American Ninja

Title: American Ninja

Director: Sam Firstenberg

Released: 1985

Starring: Michael Dudikoff, Steve James, Judie Aronson, Guich Koock, John Fujioka, Don Stewart, John LaMotta, Tadashi Yamashita, Phil Brock, David Vlok

Plot: Joe Armstrong (Dudikoff) a drifter conscripted into the U.S. Army to avoid going to prison finds himself drawing on his ninjutsu training when his unit are caught up in a plot to steal weapons from the army being carried out by the Black Star Order of Ninjas.

Review: A standout title for Cannon films which would inturn spawn a further four sequels as here they once more attempt to cash in on the Ninja trend which itself was less focused on any kind of historical accuracy and instead more focused on the look of the Ninja outfit and general excuse to wheel out all kinds of fun gadgets and weapons.

Here Michael Dudikoff plays Joe a loner who has been trained in the ways of Ninjutsu from birth which certainly comes in handy when he’s required to pulls out these skills throughout the film and despite not being a trained martial artist tapped into the James Dean vibe that Cannon films wanted after audiences struggled to get on board with the idea of a female ninja in the equally cult “Ninja 3: The Domination”. Certainly Dudikoff nails that James Dean persona of the loner with a chip on their shoulder but then here Dudikoff is far from the most expressive of actors and for some reason seems to have the same expression throughout. Even at the end were he is the hero surveying the smouldering remains of the battlefield does he not crack a smile and instead maintains the same gruff expression.

Thankfully what he might lack in expressions he does make up for in terms of his abilities as an action star even though he didn’t have any martial arts skills at the time of filming unlike his co-star Steve James which turned into something of an issue between the two with Dudikoff not wanting to be shown up with James requesting that his fight scenes be filmed on the opposite side of the compound to Dudikoff to avoid further problems. The pair would eventually squash their issues halfway through the production but watching the film you could easily believe that Dudikoff was a trained martial artist especially when you look at scenes like the sparing session between Dudikoff and James. James though makes for a great co-star and much more than a sidekick which is character had originally been written as and thanks to James changing a lot of the dialogue which was one of the main conditions of him agreeing to do the film and certainly it makes him much more of his own heroic character especially during the final showdown were he gets to fight his own battle.

The action throughout while perhaps lacking in any kind of logic especially when you get multicoloured ninja’s but it still manages to be enjoyable as a popcorn action flick and with it’s high bodycount and especially during the finale which features a ninja vs ninja showdown between Dudikoff and the head ninja played by Tadashi Yamashita in a fight which is a mixture of the pair trading Ninja gadgets (which include wrist lasers!!) while simultaneously engaging in an obstacle course. Needless to say this film more than delivers in mindless fun.

Perhaps having some kind of expectation going into this film, seeing how its an American Ninja movie perhaps made me view this in a more forgiving light, but when approached with the view point of just having fun with the movie it certainly delivers while the tight runtime which dedicates a large portion to action scenes equally helps and really makes me keen to see what else the series has to offer.

The Lost Empire

Title: The Lost Empire

Director: Jim Wynorski

Released: 1983

Starring: Melanie Vincz, Raven De La Croix, Angela Aames, Angus Scrimm, Paul Coufos, Robert Tessier, Angelique Pettyjohn

Plot: When Police officer Angel’s (Vincz) brother is killed trying to stop a trio of ninja’s robbing a jewellery story, her investigation soon leads her to the mysterious Dr. Sin Do who is holding a martial arts tournament on his secret island fortress. Now joined by the native American White Star (De La Croix) and Prison brawer Heather (Aames) they head to the tournament with the aim of avenging Angel’s brother.

Review: Please allow me to start by saying that his film really is a true shameless guilty pleasure, was well as that this is actually my first experience with the work of director Wynorski who like Albert Pyun unquestionably has his fans and who over the course of the last 25 years has churned out over 150 films to date including possibly his most well-known film “Chopping Mall”. Despite this legacy this film has until now always remained one of his most elusive even to the director himself, who began working with producer Bill Dever in 2007 to track it down and re-acquire the rights, which has now lead to it finally getting its release on DVD.

Almost certain that this film could be both his first and last, Wynorski crammed into this film everything he loved, which it would seem included feisty attractive ladies, ninja’s, martial arts and questionable gorilla suits to all but skim the surface of the sheer random fun this film is. It would only be fate that despite being originally made as a tax loss for Plitt Theatres owner Henry Plitt (something Wynorski reportedly didn’t know at the time) the film would be so liked by Plitt that he gave the film a theatrical release.

Essentially a sexed up version of “Enter the Dragon” the seemingly also fancies itself as a female James Bond spoof seeing how it opens with the familiar Bond peephole which this time draws focus on a pair of large breasts. It should be noted that this is essentially a hint of what is to come as like the films of David Sedaris and Russ Meyer, Wynorski is unashamedly also a fan of cramming as many beautiful women as he can into his films and generally finding provocative situation in which to film them something which continues with his work to date. 

Still despite this it would be wrong to dismiss this film as gratuitous T&A as there is atleast some attempt made at plotting, even if most of it is completely over the top, with the last half hour of this film being especially insane to the point were I was left questioning if they shot those scenes first or if Wynorski had just thrown caution completely to the wind knowing how random the rest of the film was already.

When it comes to the trio they are more a caricatures than with any form of realism as only highlighted by each of their introductions, hence Angel busting up a hostage situation at a school by riding a motorcycle down the hallway and punching out a random bad guy, while Heather is introduced by a prison yard brawl against a bull whip welding butch looking female dominatrix called whiplash, which essentially an excuse to include mud wrestling in the film. The weakest of the three though is White Star who just shows up on horse and spouts a bunch of Tonto-esq lines which I guess is kind of fitting seeing how Wynorski uses her character like a sexy version of Tonto.

It should also be worth noting that while the setup might be as a martial arts movie, there is actually very little martial arts action to be found here outside of the occasional kick or karate chop. This is especially amusing when it comes to the tournament were the competitors are told to expect a series of gratuitous challenges which will test their skills, only for the next scene to show the girls running around the grounds and through cones alongside shots of the girls being star jumps and pretty much anything else involving jumping to make the most of their general lack of clothing.  As such the whole competition plotline is quickly put on the backburner pretty much as soon as it starts, with only one fight actually taking place and that’s between Angel and one of Sin Do’s generic henchmen.

To balance things out from all the slap and tickle antics of the girls we do get a half-baked romance angle between Angel and Rick (Coufos) who with his classy porn star moustache is generally used for comedic value as he spends most of the film hamming things up which always seems to be the tradition for the romantic interest in these kind of girl gang movies. On the flip side he does also help balance out the amount of scantily clad ladies featured and pleases those of you who want to see shirtless Coufos.

While I might not be aware of Wynorski’s work before watching this film, I’m now keen to see what else is hiding in his back catalogue of work as this film really was a blast from the start. Ultimately though this film is  mindless fun and the sort of guilty pleasure to sit alongside the likes of “Faster Pussycat Kill Kill” and “Return to Savage Beach” and with the self-acknowledging cheese factor that most modern b-movies seem to aim for as seen especially with the recent direct to sci-fi channel releases from the likes of “The Asylum” and after all what other film can boast a phallus shaped laser cannon?

Goemon

Title: Goemon
Director: Kazuaki Kiriya
Released: 2009
Staring: Yosuke Eguchi, Takao Osawa, Ryoko Hirosue, Eiji Okuda, Jun Kaname, Goi, Hashinosuké Nakamura

Rating: 3 / 5

Plot: Goemon Ishikawa (Eguchi) is a master thief happily robbing the rich retainers to give to the poor with his assistant Sasuke Sarutobi (Gori). His life is however soon thrown into turmoil when he steals a Pandora’s Box-type device from malevolent would-be-emperor, Hideyoshi Toyotomi (Okuda), unwittingly opening up a conspiracy that implicates the powerful official in the murder of Nobunaga Oda (Nakamura), Goemon’s mentor and uncle to love interest Chacha (Ryoko Hirosue).



Review: Kiriya’s debut feature “Casshern” (2004) was an insane slice of sci-fi madness, that not only blew my tiny little mind the first time I saw it, but also blended hyper kinetic action scenes with stunning design work. Still it was even more impressive in how it managed to flawlessly blend CGI and more traditional effects to the point were it didn’t feel like you were watching a film being presented in a CGI created world, but a one in which the edges of both the real world and the CGI one blend together effortlessly to create one mindblowing stage for which Kiriya used to create the fantastical landscapes and vast robot armies of the source anime and it's this same frenzied and fantastic style that he now brings to feudal Japan, with this historical bio of Japan’s answer to Robin Hood, the Ninja turned bandit hero Goemon, as Kiriya plays fast and loose with the mixture of fact, fiction and legend of the titular hero, to create another frantic and fast paced film, which hits the ground running and rarely lets up throughout it’s running time.

Goemon is almost the perfect hero for Kiriya to choose for a biopic, if only due to the lack of actual historic information which is actually known about the man, though Kiriya has really only used this to his advantage it would seem, while setting out with the intension of making him almost a fantastical character, as he captures the pop samurai style of “Azumi” (2003), while a roguish performance from Eguchi, also gives the character under shades of Lupin the Third from “Castle of Cagliostro” (1979), making him not only a rebel, but also pretty handy in a fight, as highlighted through the numerous fight scenes, with Kiriya shooting these in the same glossy style as the rest of the film, which trades historical accuracy for pop video style, meaning that we are treated to such surreal moments such as a group of prostitutes performing a hip hop style influenced dance sequence, which for those of you wanting a truly accurate picture might find a little off putting, but then this music video style is hardly surprising when you consider that this was the provin g grounds, were Kiriya, like so many equally visual directors such as David Fincher and Spike Jonze, started out his directing career before moving into directing films and like those directors Kiriya has continued to bring that same creativity and glossy style to his films.

The plot is anything but straightforward, especially when Kiriya has chosen to pepper it with so many flashbacks, it often become hard to quite follow how everything links together especially when trying to take in how the numerous characters caught up in the main conspiracy of the story link together and something that is not especially helped by the addition of a clumsy love triangle, which only further adds to the confusion and it’s a similar problem to the one which dogged Kiriya’s debut “Casshern” which was also dogged by the same confusing style of plotting, as you find yourself being thrown from one stunning sequence to the next and though the ride is certainly enjoyable and without a doubt gorgeous to look at, you can’t help but wish that he had instead dedicated alittle more time to the construction of the story, rather than the best way to put each of these highly visual ideas on the screen, much like the countless themes which he attempts to cover with the same film with Romance, friendship, betrayal, political intrigue and epic battles just a handful of the ideas he attempts to lock into place, only generally adding further to the ongoing confusion.

The action scenes are all equally as exciting and in some case more so than what Kiriya attempted with his debut, as ninjas fly across the rooftops as buildings crumble around them, with Goemon seemingly having more gadgets than James Bond, including his multifunctional chain, while proving himself just as handy with a samurai sword in any of the numerous sword fights featured throughout and usually ending in a blood being splattered across faces and limbs being hacked off in the process, but other than a public execution, there is nothing too overly shocking here. The only problem that I did find, was that in certain sequences, that the CGI and real worlds seems to loose the gloss which blended them so seamlessly together, which could be down largely to lack of funds to support some of the more grander of Kiriya’s idea throughout, though even these scenes look great, even if their noticeable sub par graphic do pull you out of the film slightly.

While it might seem more style than substance, this film still makes for a fun piece of escapism and while being slightly less bewildering than Kiriya’s debut feature, it still suffers from pockets of confusion if mainly due to the sheer catalogue of colourful characters and intriguing plot twists and it could no doubt have benefited from tighter editing but despite these flaws it is still an exciting and great looking film and certainly worth giving a look, especially for fans of Kiriya’s debut which certainly has gained a decent sized following since it’s release and no doubt those same fans will lap this up too.

Return To Savage Beach

Title: Return to Savage Beach
Director: Andy Sidaris
Released: 1998
Staring: Julie Strain, Rodrigo Obregón, Julie K. Smith, Shae Marks, Marcus Bagwell, Cristian Letelier, Carrie Westcott, Paul Logan, Gerald Okamura, Kevin Eastman, Ava Cadell

Rating: 3 / 5

Plot: When the ladies of L.E.T.H.A.L. (Legion to Ensure Total Harmony and Law) recover a stolen computer disk containing the location of a hidden treasure trove, it’s a race against time to find it before the evil Rodrigo Martinez (Obregón) and his ninja henchmen do.


Return to Savage Beach
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Review: Honestly this is the kind of movie I tend to avoid reviewing, largly because of being the kind of person who gets embarrassed by my neighbours kid, loudly announcing that she wears a bra, so who really knows how writing about a film which is essentially sleazy trash will go, but then I guess the enjoyment of this film is pretty the same as that which comes with equally guilty pleasures such as “Baywatch” and the majority of Russ Meyer's movies, who coincidently is the one director who Sidaris certainly has the most in common with, for as Meyer's had a very obvious obsession with large breasted ladies, Sidaris has with “Playmate centrefolds” and “Penthouse Pets”, who he casted in his “Triple B” movies AKA “Bullets, Bombs and Babes”, a series of B-movies he made with his wife Arlene serving as his production partner and of which this would be the last of the series, while Sidaris was also renown for pioneering what he called “The Honey Shot”, were the camera cuts to close up shots of cheerleaders and pretty girls in the crowd, during his work as a director of sports coverage.

So to to this film, which as to be expected for a film featuring a bunch of centrefold models and other random B-movie actors, the plotting really is nothing to really write home about, especially as it’s pretty much none existent with the few scraps of actual plotting, are padded out with a mixture of overblown action sequences, gratuitous nudity and the occasional spattering of softcore sex scenes, which honestly will either spell out fun times, or will just confirm with those few plot elements, that this isn’t the movie for you. Now if you liked what you just read then there really is some cheesy fun to be had with this movie, which although it won’t be winning any awards it’s still a fun ride with a definite early 90’s / late 80’s vibe to it, which made it all the more surprising to find out how recent it actually was released.

Despite the limited budget, the cast all appear to be having fun playing secret agent, as the girls run around in a variety of skimpy outfits and on occasion nothing at all, while the two sole male members of the team Doc (Logan) and J. (Letelier) essentially do the male equivalent, as they seem to frequently misplace their shirts or go with the open shirt look, proving I guess in a way that Sidaris is an equal opportunities kind of director, with Letelier even sporting a comical looking medallion, which is never a good look anyway. Logan who can be found more recently featuring in various films being churned out by “The Asylum” such as “Mega Pirahna” (2010) and here once again is on top B-movie action hero form, really pulling off the fight sequences convincingly, while possibly being the best actor of the bunch as he puts on his typical gruff exterior, while generally kicking a fair amount of ass, while the ladies generally give the kind of performance that would not look out of place on an episode of Baywatch, which this whole film is essentially an extended episode of, just with more nudity and explosions. Still to many of the cast together in the same scene and their mediocre acting skills become painful obvious, as the laughable attempt at a tense bomb deactivation truly highlights

Backing up this elite crime fighting force is a colourful bunch of supporting characters including Sexologist and informant Ava (Cadell), who uses her innuendo laden horoscopes to guide the agents in the field, making her a kind of sexed up version of the D.J in “The Warriors (1979), while also being assisted by Harry the cat who is bizarrely enough played by Kevin Eastman, who is probably better known for being one half the creative team, behind the cash cow which was “Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles”, though really no idea how he ended up in this movie. To add further to this random cast of characters we also have the former wrestling crime boss Warrior, played here by ex WCW wrestler Marcus “Buff” Bagwell, aswell as Fu (Okamura) who looks like a Martial arts mentor and serves only to show off some kung fu skills and provide the setup for Willow’s (Strain) trademark “Book em Fu!” quote.

Obregón who is on bad guy duties here, as what only be assumed is supposed to be a columbian drug lord, is in many ways Sidaris’s version of Rami’s Bruce Campbell, especially seeing how he appears in nearly all of Sidaris’s films and here, spends the movie wearing a phantom of the opera style mask, while also having an army of Ninja’s (well three atleast) for no discernable reason it would seem other than he can, yet it is also never explained why they also have more of a tendency to use guns, than anything really resembling ninjitsu skill, with the exception of one fight in which they attempt to show off some kung fu skills, which predictably enough ends badly, much like any bad guy who is stupid enough to stand next to anything remotely explosive, as they are ultimately guaranteed to die via explosion, or rather their badly stuffed dummy version is anyway. Still when it came to the big final showdown, I was hardly expecting the Scooby doo ending which essentially get here, which confused me enough, until the end credits began to roll, to actually realise that I never got the big showdown, but instead the got not only a Scooby doo ending, but also the super happy ending aswell, which certainly if anything makes this film quite original for actually trying to pull something so ballsy off.

The action scenes are all pretty entertaining to watch and rise above the B-movie budget that Sedaris is working with, as he also manages to craft a few great original moments, including a couple involving the creative use of an exploding RC car, which although telegraphed from a mile off, still prove entertaining to watch, with Sedaris milking his explosions with the heavy use of slo-mo, which thankfully he avoids putting into any of the fight scenes, avoiding one of the common pitfalls numerous Action B-movies tend to fall into, believing that it adds to the action, when essentially it usually only takes away from it.

It’s hard to really recommend it, other than perhaps a cheap thrill as the gratuitous nudity and soft core sex scenes, limit it’s audience to those seeking the aforementioned cheap thrills and those of you who hunt out films of these standard purely for their humorous value, so if any of what I’ve mention throughout this review holds any kind of appeal give it a burn, otherwise you might want to just this film in a more literal way.

Elwood's Essentials #2: Ninja Scroll

Back when I first started getting into Anime, it was a completely different scene than it is today, were both Anime and Manga are readily pretty much everywhere, as the popularity has in recent years has literally exploded, which in turn has only helped to increase the variety and quality of anime available. This wasn’t always the case, as the anime which was available, when I first started getting interested mainly consisted of extreme horror with titles like Gô Nagai’s “Devilman” (1990) and the infamous Hentai “Legend of the Overfiend” (1989), which unbeknown to most viewers had originally been made for Japanese Sex cinemas, mainly thanks to censorship laws which meant that you could show more with a tentacle than a penis. Still there were occasional exceptions to this orgy of school girls, demons and tentacles, as occasionally something more arty like the legendary “Akira” (1988) or "Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise" (1987) would slip though and blow my mind, with the ideas being explored and how animation could be used for something, a lot less saturnine sweet than what Disney was churning out. Then of course there were those films which fell between these two worlds of anime that had been created, by the titles released here in the UK and “Ninja Scroll” was well and truly one of those kinds of anime.



The plot of "Ninja Scroll" follows Jubei, a Ninja for hire and general badass who travels through the Feudal Japanese landscape, following his own code of honour and working for those who can afford his services. Meanwhile a strange plague grips the land, leading to a team of Ninja’s being dispatched to investigate, only to quickly get slaughtered by an evil team of ninjas “The Devils of Kimon”, the sole remaining survivor of the ninja team, being female ninja Kagero whose body is poison to anyone she comes into contact with, is luckily rescued by Jubei who in turn soon finds himself hired by the spy Dakuan, forcing him to investigate how the Devils of Kimon are linked to the mysterious plague and despite initially refusing Dakuan’s request, soon has little choice but to take the job, after Dakuan infects Jubei with a slow working poison. Faced with little choice, he teams up with Kagero to investigate, as he takes on the mission, which will force him to confront an old foe from his past the evil and recently resurrected Gemma.

“Ninja Scroll” is a real old school anime especially with its visual styling and frequent disregard for any sign of restraint, which is more frequently shown by more modern anime which have in recent years have largely moved further away from the grime of the old school, which almost prided itself on the high levels of animated sex and violence it was bringing to western audiences, who having grown up believing that cartoons were mainly for kids, outside of a couple of notable exceptions such as “Fritz the Cat” (1972), had truly never seen anything like it and which would lead to predictable upset from the press, all issuing thier call to “ban this sick filth” as they lumped all anime under the same banner, while typically not bothering to actually research the genre.

This film was one of two sole anime that director Yoshiaki Kawajiri created with the other being the equally classic “Wicked City” (1987), before disappearing from the anime scene, only to return to the anime scene, to work on “The Animatrix” for which he directed the short “Program” which continued his interest in feudal Japan by being set in a battle simulation set during this period.
Kawajiri ensure that it hits the ground running with Jubei being ambushed by his disgruntled former collegues and keeps up a blistering pace throughout, in a true tribute to the pop samurai movies such as the “Babycart in Peril” series, as limbs are hacked off and the screen fills frequently with hosepipe arterial sprays of blood, as realism is set aside for sheer spectacle, which despite what it might seem isn’t just about gratuitous violence, with each sword fight and battle only serving to push the plot further forward, as Jubei battles his way through each of the Devils of Kimon, who all process their own talent, often involving some supernatural talent from the stone golem Tessai and the explosives expert Sakuro, in the lead up to the final confrontation with the evil Gemma.

The character design is so fantastic, that it’s hard to find any single character who isn’t interesting to watch or essential to the plot, let alone pick a particular favourite character, with the Devils of Kimon being especially true of this, seeing how every time Jubei is faced into a conflict with one of them, it is always exciting to see exactly what special ability that particular devil will be bringing to the fight, with these confrontations making up a large part of the appeal of the film, especially as no two fights are the same from the graceful samurai sword fight in the bamboo forest against the blind swordsman Utsutsu, to the blood and snot final confrontation between Jubei and Gemma aboard the ablaze ship of the shogun of the dark, which is less about subtly and more about pure vengeance and despite the fact that this Anime was made back in 1993, these fights are still just as exciting and fresh as they were, back when the film was first released, even compared to more modern anime and the more modern animating styles, it still can hold it’s own as still containing some of the most exciting fight scenes seen in anime, even when it’s clearly pushing the boundaries of plausibility seen when Jubei single handily carves up an entire ninja army and an explosion of arterial sprays and amputations, which Kawajiri chooses to show in such rapid cuts is almost impossible to keep up with, as your bombarded with an unrelenting slew of violence.

Since its release it’s been quite surprising that more ninja anime didn’t follow in its wake, with the only noticeable release being “Ninja Resurrection” (1998) which despite being marketed as a sequel, was in fact unrelated and only based on the same source material. Sadly due to production costs it remained uncompleted with only two of the intended four episodes getting made leaving it something of a curiosity as to if it could have been a more noteworthy title had it been completed, especially with it’s slant more towards actual demons and increased sex and violence, garnered it a cult following over time. However lately there would appear to be an increase in the popularity of Ninja anime, even if its leaning more towards contemporary styling than anything resembling historical accuracy, with the hip hop infused Samurai Champloo (2004) and Afro Samurai (2007), as well as “Samurai 7” (2004) the steam punk reimagining of Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” (1954) all of which despite being noteworthy, never have quite lived up to this films legacy, which even includes the series it spawned in 2003, while the promise of Ninja Scroll 2 continues to become all the more exciting, with Kawajiri from current reports still attempting to find a suitable script to turn into the sequel, but until then I guess I will have to just contend myself with the original, which after all these years is still carving a blood soaked path into the conscious of a whole new generation of anime fans.