Revenge of the ninja

You can watch it on here on Youtube

Well, this is the LAST time I invite ninjas to the christening!

MEANWHILE, the mobster Caifano has sent his henchmen to the art shop to clean it out and bring in all that sweet heroin! Cho comes in and catches them in the act! He has an epic battle on the savage streets of Salt Lake City but the crooks get away nonetheless. Braden (the silver-masked ninja) goes to the gallery to do the same. He arrives there but finds the place empty, except for Cho’s mom, who proceeds to engage the ninja in ninja/granny combat. She was remarkably spry for a woman of her advanced years and girth. She gets killed but Kane, who sees Braden, gets away. Kane is eventually picked up by Cho’s love interest, Cathy, who has been “hypnotized” to kidnap Kane and bring him to his lair. Realizing that his kid has been taken, Cho disregards his promise to walk an anti-violent path, sneezes, and breaks the flimsy piece of paper holding his sword closed. He then heads to Ciafano’s lair because, using his super-ninja spidey-sense, he somehow knew that Braden was going after Caifano. While both Cho and Braden go on an all-out ninja-inspired killing spree from top to bottom, they eventually confront each other on the roof in an epically ninja-inspired showdown. Oh, yeah, somewhere in the mix there the Village People gets their asses handed to them.

OHHHHH, sweet mother-of-pearl! This is one of the most awesome B-movies to come leaking out of The Locker in a while. This movie is fabulous! It had me at hello! This is what I live for! Get out your throwing stars and gonk yourselves on your own heads with your favorite pair of nunchakus because I watched Revenge of the Ninja and I’m feeling saucy! This 1983 offering is the middle movie in the Cannon Films trilogy and stars Sho Kosugi as Cho and Arthur Roberts as Braden (the heavy.) Also Kane Kosugi, Sho’s real life son, as Kane, the precocious child-what-can-whip-anyone’s-ass in this film! Now don’t get confused ..Sho Kosugi plays Cho and his son Kane plays his son Kane whose real name is Kane and Sho plays Cho, his father, who is his father.

Our story begins with a ninja attack which slaughters Cho’s family. He is conspicuously absent and walks in, finding his family has all been cut down by ninja’s. It is my understanding, through watching many of these ninja movies growing up, that this is a legitimate concern..a hazard in Japan..a very real nuisance! Cho is then convinced to go to America by his American friend and open an art store. Several years later, Cho has renounced violence forever and bound his sword, never to be used again. I thought the binding might have had a wire in it or something because, otherwise, it just looked like a piece of braided paper. The damn thing could just accidentally open if the paper got went or someone sneezed hard on it. Anyway, he opens his art store with his American buddy, Braden, as his primary backer. Unbeknownst to him, but pretty much knownst to the rest of us, Braden is a bad guy. Not only is he smuggling in heroin in the little dolls from Japan but he’s also the bad ninja guy! When an Italian mobster, Caifano, who is buying and distributing Braden’s drugs, reneges on paying him, Braden’s ninja powers go full throttle on him and his crew. Killing several of Caifano’s family and dealer/informants, both Caifano, and the police, are stymied by the murders. Cho is brought in to “consult” with the police but refuses to help them.

Nice of the bad guy to put the Village People to work

For more info on Revenge of the Ninja, click on the IMDb link

Whew! WHERE does one begin? The movie was initially much longer but was seriously cut down to make it less violent for a better rating, but making the plot a little dodgy at times. Let’s start with the initial ninja attack. At Cho’s home, with all the verdant greenery and yard-art around, the black-clad, bright pink headband / belt-wearing ninjas, stood out like the proverbial turd-in-a-punchbowl. Art of concealment my ass! At one point, and I’m not making this up, one of ninja is crouched behind a concrete Japanese lantern in the yard..in broad daylight…wearing black with bright pink belts and bright pink headbands. Unless this guy was using the Jedi mindtrick, he wasn’t hiding shit! These guys were about as stealthy as a syphilis outbreak..or so I’ve heard! The ninja’s moved SO slow, I was having a tough time imagining ANYONE getting their asses whooped by them. It was farcical, which made it even more funny.

How... my ninja kimosabe...how did I get in this film?

Cho then goes to America and opens his shop. I think that there is a timeline oddity here because he’s in Japan and his kid is an infant… then it jumps and he is in America opening his art shop and his kid seems about 10 years old. Does it take to years to open a shitty art gallery? I mean, did he “Tom Hanks” it, build a raft, and float to Salt lake city?

After the kerfuffle between Braden and the Italian mobster (who, by the way, is the most cartoonishly stereotypical caricature of an Italian that I’m wondering if he didn’t leak marinara from his pores!!), Braden goes on a killing spree and kills off several supporting cast members producing some profoundly awesome death scenes. This was the early 80’s folks..silly putty and ketchup passed for fatal wounds. There were awesome death scenes scattered all through this movie. So, Caifano sends some of his hooligans to empty the shop. He calls on this guy, a Native American, in full tribal gear COMPLETE with tomahawks, regalia, and everything. It was completely non-sequitur and not racist at all. So, Dances-with-Wolves makes his appearance at the shop and after cleaning everything out, gets surprised by Cho. They scuffle but eventually, the Indian whooped the Ninja. I’d have lost that bet.. just saying! Meanwhile, Cathy betrays Braden, gets captured, and subsequently “tortured.” It’s in quotes because said torture is represented here by being tied up in a jacuzzi tub. That was a bold choice. It’s not a route I would have taken but..sure..ok.. into the hot tub you go! I can imagine that if the hot tub torture didn’t work, the next phase was to send her on a cruise.

There's a great scene where Cho has been suited up, made his way through Salt Lake City, got into Caifano's building, and has been systematically killing off bad guys left and right. One baddie opens a door, surprising Cho. With his cat-like ninja reflexes, he just stands there and lets the baddie grab his ninja mask and pull it off. Cho then stares at the guy and then BLOWS a bunch of sharp, pointy darts in the bad guy's face..who subsequently squeals and falls over dead! This begs the question of if there were poison on the darts? Sure, it would hurt but I couldn't see these being a fatal wounds! So they must have been poisoned. Well, if that were true, the movie would have us to believe that Cho has been running around, ninjaing his ass all over the place, with these poison darts in his mouth the whole time?

So, after Braden has killed off many of the Italian’s henchmen, he goes after Caifano himself. Cho follows. Again, speaking strictly from a “stealth” perspective, nothing “blends in” more than a black clad ninja in the concrete jungle of a modern-day city. They meet on the rooftop and the Ninja-Royale Smack-down begins. Again, great 80’s fight to the death with several cheezy effects and surprises! For example, Cho turns a corner and cleaves Braden in half.. or so he thinks! Braden CLEVERLY planted a black clad, silver-masked dummy there to annoy Cho. I wasn’t sure why Braden employed this tactic. It wasn’t to distract Cho because he didn’t attack him at that moment. Did he just put it there to irritate him? Also, I was totally unaware that full-size fiberglass dummy ninja’s replicas were standard ninja inventory, nor was I sure from which orifice that Braden produced said dummy.. but it was still awesome and made me laugh!

Folks, this flick was a huge hunk of limburger descended from cheeze nirvana! From the “stealth” ninja attack at the beginning to Kane, Cho’s son who seems to have his chi balanced that he can kick most grown men’s asses..the effects were gloriously sub-par, the death scenes were an ebullient melange of epic melodrama, and the characters a farcical result of a healthy dose of racism and insufficient development. I HIGHLY recommend this boner of a B-grade 80’s flick.

…and the Village People get an ass whooping. BONUS!

Since I'm tied up and being tortured in this hot tub, could you at least turn on the whirlpool?

If you get caltrops lodged in your face, you're walking wrong!!

You! You shame your ancestors with your lack of eye-liner !!

It's fun to stay at the P..A..R..K !!!