American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt (1989)

PLOT: A martial arts champion travels abroad for a fighting tournament, only to be sidetracked by a dangerous scheme involving ninjas, terrorism, and virus engineering. Because he failed to purchase travel insurance, he’s unable to recover any of his money.

Director: Cedric Sundstrom
Writer: Gary Conway
Cast: David Bradley, Steve James, Michele Chan, Marjoe Gortner, Calvin Jung, Evan J. Kissler, Yehuda Efroni, Mike Huff, John Barrett

 

PLOT THICKENER

There’s no shortage of talented people who hated the practice or products of their exceptional gifts. Before a Paris gallery showing in 1908, Claude Monet destroyed more than a dozen paintings in his infamous “Water Lilies” series; this sort of purge was a pattern for him. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle grew to despise his popular Sherlock Holmes character so much that he killed him off in a story and stayed away from Holmes for the next eight years. Not even the chopsocky genre is immune to this sort of self-directed grumbling. In American Ninja 3, Curtis Jackson, played by Steve James, is sick and goddamned-tired of fighting ninjas, despite his innate ability to wreck shop. This is like penicillin complaining about being a great treatment for bacterial infections.

All bellyaching aside, this would mark the first film in the series in which which director Sam Firstenberg and star Michael Dudikoff sat out to make room for new talent. Taking over the director’s chair is South African filmmaker Cedric Sundstrom, who did a few features after this and then (for better or worse) moved on to television. To replace Dudikoff -- at that time, a male model with decent screen presence but limited fighting chops -- the Cannon Film Group enlisted David Bradley, a practitioner of shotokan and kempo (kenpō) karate. His screen presence at this point consisted of an upbeat fighting style and a barely perceptible Texas drawl, topped with a shaggy coiff that would make Sho Kosugi proud.

Bradley plays Sean Davidson, an American who trained in ninjutsu as a youth under the tutelage of his murdered father’s master, Izumo (Jung). Sean is recruited for a lucrative fighting tournament in the fictional banana republic of Port San Luco, Triana, where he befriends a fanboy named Dex (Kissler) and U.S. military strongman Curtis Jackson (James) who’s probably on vacation to get the hell away from his co-pilot in the first two films. Little does the trio know that the tournament was hatched by the evil Cobra (Gortner) to ensnare one lucky participant for more nefarious purposes. Through his East Bay Laboratory enterprise, he hopes to use viral engineering to control fighters for more precise and efficient terrorist operations, and sell this product to the highest bidder. His colleague and the head trainer of his ninja outfit (and a hensōjutsu master at that) Chan Lee (Chan), has pre-selected Davidson for evaluation in the test pilot. What might happen if Sean is infected by the Cobra’s evil virus? Superhuman strength? Complete ambivalence to pain? Mood swings? A burning sensation while urinating?

The prevailing opinion among chopsocky heads is that this is the sequel where the American Ninja franchise officially went off the rails and straight into the crap bin. I don’t buy into that narrative. Here’s the harsh truth, y’all: these films were not good. Sure, the first one had lasers, Tad Yamashita, and that cool girl from Weird Science and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. The second one had beach fights and Body Glove wet-suits and the continuing Dudikoff-James bromance. Were they more “fun” than this one? Maybe, but that’s all subjective. Any perceived drop-off in quality between the second and third entries is splitting hairs, if you ask me; we’re not debating The Godfather versus Air Bud here.

The most problematic difference between this film and its predecessors it is the direction. Cedric Sundstrom may be a capable director in some regards -- he made the saxophonist-vengeance trash gem The Revenger the same year -- but his first installment of American Ninja is a stale, messy regurgitation of old plot points. The first two films saw the heroes taking down ninja terrorists, before fighting a villain called “The Lion” who ran an experimental ninja program, respectively. Sundstrom’s film has a villain named “The Cobra” who runs an experimental viral ninja program to benefit the world’s terrorists. Yeah -- tomayto, tomahto. There are plenty of other story miscues, from the abandoned fight tournament plot point, to a goofy and protracted motorized hang-glider scene. The East Bay Laboratory’s high-tech inner lair is just fluorescent lighting and a bunch of colorful, steamy liquids bubbling in beakers. For reasons that elude me, the lab station is surrounded by half-naked dudes on pedestals who are button-activated into ninja mode at the end of the movie. This is the kind of stuff that you might dream up after eating a hash brownie before bed, but it’s not something a rational person should commit to film (even in the 1980s).

Sundstrom’s command of the action elements is equally suspect. Outside of a single car-splosion, there are really no elaborate stunt sequences in the film, but the audience is treated to a fight scene once every 15 minutes or so. That’s a fine pace, but the film’s lead martial artist and its choreography (via Mike Stone) are frequently betrayed by poor shooting angles and coverage. This leads to a few scenes dogged by choppy editing that exposed plenty of strikes revealing too much space. (If you watch enough of these films, you can probably forgive the lack of quality control). Despite his character’s objections to the contrary, Steve James is having a good time cracking heads and throwing around stunt dudes in ninja garb. He has a scene in the film’s climax where he wields double swords and hacks and slashes his enemies to pieces, with all of the correlating sound effects ... but none of the visual bloodletting. Like a lot of other things, it wasn’t in the budget, I guess.

The supporting cast features a couple of interesting choices. Gortner was a controversial Pentecostal preacher from a young age and his biggest cinematic claim to fame was the Academy Award winning 1972 documentary Marjoe, which tracked his rise on the tent revivial circuit to televangelism and his final revival tour. Considering his history of blowhard behavior, it was a big surprise/screw-up to see him so subdued here. As the ninja leader with a conscience, Michele Chan is pretty good and has amazing rockstar Jem & the Holograms style spiky hair. These days, she pursues philanthropy and is married to billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, a co-owner of the Los Angeles Lakers. I’m sure she credits this film for most if not all of the great things in her life.

VERDICT

To reiterate, this is an uneven ninja film where the star spends all of about 20 seconds in a ninja suit. On balance, though, the film gets one point for David Bradley’s debut, another point for Steve James being awesome in a “Shalom Y’all” shirt, and a third point for Michele Chan’s incredible mane of hair. After that, your mileage will vary. If you enjoyed the 80s cheese of the second film in the series, this one cranks the funk up a few notches, but pure action aficionados are likely to turn their noses up at this one.

AVAILABILITY

YouTube, Amazon, Netflix.

3 / 7 

Revenge of the Ninja (1983)

PLOT: After the majority of his family is murdered by ninjas, a Japanese ninjutsu master relocates to the United States with his young son, and partners with his American friend to start an art gallery. How will this single dad raise his son while trying to juggle dating, American tax codes, betrayal, and a pretentious art scene?

Director: Sam Firstenberg
Writer: James R. Silke
Cast: Sho Kosugi, Arthur Roberts, Kane Kosugi, Ashley Ferrare, Keith Vitali, Mario Gallo, Virgil Frye


PLOT THICKENER
There are a lot different angles a film can use to approach the ninja archetype. In many Western films, the non-ninja characters are clueless and dumbfounded by what they previously considered to be the stuff of foreign legend. In other cases, the ninja is a superhuman alter ego shrouded in secrecy. For the majority of films though -- especially in the 1980s -- I’d submit that the ninja is used as a disposable henchman (e.g. action movie window dressing). Save for its brutal opening scene, Sam Firstenberg’s 1983 film Revenge of the Ninja instead treats the ninja as a sort of weekend athletic hobby like indoor climbing or squash. (e.g. “Bob, I had no idea you were a ninja. Want to join my co-ed intramural league?”) It’s hard to argue with this casual approach since the results are so awesome and ridiculous.

Cho Osaki (Kosugi) has been fending off ninjas for most of his life in Japan, and the latest encounter finds him arriving home just moments too late. His entire family has been slaughtered by ninja assholes, with the exception of his mother and his infant son. His American friend, Braden (Roberts) convinces him to escape the chaos of Japan and emigrate to the United States for a new start. Cho obliges, and a few years later we see the humble beginnings of the Japanese art gallery -- creepy miniature dolls, above all -- that he runs with the backing of Braden and his assistant, Kathy (Ferrare).

Cho’s son, Kane (Kane Kosugi) is struggling to adapt to the American way of life as a kid. He has occasional skirmishes with older neighborhood boys, who he thoroughly destroys in fights because he’s good at martial arts and using fistfuls of dirt to blind them. Cho admonishes his son for inviting the conflict but simultaneously teaches him appreciation for the traditions of ninjutsu. When Kane’s emerging skill is combined with his age-appropriate curiosity and a bit of clumsiness, he makes a powdery discovery in the art gallery that totally unravels the Osakis’ peaceful life in their adopted homeland. Before you know it, people are catching shurikens to the dome in broad daylight, captives are being boiled alive in hot tubs, and the Italian mafia is reinforcing unfortunate ethnic stereotypes every fifteen minutes. If Cho is going to survive a fresh round of chaos, he may need to resurrect his ninja past and accept help from his sparring partner, Dave (Vitali). Dave’s a nice guy.

This film succeeds where others have waffled or failed outright in the most important element of the ninja movie: wild, unhinged action. From the brutal opening to the gushing conclusion, the action scenes here are creative, strange, and spectacular. It features solid sword-fight choreography, one of the best rooftop climax fights in the history of action cinema, and my favorite interior moving vehicle fight this side of The Raid 2. Ninjas throw fire, disappear in smoke, and flip effortlessly between buildings. Kane Kosugi and Ashley Ferrare have a scuffle that I didn’t totally hate, and even the octogenarian grandma gets some time to shine. When the shot selection is iffy or the hand-to-hand choreography is less than crisp, there’s still an element of energy and fun in every frame. Of the three originals in the Cannon Films “ninja trilogy," this features the best action scenes, by far.

This film was also the blueprint for future Kosugi works that lay waste to the family structure of whichever character he happened to be playing. In 1985’s Pray for Death, his character’s family is tormented and one family member is killed. In 1987’s Rage of Honor, his character’s friend is killed. Notice a consistent theme? Getting involved with Sho Kosugi on screen in any familiar or friendly capacity could get you seriously fucked up. Gordon Hessler -- director of the two aforementioned films -- seemed to especially enjoy putting Kosugi’s characters through the emotional wringer, and we’re forced to wonder why. If Kosugi ate the last donut in catering, I get it. If he won Hessler’s last twenty bucks in a poker game, I can see the need for some form of retribution. But if the thought process was “how else are we going to generate audience sympathy for this average actor with amazing hair who speaks stiff English other than to slaughter the people he loves the most?” that’s a seriously lazy and cold-hearted approach to character development.

Other than the occasional beer before liquor or undercooked pork, I’m not one for risky behavior, but I’ll go out on a limb here: the makers of the classic 1985 boxing game Punch-Out!! stole Braden’s stilted cackles for the Bald Bull character’s victory taunt. Don’t believe me? Check out this brief side-by-side comparison.

Still not convinced? The NSA has some sophisticated audio analysis and visualization software that I’m sure would reveal a match. Tweet at them. (Or maybe don’t -- I’m pretty sure you get put on a “list”). In all seriousness, the juxtaposition is a pretty close call. Close enough to keep me up late at night for days until I finally woke up sweating like Billy Blanks with a eureka moment that will probably be the only lasting observation of anything I’ll ever write.

VERDICT
For me, Revenge of the Ninja is the measuring stick by which all other Western ninja films are evaluated. Some folks swear by the first two American Ninja films for nostalgic reasons, I have a strange fondness for Pray for Death, and others might prefer the technical polish of recent Adkins-Florentine collaborations -- Kane Kosugi’s involvement with the latter provides a compelling link to his father’s work -- but this film ticks nearly all the boxes on the cult action film checklist (e.g. gore, wacky plot, despicable villain, action, drugs, nudity, etc.) A must-see and should-probably-own.

AVAILABILITY
Amazon, YouTube, Netflix, eBay.

6 / 7

Enter the Ninja (1981)

PLOT: An ex-pat in Manila is being harassed into selling his land by a hostile businessman. Will he respond by: a) taking the appropriate legal recourse; b) inviting his ninja war buddy over to bust some heads; or c) drinking his face off and encouraging his employees to hold cockfights during work hours?

Director: Menahem Golan
Writers: Dick Desmond, Mike Stone
Cast: Franco Nero, Susan George, Alex Courtney, Sho Kosugi, Christopher George, Constantine Gregory, Zachi Noy, Jim Gaines, Mike Stone


PLOT THICKENER
Long before the real ultimate power of painfully referential homages, pizza-loving turtles, and really hard obstacle courses, there was an entire world of shadowy assassins just beyond a closed door. Some would argue that the 1980 Chuck Norris vehicle The Octagon opened that door -- and those people would be wrong -- but it wasn’t until the following year that Cannon Films gave Western viewers safe passage to enter the world of smoke plumes and shurikens with Enter the Ninja. (Author’s note: For you history buffs, Teleporty City’s review of this film provides us with a sublime history of how ninjas evolved from mountain clans in feudal Japan to cinematic archetypes in 1980s action film productions of every stripe).

Following a final test in which he mock-kills several red ninja attackers, recites the “nine levels of power,” and even wins an impromptu wet-t-shirt-and-ninja-garb contest after jumping off a waterfall, a Westerner named Cole (Nero) graduates to ninjutsu master after years of training. This pisses off ninja traditionalist Hasegawa (Kosugi) but Cole departs for the Philippines before the two settle their differences. He arrives at the sprawling Manila estate of an old war buddy, Frank Landers (Courtney), and is greeted at the door by the business end of a shotgun barrel, courtesy of Frank’s wife, Mary Ann (Susan George).

The precaution is warranted. Unsavory elements in the city want the Landers’ land and Cole soon observes first-hand the corrupt dealings of “The Hook” (Noy), a porky German dude with a hook-hand who travels with hired muscle to shake down business owners. Following The Hook’s waft of sweat and bratwurst eventually leads up the chain to Mr. Venarius (Christopher George) an elite businessman with a penchant for hostile business dealings and choreographing synchronized swimming demos. Under the pressure from Venarius and a parade of contracted goons, Frank has sought refuge at the bottom of the bottle and spends his days stone drunk while cheering on vicious cockfights organized by his local workers. This is a far cry from the Frank who once saved Cole’s life during combat in Angola, or the Frank who used to maintain an erection long enough to make love to Mary Ann, or even the Frank who was once able to armpit-fart "Jingle Bells." This version of Frank is a drunk, broken shell of a man who relies entirely on Cole to fight his battles.

This might surprise some, but this isn’t really a ninja movie. At its core, this is about a man who aspired to a life of prosperity and leisure following his heroic war service. According to his “life plan,” he married and purchased some land. Then, he fell in love with booze and it all went to shit. His addiction dulled his senses and left him indifferent to the criminal elements surrounding him. It made him powerless against a cruel enemy. It even left him holding a limp noodle in a broken marriage. Enter the Ninja is really about impotence. Cole -- capable, sharp, and virile -- chose to pursue a new “war” via his years of ninjutsu training instead of slacking off like Frank, and it has made him everything that Frank is not. All that said, Cole also had sex with Frank’s wife, which makes him a total prick.

Despite limited screen time, Sho Kosugi displays the full bag of talents -- solid martial arts skills and great facial expressions among them -- that prompted Cannon Films to invest in him as a leading actor. His Hasegawa character is more interesting than your run-of-the-mill mercenary given the rivalrous backstory between he and Cole, and Kosugi’s language-barrier limitations are mitigated by his character only having a few lines of stilted, angry dialog. He also strikes a blow for vegans everywhere when he burns down the village of local workers on the Landers' property. Boom -- no more cockfighting.

The overall action in the film is decent by early 80s Western standards, which is to say it’s not very good by modern standards nor comparable to Far East films from the same time period. Mike Stone, one of the story’s writers and a capable martial artist who went on to roles in American Ninja 2 and American Ninja 3, stunt-doubled for Nero in most of the scenes where Cole is dressed in ninja apparel. Unfortunately, these scenes really only get play in the opening of the film and its climax. The meat of the action consists of quick shots from behind Stone (dressed as Cole) as he fights competently, intercut with shots of Nero throwing haymakers and clumsy side kicks. Does this work? In the same way a smashed passenger-side car window can be patched up with duct tape and a piece of cardboard, sure, I guess. To its credit, the film goes to great lengths to feature a variety of ninja weapons -- from smoke bombs and shurikens to katana and nunchaku -- and the strictly ninja scenes are lively enough.

VERDICT
Enter the Ninja is more historically important than it is good -- it gave us this death scene, after all -- and this isn't a bad thing. This could have been a very different (and better) movie had Cannon Films cast a legit martial artist in the lead role (a young Richard Norton maybe?) but it’s safe to assume this film wouldn’t have been made without the cinematic cachet of Nero. His steely glares and awesome mustache create the lifeboat that keeps us afloat in a sea of tired cliches, and his goofy kicks are a small price to pay in exchange for a more qualified fighter (Stone) going under the hood as his double. Not exactly a recommend, but if you want to get a sense of how we got from The Octagon to Adkins, this is the place to start. 

3.5 / 7

American Ninja 2: The Confrontation (1987)

PLOT: When Marines go missing from a military base in the Caribbean, two Army Rangers are brought in as reinforcements. Before they can help in the investigation, however, they must plaster the neighborhood with "LOST MARINES" posters and raise enough money for a $10,000 reward to incentivize the local population.

Director: Sam Firstenberg
Writers: Gary Conway, James Booth
Cast: Michael Dudikoff, Steve James, Larry Poindexter, Michelle Botes, Gary Conway, Jeff Celentano, Mike Stone, Ralph Draper

PLOT THICKENER
When I publicly acknowledged in my review of the first American Ninja movie that the entire series was a shameful blind spot, it felt as if a huge Dudikoff-sized weight had been lifted off my chest. Without any fears of sentimentality coloring my critique, I could enjoy these classic films on their own merits: the limp grasp of ninja mythology, the whiteboy-in-Eastern-philosophy adventuring, the frequent fight scenes, and the lasers -- my god, the lasers. I was apprehensive, still; to break the seal of reviewing the first film was daunting considering the sequels to come. As a general cinematic rule, sequels tend to diminish in quality, but as evidenced by franchises like No Retreat, No Surrender and Ring of Fire, that rule goes out the window with martial arts b-movies. More accurately, it gets jump-kicked through the window during a bar fight.

In this case, on the other side of that newly broken window is Steve James, and he's laughing and flexing all the while. Returning to the fray as Army Ranger Sgt. Curtis Jackson, he and Sgt. Joe Armstrong (Dudikoff) have recently been assigned to a Marine base to help protect the American embassy on an island in the Caribbean. Life is good for the local Marines. They surf, chase girls, get hammered, and due to some anti-American elements on the island, must rock Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts instead of their standard uniforms to blend in. Even the base's brash commanding officer, Capt. "Wild Bill" Woodward (Celentano) is dressed for a Jimmy Buffett concert.

Because of his culturally appropriated ninja-sense, Armstrong knows something is fishy right off the bat, and it's not the local shrimp tacos. (Shrimp are technically decapod crustaceans, not fish). Jackson and Armstrong are first invited to go water-skiing by a few of the dudes from the base. Guess what? There's no fucking life jackets. The boat mysteriously breaks down and drifts ashore to an isolated island beach. The shifty Marine is all, "oh, how strange... let's go swimming everybody" and Armstrong says "I'm afraid of sharks, I'll stay with the boat." Within moments, he's attacked by a gang of ninjas who throw every manner of ninja  weapon cliche at him: the spears, the confounding net, the stars, the swords. Even while dressed in a three-quarter-length wetsuit and white cross-trainers instead of his normal ninja gear, Armstrong prevails and the gang makes it safely back to base.

Even though Woodward has no idea what ninjas are (how typical), he grants Armstrong and Jackson a week to investigate further. They have a hunch that these ninjas may be related to a spate of kidnappings of Marines. Really, Joe? You think the random beach ninjas, kidnapped Marines, and shifty Marine who ran the boat ashore and into a sabotage might be connected? As it turns out, all of these things were mere coincidences and the kidnapped Marines were actually just busy with a bunch of sex workers, the ninjas were a local indigenous culture hostile to outsiders, and the shifty Marine was actually just a terrible driver. Kidding! Joe was totally right. A local heroin kingpin called The Lion (Conway) has been using a kidnapped biological engineer to create an army of ninjas out of kidnapped Marine DNA to protect his vast drug empire. Do you see why pro-lifers are so concerned about stem cell research? This is the shit that happens.

After exploring some super-serious dramatic territory with the first American Ninja, it was interesting to see that director Sam Firstenberg could lighten the tone with the second installment. The movie is zany throughout, and pretty much everyone got the memo. Dudikoff seems a little detached -- there's only so many Blue Steel glares I can tolerate -- and he makes some odd wardrobe choices like a leather jacket and jeans tucked into his boots. (We're in the Caribbean, mind you). James pretty much steals the show once again as Sgt. Curtis Jackson, so no surprises there. Mike Stone is pretty enjoyable as Lion's main muscle, Tojo Ken, and his build-up as the most threatening physical match for the heroes is well done, if completely illogical. (During quality assurance testing, he kills about 20 of the gang's own GMO ninjas). Jeff Celentano is a little stiff as Capt. Woodward, but sports a fine moustache and owns the best line of the film: "What is this? Ninjas? Drug pushers? My men getting kidnapped and murdered? This is really beginning to get on my tits." It's funny, because he doesn't actually have tits. If he does, they're pretty small.

While the movie treads a lot of the same action territory as the first installment -- heroes get jumped by ninjas, defeat ninjas handily, rinse, repeat -- there are some distinct differences. The most egregious is that Michael Dudikoff looks pretty awful in his fight scenes. A successful fight scene, in this humble writer’s opinion, requires that the stuntman act as if he’s getting hit, but also that the principal act as if he’s hitting him. Dudikoff acts like an interpretive dancer trying to complete a field sobriety test after a dozen Pina Coladas. When he’s not flailing, or throwing a weak kick, he’s doing movements without any regard for how the stuntman is moving with him. I counted at least three instances where he “threw” an opponent despite having no grip whatsoever on them. None of this is helped by the fact that Steve James brings intensity to his fight scenes, is deliberate but not stilted in his movements, and genuinely appears to be having a good time beating up those around him. It would be easy to point the finger at Dudikoff as a non-martial artist, but I think blame should be laid at the feet of Sam Firstenberg. The Koff looked passable in the first film, so what changed? One has to assume that director was lazy with the coverage and was forced to edit his way out of it.

VERDICT
Let’s recount: decent fights, a silly story, mostly unremarkable characters, and a lead actor who I may forever refuse to embrace as a martial arts action star. When all the critical elements are sort of neutral, your film would appear to be dead in the water, but you can still win a ton of points on overall form and pacing. I ultimately enjoyed the breezy runtime because there was always *something* happening: either a fight scene, a ridiculous plot point that moved the story forward, or some display of dated fashion sense out of a modern Williamsburg farmers market. While this film seemed to signal Dudikoff's waning interest in the franchise, the rest of the crew picks up the slack. Solid.

AVAILABILITY
Wide and salty, like the Caribbean Sea. Amazon, Netflix, EBay.

4.5 / 7

To the Death (1993)

PLOT: A retired champion kickboxer is held hostage and forced to train for underground fights to the death. Yet another unforeseen consequence of raising the mandatory retirement age under Social Security.

Director: Darrell Roodt
Writers: Gret Latter, Darrell Roodt
Cast: John Barrett, Robert Whitehead, Michel Qissi, Robert Whitehead, Michelle Bestbier, Ted Le Plat, Greg Latter, Norman Antsey, Claudia Udy.



PLOT THICKENER:
My favorite living filmmaker is probably David Lynch. He’s made his mark creating strange cinematic dreams where the players and the rules by which they play are every bit as twisted as the visuals. You know you’ve really made it as a filmmaker when your surname has become an adjective, so it’s hard to refrain from putting the Lynchian label on Darrell Roodt’s 1993 film, To the Death. It has a few of the trademarks -- a woman in peril, fractured identities, criminal elements, strange visuals, and weird speech -- though not with the same intensity or frequency. However, when you train a critical eye on a string of films from a formulaic subgenre during a very specific period of time, viewing them can be tedious, and films sometimes run together. Deviations from the norm, however slight, are always welcome.

To the Death is not unconventional in its narrative and it’s technically the unofficial sequel to the very conventional American Kickboxer 1. Most of the main characters -- and some of the cast -- make return appearances, with slight changes. John Barrett, who played elder kickboxing champion BJ Quinn in the first installment, goes by the name of Rick Quinn here. His girlfriend from the prior story arc, Carol, is now his wife. Denard, previously a flamboyant French kickboxer played by South African Brad Morris, has transformed into an angry French kickboxer played by Morrocan-Belgian Michel Qissi. Thankfully, trouble-making journalist Willard (Le Plat) returns to the fray as a stabilizing force, but then confounds the audience with longer hair and a moustache. It’s like the alternate 1985 from Back to the Future II where everyone is a slightly different version of themselves but even more scientifically dubious!

We pick up just following the events of AKB1, where Quinn has defeated Denard and recaptured the championship. He then chooses to retire, confusing the kickboxing world, vacating the title, and infuriating Denard, who wants nothing more than to beat Quinn in a rematch and regain his pride.

Not one to live out his days as a recluse, Quinn takes a social engagement over lunch with the Le Braque brothers, Dominique (Whitehead) and Roger (Latter). As burgeoning fight promoters, they would like nothing more than to coax Denard out of retirement to join a more exclusive sphere of the fight universe, where fighters perform in front of the elite, the fabulously wealthy, and a chain-smoking ring announcer in clown facepaint. Dominique’s inital proposal of $50K for “one evening, maybe two hours” seems indecent. Uh, what kind of movie is this again? The rich asshole doubles it when Quinn rebuffs, and responds in an ominous tone when Quinn is like, “shove your $100K offer up your asses, but thanks again for the steak salad that I didn’t touch” and leaves in a huff.

The next day, kickboxing journalist and old friend Willard stops by to say goodbye to the retired Quinn. While they’re exchanging pleasantries, Carol starts up the sportscar to pick up some milk or something and it explodes like a jungle hut in a Filipino commando movie. Who would rig Quinn’s car, and why? (Don’t answer, that was purely rhetorical).

Some months later, Quinn has downgraded from a home in the country with no lawn or resale value to a dingy hotel room with no furniture. His alcoholic tendencies have returned and he becomes so out of control during a drink with Willard that the bouncers literally throw him out with the trash. Later on, he drunkenly tries to start a fight with Denard -- the man he blames for Carol’s death -- and ends up in jail. Who bails him out? Willard? Ha! Journalists don’t make any money. In fact, it’s Dominique Le Braque’s foxy wife, Angelica, who springs Quinn. He doesn’t like having any debts, so agrees to a meeting with Dominique to arrange a payment plan that involves fighting with a reasonable interest rate. I wish I’d had the same option to pay back my student loans.

The rules are strict: Quinn has a week to get back into shape before his first fight and he can only wear pleated khakis while doing so. Under no circumstances is he allowed to bang Dominique’s wife even though her seductive gestures are signs of a woman desperate to escape her abusive relationship. Dom tries to communicate this through a joke about frying Rick’s balls and broiling his dick, but he fucks up the delivery so everyone stands around awkwardly afterwards.

It’s rare that I can really enjoy one of these movies if the action isn’t: a) well-done; or b) frequent. There’s not a ton of fighting here, and when it does occur, it’s standard kickboxing movie fight fare but nothing outstanding. But they do have a significant creative flourish. In a normal kickboxing sports movie, the referee is something of a compulsory element for the sake of accuracy. In an underground fighting-to-the-death movie, it’s extraneous -- you don’t need someone to enforce rules when the fighters are trying to kill each other. This film offers a third option: referee as executioner. Once each fight has been decided -- usually by knockout -- Dominique throws a single rose into the ring, and the referee aims a pistol at the downed fighter’s head. Never mind that fatally shooting the fighters who are supposed to kill each other runs contrary to the spirit of death matches. It hammers home Dominique’s god complex, and that’s good enough for me to view the character as a sick bastard and not your standard villain-filler.

Few would deny that Michel Qissi created a memorable and fearsome action villain with Kickboxer’s Tong Po (other than maybe Kamel Krifa, who played the character in Kickboxer 4). That said, replacing Brad Morris as Denard is no easy assignment. Morris’s natural performance captured all the arrogance, flamboyance, and intensity you could want in a chopsocky villain. Qissi’s take on Denard is angry and intense but lacks the more subtle notes. Much of the blame here belongs to the screenwriters for the way they wrote the character, but there was also an opportunity here for Qissi to make the role his own. Aside from one scene in which he brandishes a pitchfork like Ginny Field, there was nothing memorable about Denard in this film.

Perhaps that’s why this movie doesn’t stick out for most people. The things that were memorable about American Kickboxer 1 -- the training sequences, the performances from Brad Morris and John Barrett, and a great fighting villain -- were integral pieces to the whole movie. The memorable things in To The Death -- smoking clowns, unpredictable quips, weird relationship dynamics, alcoholic downfalls, and murderous sleaze -- are cool flourishes but not really essential parts. When you look at all of these low-budget DTV kickpunching films as a whole, it’s rare that the critical components in an individual film -- characters, story, and action -- are done exceptionally well; thus, in the void, the more minor flourises take on some added importance.

VERDICT:
A lot of strange and interesting touches snowballed over the runtime and culminated in a fairly enjoyable viewing experience. There were so many, in fact, that I somehow managed to ignore the absence of what usually makes these films enjoyable: great fights (or terrible fights) and lots of technical mishaps. I really enjoyed To the Death. After a too-brief acting career in which he had only a few starring roles, I’m comfortable calling Barrett the “John Cazale of American Martial Arts B-Movies” from this point forward, even though he’s still alive. (If you have better comparisons, please leave them in the comments!)

AVAILABILITY:
Limited. Best bet is VHS on Amazon or the usual gray market options.

5 / 7

 

American Samurai (1992)

PLOT: Years after learning the ways of the samurai as an orphan in Japan, an American journalist travels to Turkey to investigate a murder. To add to the international intrigue, he occasionally wears a Canadian tuxedo and his favorite snack food is Swedish fish.

Director: Sam Firstenberg
Writer: John Corcoran
Starring: David Bradley, Mark Dacascos, Valarie Trapp, Rex Ryon, Melissa Hellman, John Fujioka, Douvi Cohen



PLOT THICKENER:
Charlie and Donald Kaufman. Michael and Fredo Corleone. Alex and Chad Wagner. No, these aren’t the names of recently married couples in Maine and Maryland. They’re a few examples of cinematic sibling rivalries arranged in ascending order of fight scene quantity. And what better example of this convention than a film where the brothers in conflict share a pittance of screen time and aren’t even biologically related? Nearly 20 years before Warrior made “brother vs. brother” cool again, director Sam Firstenberg made it tepid and really bloody with 1992’s American Samurai.

Following the success of the American Ninja franchise, Firstenberg focused on another combative member of feudal Japanese society to Americanize without shame. He narrowed it down to two choices: the samurai warrior class ("bushi") and belligerent street merchants yelling at passerbys about tea. Fortunately for star David Bradley, Firstenberg went with the first idea. The duo would go on to make three more films together -- Cyborg Cop, Cyborg Cop 2, and Blood Warriors -- and Bradley starred in three American Ninja sequels after Firstenberg handed over the keys to director Cedric Sundstrom. If Firstenberg was Scorcese, one might say that Bradley was his De Niro.

The film begins as most critical masterpieces do: with a violent plane crash in the Japanese countryside. There's only one survivor, and wouldn't you know it, it's the most physically fragile and adorably squishy thing on the plane: a baby named Andrew. The unbreakable boy is raised and trained by a Japanese man (Fujioka) skilled in both the ways of the samurai and speaking impeccable English. Over time, the samurai master's own son, Kenjiro, grows envious of the skill of his adopted step-brother, who eventually achieves the elusive "sixth sense." In the world of the samurai, this means being able to cut air-born apples in half with a sword while blindfolded. It's great at parties too. When his father passes down the family sword to Andrew, Kenjiro loses his shit and reveals his awesome Yakuza tattoo before vowing vengeance and leaving home for good.

Only five years later, older Andrew (Bradley) is working as a successful journalist in Los Angeles. Not so successful that he's able to afford an adequate home security system though, because burglars break into his apartment in the middle of the night, steal his sword, shoot him in the stomach, and leave him for dead. Having the "sixth sense" also includes the ability to extract bullets with your fingers and just sleeping it off, because Andrew is feeling fine the next day. Who knew gunshot wounds to the abdomen were so treatable? If Mr. Orange had trained as a samurai, Reservoir Dogs would have been 20 minutes long.

After his boss assigns him to investigate a murder in Turkey, fast-healing Andrew and a sassy photographer named Janet (Trapp) are on a plane. If you guessed that their relationship goes from frosty and contentious to naked and sexual at some point during the film, give yourself an oversized plush pink gorilla. If you also guessed that Andrew’s investigation pulls him into an underground death match tournament that eventually leads to a confrontation with a key figure from his past, give the oversized plush pink gorilla back. There are no winners in the carnival game that is poorly conceived tournament subplots.

American Samurai is a film marked by odd choices. What could have been an interesting intersection of investigative journalism and martial arts action -- something like The Mean Season by way of  American Ninja -- instead devolves into a tired exercise in cliches and genre conventions. To his credit, Firstenberg tries to color the tournament participants with unique strokes -- one competitor has a blade hidden in his ponytail, another dresses like a goddamn viking -- but it all comes off as gimmicky artifice and only serves as a distraction from what the film’s characters probably should be doing. Andrew could have followed clues and chased leads and fought his way out of run-ins, while Kenjiro, as the villain, might have had more than 20 total minutes of screen time.

Firstenberg uses some trippy dream sequences to periodically illustrate Andrew's anxiety about his step-brother, which, for the sake of convenience, leads to Janet inviting him to sleep with her. You know where it goes from there, but it was interesting to note that the filmmakers used a noticeably doughier and hairy-legged double to pair with Valarie Trapp during the love scene. If this was by her request, we are left to conclude that Bradley hit the catering line a bit too hard while filming in Turkey and loaded up on extra garlic sauce with his manti and lamb kebab.

Despite the meager screen time, Mark Dacascos is enjoyable in his first major film role. His martial arts skills are muted substantially by the fight choreography, but he has the wild-eyed samurai face down cold. It could be described as either Toshiro Mifune by way of Carrie, or Zoolander's Blue Steel on cocaine and Kurosawa movies. It's steely and over-the-top, indicative of an actor still feeling out the dramatic ground beneath him, but it's a memorable element of performance for a sadly underwritten villain. It took a while to finally touch ground on a Dacascos joint, and it should be mentioned that this isn’t the best place to start with his filmography. Seeing as though the non-Gosling Drive is in the top three American martial arts films of all-time, we’ll certainly be returning to his work in the future.

The film's fight scenes are passable, and made slightly more memorable by liberal amounts of blood and gore. We get arm dismemberment, cheek biting, knife throwing, ponytail cutting, and at least one decapitation. There are apparently several versions of the movie floating around, one of which was heavily edited to remove this type of fun, so be mindful of what you're acquiring. Unfortunately, what should have been the best fight scene in the film was one of the worst; the climax is marred by poor choices in camera angles and rough editing. If you see a few cuts from completely different fights during this stretch, your eyes have not deceived you. Either Firstenberg failed to get the proper shot coverage for transitions, or the editor was lazy, drunk, or an unpaid intern. Possibly all three.


VERDICT:
Dropping American orphans into martial arts training in the Far East was all the rage back in the 1980s and early 1990s, and American Samurai is yet another example of what was, by this point, a tired trope. Maybe Firstenberg thought lightning would strike twice after the success of the American Ninja franchise, but Americanizing this particular archetype failed to stir audiences in quite the same way. The rivalry between Bradley and Dacascos is underwritten, the fight scenes aren't shot particularly well, and the tournament set-up felt like a diversion from what could have been a really entertaining film. Still, it offers a nice cinematic touchpoint for fans of Mark Dacascos and David Bradley and will please those who like their fight scenes gory.

AVAILABILITY:
Wide! Amazon, Netflix, EBay.

4 / 7

American Kickboxer 1 (1991)

PLOT:
A disgraced former kickboxing champion must rebuild his life after going to prison. In his absence, his arch-rival rises the ranks and taunts him from his perch atop the middleweight kickboxing world, where he has a nice view of the ocean, a brand-new dog park, and his own house.

Director: Frans Nel
Writers: John Barrett, Emil Kolbe
Cast: John Barrett, Keith Vitali, Brad Morris, Terry Norton, Ted Le Plat, Len Sparrowhawk, Roger Yuan


PLOT THICKENER:
If you watched nothing but Gary Daniels or Cynthia Rothrock movies, you might be lulled into thinking that kickboxing exists only as a tool of violence and retribution within the world of drug runners, serial killers, terrorists, Communists, and crooked authority figures. I actually do watch nothing but Daniels and Rothrock movies, so I was surprised to learn that kickboxing is an actual sport too.

BJ Quinn, played by Chuck Norris acolyte and b-movie veteran John Barrett, is an aged champion kickboxer at the back-end of elite status in his career. After a hard-fought victory over middleweight contender Chad Hunter (Vitali) he and other figures from the kickboxing universe attend an after-party hosted by his promoter (Sparrowhawk). Unfortunately, young punk upstart Jacques Denard (Morris) hits on Quinn’s lady, Carol (Norton) during the festivities and roughs her up when she rejects his advances. Quinn responds with shit-faced aggression but before things reach a boiling point, he lashes out at a bystander trying to break up the scuffle. The clumsy oaf flails his way through a shoddily constructed glass table and later dies in a hospital. You might say: “how can someone die from falling through a glass table?” But you need to remember this was the early 90s. The medical community was almost entirely focused on combating AIDS and probably had no one on staff qualified to treat his cuts and scrapes.

The fallout from this accident is devastating for Quinn. While Hunter vouches for his character at the trial, Denard offers deceptive testimony to muddy the waters. The judge hands down a stiff 12-month prison sentence and bans him from all title fights for the next five years, which effectively ends Quinn’s prime. No more electrifying kicks. No more girlish screams to pump up the crowd between rounds. No more Roger Yuan and the guy with puffy mullet as his corner men.

Upon Quinn’s release from prison, Carol picks him up from the clink in his old sportscar, but despite the show of loyalty it’s obvious Quinn is a changed man. He stands in silence in front of his fish tank wearing nothing but tighty whities. He drinks constantly, sometimes by himself. His relationship with Carol is rocky at best, and his newly formed friendship with former opponent Hunter is tenuous and marked by bickering. Quinn further isolates himself in an effort to reconstruct his identity as a person, not a fighter, but he continues to struggle with the absence of kickboxing glory.

Monitoring most of this and other kickboxing happenings is a newspaper reporter named Willard (Le Plat). He wants nothing more than to get a headline about middleweight kickboxing on his newspaper’s front page and will do just about anything to get it. Well, he doesn’t blow or blackmail anyone. But he’s pretty much a stalker who harasses every fighter he can find for quotes or backstage dirt. Because of this, he has a contentious relationship with virtually everyone, and Denard in particular has it in for him. As a character, Willard wasn’t entirely necessary but it allowed Nel to integrate a lot of modified newspaper headlines.

Despite his status as new champion, Denard doesn’t have a desire to be the best so much as he wants to be better than Quinn. He goes out of his way to antagonize him and his arrogant sense of entitlement is on full display throughout the film. He turns up to formal soirees in tank tops and ill-fitting pants, wears dark sunglasses during a court testimony, threatens kids seeking autographs, and even headbutts an innocent locker door. While all of this sufficiently characterizes Denard’s dickishness, Morris so thoroughly embraces the character’s traits that we can’t help but be entranced. Much of an audience’s hatred for a villain is set in motion by a single event but Denard is such a complete and utter asshole in everything he says and does that you legitimately want to see him beaten to death. And he has horizontal lines shaved into his head, which is OK if it’s 1991 and you’re nine years-old. But give Denard a pair of Ray Bans and some skinny jeans and he’s pretty much every hipster douche you’ve wanted to see step in dog shit and into oncoming traffic.

As a fighter, Denard is talented but his strategies in the ring are unconventional. At the start of matches, he allows his opponents to land a few strikes in order to get pumped up. Following that, he typically drives them into the ropes or the corner and hammers away until they’re knocked out or the ref gets between them. That said, he’s not above including cheap shots in his arsenal either. All the while, he plays to the crowd while decked out in teal tights under a colorfully patterned banana hammock and flowy tassles. The result is one of the more colorful martial arts villains of the era, and it’s a shame Morris’s skills as both actor and fighter weren’t put to better use in additional films. This was his last film role and he hasn’t been heard from since. It’s unlikely that you’d see Bolo Yeung or Michel Qissi giving this nuanced of a performance (especially in thongs with tassles) so Morris deserves to be lauded for his efforts.

The fights in the film are light on creative choreography and heavy on dodging, bobbing, and weaving. While certainly realistic in the context of a kickboxing match, it isn’t all that interesting to watch unfold on the screen, though all of these guys are good fighters. However, Hunter and Quinn deserve special recognition for some intense training montages. While they don't reach quite the same sweaty and rippling heights, the film contains the most homoerotic jogging scenes since Balboa and Creed in Rocky III.

VERDICT:
Because of the bad hair, bad fashion, and goofy montages, there was great potential here for the film to flail about in a vast pool of piping hot Gruyere … and it still does, at times. But the story and strong performances from Morris and Barrett elevate it above the trappings of its place and era to exist as an average-to-solid redemptive sports story. Audiences have seen this Rocky-style arc done bigger and better elsewhere -- like in, uh.... Rocky -- but Nel is somehow able to forge cohesion with the film’s elements and it results in a fairly entertaining watch.

AVAILABILITY:
Freely available via Amazon and Netflix. Tassles and thong not included.

5 / 7