Wow! The things we love when we're kids!
First I'll go ahead and start by saying the story is ok at best. Revenge of the Ninja stars Sho Kosugi as a ninja who's family was attacked by other ninjas and they killed almost everyone. Sho heads to the US with his remaining family at his friends advice to start his life anew. He ends up in the middle of a drug deal that leaves behind some death. The plot was decent and there was some action with a few ninja tactics used here and there. The final battle was lengthy and very good.
Now, I loved this movie and all ninja movies when I was a kid. After watching this I'm kind of afraid to check out anything else. I'm not saying this is a bad movie at all. It was still fun to watch even now. But somethings was so laughably bad. The fight choreography was atrocious at times. Especially in the beginning. Some of the ninjas were plodding along like,"damn I did this a hundred times already". Some of them were too stiff and didn't have the energy to really grip the viewer. Atleast for me it didn't. To tell the truth, about 2 weeks ago I tried to watch this and didn't get past the first 5 minutes. I tossed it on today and actually got through it.
As the movie progressed to the end the fight scenes did get better as far as creativity. Such as darts getting blown into peoples faces and have them looking like porcupines. And they actually fought using ninja techniques at the end. It wasn't a 2 minute battle by any stretch.
Overall it was still a pretty fun martial arts movie and is dated to me. There's definitly better out there. I just don't know of too many anymore. Hopefully my amazon buddies who's into martial art films will help me out with this here.
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Revenge of the Ninja kicks major ninja butt!!!
I remember watching this movie when it came out when I was like 12 years old or something. After watching we would go out and play ninja fighting the enemy ninja trees!! The ninja pine tree was a personal favorite. Watching this movie brings back all those memories, its so good, with a little cheese built in. The fight scenes are great. Kane is cool.I highly recommend this one.
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Watch this movie or die trying.
Revenge of the Ninja isn't as good as I remember it... When I was younger, I loved it - but this was around the same time I was wearing Bugle Boy parachute pants. What I didn't realize when I was younger though, was how hilarious this movie was. First - the Italian mob boss. His introduction to the viewers happens when he's in a room with a bunch of gangsters, lying on the table with his shirt off and getting a massage ---- by another gangster! In what world do gangsters give massages to other gangsters? It gets better though. In an affront to good taste and with a flip of the middle finger to cinematographers everywhere - the gangster sits up - and his disgusting, saggy man-boobs frame the shot in a silhouette of pure filth. It's an assault on the senses, and it's not hyperbole to describe it as a total apocalypse.
The fight scenes are what this movie is about though, and believe it or not, they're not very realistic. However, that doesn't mean they aren't funny. In fact, I saw something in this movie I can't even believe: in one scene the Italian mob boss dispatches his Native American Indian bodyguard to go and scalp the ninja. Read that last sentence again. A mafia boss has an Indian bodyguard (Indian headband, ponytails, hatchets, all of it) working for him, and orders him to scalp a ninja. Spoiler alert: the title of this film is Revenge of the Ninja.
In another scene, the ninja and his cop buddy go to ask some paroled felons some questions - except the felons are hanging out in a playground and they look like a poor man's version of the Village People. There's a Mexican biker, a blue collar worker with a dirty mustache, a big fat guy with a Mohawk, and a black dude on roller skates (I'm serious.) A fight ensues, and ends with the black dude on roller skates shooting his pistol at the ninja (in a playground), at which point the ninja produces a throwing star from his belt buckle and throws it at the black dude on roller skates' wrist. His wrist is then stuck to the wooden beam of a swing-set. Oh, and then cop and ninja just walk away - and the crowd parts for them. No sirens though. Shots fired at a cop and a ninja in a playground, and then they just walk away, through a crowd that just watched a ninja brawl at a playground. Awesome.
Don't even get me started on the little kid fighting with the girl though. The little kid is like four years old, but this chick actually gets in a karate fight with him... Seriously, she fights him! He's only four years old! Just pick him up and drop him. When the little kid fights the neighborhood bullies - bullies that ride Huffys - well, that's a fight. It's priceless. The final fight scene is tedious and bizarre, but the way the dude squirts blood like 50 feet when he get stabbed in the stomach is awesome. It's like a fire hose of ninja blood. Truly the cherry on top of a sundae. A ninja sundae.
Watch this movie or die trying.
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