor as they come. He can’t read lines very well and has almost no personality. He’s just a handsome guy with an amazing physique and mad fighting skills. He’s the American ninja of the title which brings me to my next point.
In the early-to-mid-80s, ninjas were big business at the box office and the video store. Look at all the movies starring Sho Kosugi. And we’re talking about human ninja, NOT the ones on a half-shell. The best way to spice up otherwise routine actioners was to bring in the ninjas. This explains why the villain in American Ninja has an army of them at his disposal. As a movie-obsessed teen at the time, I loved these flicks! I still do, believe it or not. I know they’re junk, but they’re so much fun. Additionally, it carries the Golan-Globus seal of approval. Yep, it’s a Cannon movie! Who else?
Private Joe Armstrong (Dudikoff), a taciturn loner with a criminal record, makes a name for himself after inadvertently causing the deaths of four fellow soldiers during an attempted hijacking. A group of armed scumbags who work for Victor Ortega (Stewart, Guiding Light) want what the soldiers are carrying in their trucks. When they try to kidnap the base colonel’s daughter Patricia (Aronson, Weird Science), Joe springs into action and starts fighting back. That’s when the ninjas appear and kill the aforementioned soldiers. Joe manages to rescue the spoiled girl and bring her home safely.
Instead of rewarding him, Colonel William Hickock punishes him by confining him to the base and assigning him all the crap work. Moreover, Joe earns the disdain of his fellow soldiers. That’s when Corporal Curtis Jackson (James) antagonizes him into a fight that Joe easily wins. He earns respect and becomes friends with Jackson who’s impressed with his kung fu abilities. Joe eventually confides in him that due to amnesia he has no idea where he learned to fight like that. Well, these skills are going to come in handy because Ortega wants Joe dead for interfering in his illegal business. He’s in league with Major Sgt. Rinaldo (LaMotta, Ninja III: The Domination) and orders him to arrange Joe’s death. Failing that, Ortega can always send his main henchman, a guy known as Black Star Ninja (Yamashita, The Octagon), to take care of it. It’s up to Joe and Curtis to put a stop to Ortega.
As if you couldn’t guess, a romance develops between Joe and Patricia. We all saw that coming. She can’t stand him at first. She complains and yells at him the whole time he’s dragging her to safety through the jungles of the Philippines. This is an example of what fellow critic Roger Ebert called “Me-Push-Pull-You”. Joe jumps into Romancing the Stone mode, breaking the heels off her expensive Italian shoes and fashioning her designer skirt into a pair of makeshift shorts. Patricia tells him that he’s going to have to pay for her damaged threads. He forces her to jump into a lake to hide from the pursuing ninjas. It leads to a scene where he orders her to take off her clothes so they can dry off. It’s while she’s hiding in some bushes (sorry, no boobie shots here!) that she changes her mind about him. By the time he drops her off at her house, she’s completely taken with her quiet savior. So what does all this mean? You know the answer to that. It means the bad guys will kidnap her in the final act and he’ll come to her rescue again.
American Ninja is totally predictable right down to the so-called surprise twist concerning another Army higher-up being involved with Ortega. It also comes as no surprise that Joe remembers his past. He just happens to encounter somebody who holds the key to unlocking his memory. Only in a B-movie, am I right?
Dudikoff isn’t the only one lacking in acting skills. Aronson is a beautiful woman (I love her eyes!), but she can’t act, plain and simple. Like her male co-star, it sounds like she’s reading lines. Her readings are completely without conviction. But what else would you expect from a low budget B-movie like American Ninja? It’s not like they can get Meryl Streep. Bad acting and dopey dialogue are essential components of movies like this.
What this flick has going for it are some really nifty action scenes. The fight scenes are especially cool. A quick check on Wikipedia reveals that Dudikoff is trained in martial arts. So what he lacks in thespian skills, he makes up for in fighting skills. The late Steve James (he died in ’93 of pancreatic cancer at age 41) also practiced martial arts (Fu Jow Pai, to be exact). This adds a note of authenticity to American Ninja. I have to stop and say that I miss James. I thought he was cool. His list of credits also includes The Soldier, Vigilante, To Live and Die in L.A., The Delta Force and Hero and the Terror. As for his connection to Dudikoff, the two also starred in American Ninja 2: The Confrontation and Avenging Force (a great underappreciated Cannon flick).
Back to American Ninja, I don’t know how accurate the movie is in depicting ninjas. At Ortega’s house, we see the ninja army engaged in training. They’re all wearing different color uniforms- red, yellow, orange and, of course, black- which leads me to wonder whether it’s the ninjutsu equivalent of the belts awarded in karate classes. I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter. Nobody sees a movie like American Ninja expecting complete accuracy. It delivers in the most important area. It’s absolutely action-packed! Lots of cool fights involving ninja weaponry (e.g. swords, arrows, knives and throwing stars) and hand-to-hand (or foot-to-foot) combat. It’s totally bad ass and that’s the bottom line for action junkies. It’s dumb and silly, but you know you love it.
