User reviews

If you are watching this movie expecting anything more then action then you're a bit touched in the head. Action indeed, but a special form of action! IT'S 80'S ACTION! All that's missing from this show is "I love it when a plan comes together", as offered by the immortal Hannibal Smith from "The A-Team" as played by the venerable George Peppard.

Make no mistakes. This movie is le grande fromage, but it is fun. Even the super evil ninja with the cute little star tattooed below his right eye is downright adorable. Who doesn't like cute ninja's? Even those with lasers? Highly recommended (if you have enough booze and detach yourself from any form of realism). Fun.

This action art-martial movie is starred by the ranger Armstrong(Michael Duddikoff), a new soldier from an American base in Philipines islands. At the beginning he fights against corporal Jackson(Steve James), but early they befriend. But the colonel's daughter(Judie Aronson) is kidnapped and the prime suspect is a nasty villain, a gunrunner with a private army formed by violent Ninjas.The criminal ninjas worn in black, hooded, wielding a Katana on the black and using Shinkaisen, a metallic star they throw.Armstrong encounters ample reasons and opportunity to utilize his deadly skills trained by a Ninja master(John Fujioka).Armstrong along with Jackson go to evil's haunt and wipe out a passel of heinous nasties.

This classic-Ninja film is a violent and gripping story plenty of action and fights. Michel Dudikoff who is beefy as ever plays a tough ranger soldier forced into action and metes out his own justice when his girlfriend is abducted. The film is co-starred by Steve James(1952-1993), a bouncing and muscular actor, he habitually performed pal to action-stars; as, Michael Dudikoff,( three times: American Ninja 2, Avenging force), Chuck Norris and David Carradine, but unfortunately he early died. Furthermore appears John Fujioka, who trains Dudikoff in the Ninjitsu art-martial and he'll repeat in the following movie. Atmospheric musical score is composed by Michael Linn, made by means of synthesizer and appropriately adjusted to action.The picture is interestingly written by Gideon Amir, also producer, along with the usual, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globlus, from Cannon productions. The motion picture is acceptably directed by Sam Firstemberg, he's a low grade specialist on art-martial and Ninjas sub-genre. Followed by various sequels, starred by Dudikoff , later substituted by David Bradley, such as ¨American Ninja 2 : the Controntation, Ninja 3 : Blood Hunt, American Ninja: Annihilation, American Ninja V¨. Rating : Passable and entertaining.

First of all, this movie has many bad sides to it. Initially, the whole ninja-stuff is totally ridiculous. This means that this is a movie you just don't take seriously. If you want to do that, stop reading and watch something else instead. But if you like B-action movies from the 80's just for the fun of it, you'll enjoy this entry to the genre. It's hard to explain why it's so entertaining, since Dudikoff doesn't even make good fight scenes. It's still fun. I guess that Steve James' part in the movie helps a lot in guiding the film in the right direction. The last scene is more 80's than anything else. James handles the machine-gun almost like Arnold did in his prime time.

Yes this is unrealistic and far fetched and whatever word you wanna call it, but its fun. Dudikoff is a speechless loner in the army. In the first five minutes a convoy is hijacked and big Mike defends everyone all by himself, one of many good, if unbelievable, sequences in the movie. Several times Dudikoff is asked to dispatch small armies of ninjas and even though its too Superman-ish, they're nicely choreographed, so you just sit back and shake your head smiling. There's also good chemistry from Dudikoff and James, his buddy through the whole thing. And this probably sets a record for most crushed testicles in a movie, as there are several moments when theyre grinded with heels, knees, or palms. I still laugh 14 years later when James gives the "saw" to a bad dude (or was he saying "sir?"). According to Joe Bob Briggs, this set a record for most deaths in a movie with over a hundred. Even without counting that wouldnt surprise me, though some movie expert claims that Chuck Norris' "Invasion USA" holds the record for most dead, which came out the same year. What a double-bill that would be. This gets my vote for best martial arts film of the 80s.

Young Michael Dudikoff like young Lord Greystoke was abandoned in the jungle on a Pacific island as an infant. But instead of being raised by the apes, he fell into the hands of a Japanese soldier who was still living there because he hadn't heard the war was over. And like young Luke Skywalker it turns out he fell into the hands and learned the fighting skills of a Ninja.

Good thing because they were separated and the young kid came down with a case of amnesia, but those fighting skills didn't go away. The orphaned kid, now named Joe Armstrong enlists in the Army and gets himself stationed in the Phillipines. Meanwhile his Obi Wan Kenobe played by John Fujioka gets rescued himself and goes to work as a gardener on the estate of planter and terrorist go between Don Stewart using a cheesy accent that seems to vary between French and Spanish.

As these things happen everybody meets and Dudikoff both solves the mystery of part of his past and saves the commanding officer's daughter from the bad guys in this Golan-Globus Production. Charles Bronson was getting a bit long in the tooth now and Golan-Globus needed a new star for their action flicks. Michael Dudikoff filled the bill quite nicely and made quite a few films for them including several American Ninja sequels.

This film is all action and Dudikoff dispatches bad guys at a record pace. What he doesn't do, Steve James does doing his best Rambo imitation and showing his considerable martial arts skills.

The film has enough holes in the plot to drive one of those army vehicles through you see in the story. But that's what the ticket buying public doesn't care about. Dudikoff certainly looks magnificent stripped to his fighting clothes. No wonder so many sequels were made.

Amercian Ninja is a gulity pleasure if anything. The film has some decent fight scenes and some good B movie acting. Mike Dudkoff and Steve James are some smooth pimps in the movie bringing it to the man as only they can. If you like 80's karate movies then check this out.

The plot is very basic, but acceptable: A young US soldier, having studied Asian martial arts, puts this to good use in defence of the general's daughter and falls in love with her. Unfortunately, the three main acting parties' (soldier, girl, rebels) combined IQ amounts to 3: One point for the soldier, one for the girl, a large number of Ninja fighters have to share the third point among them to be able to lose against the former two.

A new army recruit proves to have Ninja skills which he then uses to fight hi-jackers and ninjas. Nobody seems to be impressed that the soldier saved the equipment and saved the colonel's daughter, just upset he got people killed. However this is because high officials in the army are in on the scam. Also the black-star ninja looks to do in our hero. American Ninja is one of those movies they just don't make anymore. The action sequences are well staged (Although edited poorly) and there are enough cheesy moments to make American Ninja just lovable. For example the part where the black star ninja pushes over a palm tree which then falls near Dudikoff's love interest. Also the climax has so much goofy action and ponderous zen philosophy (I dare anyone not to smile when Dudikoff says "Then he must die!") that the movie is even more fun now than it was in 1985.

* * * out of 4-(Good)

Sam Firstenberg of "Revenge of the Ninja", Ninja III: The Domination", and "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo" fame returns to give us this classic Cannon action flick. It's all very fun and very '80s, Dudikoff is a bit wooden, but, both he and Steve James are still great here. Also, some great action pieces towards the end. I think all '80s Cannon flicks need to be put in the library of congress as a way to look back on a style of balls to the wall film making that no longer seems to exist.

Cannon Group Golan-Globus Productions were having great success with their previous ninja films, "Enter the Ninja," "Revenge of the Ninja," and "Ninja III: The Domination," so why not start a new franchise? Michael Dudikoff plays the titular American Ninja, a G.I. on a U.S. Army base in the Philippines. He keeps his ninja skills a secret, even when fellow soldier Steve James challenges him to a fight (don't worry, the two become fast friends after Dudikoff repeatedly flips James and chokes him out), but when Dudikoff uncovers arms dealers colluding with military officials, he is one ninja who's had all he can stands and can't stands n'more. To be clear, this is a terrible film, but if you enjoy campy 1980s ninja films, which I most certainly do, you will enjoy this ridiculous ninja/Rambo hybrid. FUN FACT: Director Sam Firstenberg has said this is one of his two favorite films he's directed, the other being "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo." Personally speaking, I think "Ninja III: The Domination" is his career high point.

The title of my review aside, I adore this film.

When American Ninja was released on VHS back in 1986 Ninja fever was rampant. Even in the sleepy little village where I lived in England, every single boy of my age dreamed of being a ninja. The school playground was rampant with us wannabe assassins in duffel coats!

In the aforementioned little village we only had one video shop, I spent weeks and weeks in a state of despair on Saturday afternoons, as we would go there only to see the dreaded "Film on loan" tab attached to the box.

Eventually we finally turned up one afternoon and it was there...With no "Film on loan" tab on it! my life was finally complete and we took it home. My parents were never really into the whole "film ratings exist for a reason" thing. Incidentally, neither were the parents of pretty much all my friends, ahhh...The 80's, these young un's today don't know what they missed.

Saturday evening finally came and American Ninja was inserted into the top-loader...As I sat eating my Vesta curry, My life literally changed in the following 90 minutes, I learned more than any teacher could ever show me at school, Joe was literally a god! This guy could do anything...Beat anyone! Most of my friends had already seen it and we were all finally on the same Ninja wavelength! We practiced Joe's moves, disappeared in a "cloud of smoke" (England gets a lot of fog in Autumn/ Winter) behind the school canteen, jumped over the tyres in the playground as part of our "ninja training school".

Watching it back a couple of weeks ago (now I am 38) It is total crap, but total crap of the highest order. I thought ninja's were actually, you know, supposed to be elite assassins. Here the baddie Ninjas seem to get away with being pretty mediocre to be fair, they miss the easiest targets, get knocked out by really bad punches and kicks, do lots of unnecessary front and back flips, and generally don't really perform very well. Our hero Joe also seems to have a problem, he acts like he has something uncomfortable inserted into his anus most of the time, even when he smiles.

The whole thing is just laughable.

But laughable in the best possible way.

Thank you Golan Globus and Cannon films, thank you Michael Dudikoff and Steve James, thank you the guy who did the music.

I am indebted to you all for this slice of my childhood that I can also enjoy now I am a grown-up, albeit in a different but still entirely satisfying way!

If you are in any way intrigued by the mystery that is American Ninja, I implore you to crack a beer, grab a big bag of crisps and settle down, you will not be disappointed!

An American soldier, obviously very skilled in martial arts, single-handedly takes on mercenaries in the Philippines.

If you don't think this is a great movie, you clearly don't understand what 1980s action films were all about. Great acting? Plot? Well, no, we don't have those things. But the cheese is thick here and very much in keeping with the sort of thing we want from Cannon.

Interestingly, this title escaped my notice for a long time despite it having many sequels. I suppose with Arnold, Stallone and Norris dominating the 80s, it makes it hard for others to stand out. But if you want a white ninja (who looks like Dennis from "Always Sunny") this is for you.

Typical Golan Globus schlock. Fight scenes are unbelievable. Judi Aronson was perfect as the "pampered princess". You have a loner who hasn't fitted in suddenly uncovering a plot of weapons theft. Things are so incredible if any military were to experience that amount of theft this military had incurred C. I. D. Would've been crawling up the backsides of the command staff. Good for an escape.

Just when you thought director Sam Firstenberg could not take ninja films any further, we were treated to this spectacularly brilliant cheese fest in 1985. Michael Dudikoff, fresh off his stint in Bachelor Party, was cast as "Joe".... The American Ninja!!! Did it matter that Mr. Dudikoff had absolutely no martial arts training before this film? Certainly not. They only wanted a guy who looked like James Dean, didn't have to say much, and could act like he had a chip on his shoulder. Dudikoff more than fits those criteria. You have to feel for Steve James, though. He actually was a great martial artist, but had to play the sidekick role. At least in the two installments of this series I've seen.

The story centers around our hero the mysterious "Joe" who is a newly arrived private at a U.S. Army base in the Phillipines. At least that's where they filmed this. Most movies about the military refer to their characters by their last name. Not here. I don't recall us ever learning what Joe's last name is. But nobody knows much about the young man. He was found on some Pacific Island as a young boy with no family or memories of one. Raised in reform schools until he "almost killed a man at age 16", Joe clearly needed some discipline, and the army is where he ended up. Curious however that the army has no knowledge of Joe's date of birth, yet they know how old he was when he almost killed a man! The film is filled with goofs like that! Anyway, Joe was apparently trained as a ninja while still a boy! And could you believe the guy who trained him actually works as a gardener on a plantation near Joe's army base??? As Elaine would say on Seinfeld.... GET OUT!!! Turns out the owner of this plantation is also stealing arms from Joe's base and selling them to the highest dirty bidder, too. And this plantation is also the training ground for an army of evil ninjas, too!!! Sounds like we have a Golan/Globus production here! Can Joe stop the sale of these arms and defeat the ninja army and their leader??? Honestly, you get what you pay for with this movie. There is a lot of action, and some of it is compelling. Despite Dudikoff's lack of training, he almost pulls it off. At least we get to see Steve James flex his muscles between stealing every scene. Judie Aaronson of Friday the 13th IV and Weird Science fame is here to provide a plucky love interest. She does fine with her character and comes off kind of like Jane in a Tarzan movie. The musical score is made from old Missing In Action pieces, and some outrageously over the top horn playing. Some of it sounds like Chuck Mangione's Feels So Good on crack. The film even has jeeps that will explode after slightly tapping a palm tree. Trust me. It's an hour and a half of your life that you probably didn't need, anyway! 5 of 10 stars.

The Hound.

The first action scene alone is worth watching this 1985 movie over, as unarmed American soldiers take down Filipino mercenaries armed with Automatic weapons. It stars with a blast, literally, and just keeps getting better. I mean, ninjas in the Philippines, does it get any better than that?

This movie has it all; stereotypical villain, martial arts, goons unable to-hit anything more than an inch away, lots of action and of course ninjas! Granted this is not Shakespearian cinema, but it is still entertaining for the campy thing it is. And it was also a trip down memory lane to my childhood.

"American Ninja" is predictable to the core, sure. But it still has an entertaining enough storyline. The background story of Joe doesn't make much sense. But all this can be looked past because this is, after all, a ninja movie! You know that when someone snatches your arrow out of its trajectory and breaks it that you have found your arch nemesis.

As for the action and martial arts, taking into consideration that it is from 1985, then it was adequate and did what it was supposed to. However, if you haven't seen the 1980's ninja movies, and only watch todays martial arts movies, I believe you will not be impressed with "American Ninja".

In all its cheesy, campy self "American Ninja" is an entertaining enough movie if you want to kill some time with a no-brainer movie.

This is, surprisingly enough, an interesting, well-made action picture, an astonishing feat for something coming from Cannon Films (especially the "well-made" part), tightly directed by Sam Firstenberg, who handles the action scenes expertly. Michael Dudikoff and Steve James work very well together as American soldiers stationed in the Philippines who stumble upon a racket involving corruption, murder, black-market deals between Filipino gangsters and American officers and a ring of ninja assassins. Well acted by Dudikoff and James, but Judie Aronson is annoying as their commanding officer's daughter who inadvertently gets mixed up in the goings-on, playing her as a spoiled Valley girl--after a murderous attack by ninja killers on an army convoy, she's more upset that she got her expensive shoes wet than at the fact that a dozen or so GIs had been killed. The fact that Dudikoff and James finally drove off the ninjas, thereby saving her life, means nothing to her, and in fact she gets angrier at the two of them than at the ninjas responsible for the massacre. It's a totally unrealistic portrayal, and she doesn't get any better during the rest of the film. Her annoying performance is a small price to pay, however, as the rest of the film is quite good, although it does tend to lag in spots. Firstenberg keeps the pace exciting, though, and the many action scenes are extremely well done. The success of this picture inspired Cannon to come out with a string of sequels, none of them anywhere near as good as this one and most of them adding to Cannon's well-deserved reputation for turning out cheap, sloppily made swill. This film is definitely an exception to that rule, however, and more than worth a look. Check it out, you won't regret it.

I couldn't stop laughing, I caught this again on late night TV. "I suppose you think you're some kind of hero for bringing my daughter back alive" "No" "Good"

haha.

This movie is like "dynamite"! I mean it's not your usual ninja action film. An amnesiac soldier named Joe(Michael Dudikoff) fending off ninjas single-handedly is on the fly. And you got this cat named Curtis Jackson(Steve James,1952-93) who knows good fighting when he sees it. When he fights Joe, he got what was coming for him. Iliked the part where he says to Joe that his moves are "too perfect", he knows he got somebody who can really kick butt. Having no memory of one self is frustrating, but when the clues start coming on, it's rumble time! The big take down was the best part of the movie, I like the part when Jackson took on the big rebel after he kicks the gun away from him, he got the claws to the conjones and was completely immobilized by Jackson. They when the heroes and the winners of the movie, if the Col.(Guich Kook,Carter Country) had been more helpful than greedy, he would've lived a lot longer. Such as life. This movie got a lot of action, and it's never boring. You'll get a kick out of it. Rating 3 out of 5 stars.

Ask a thousand people what the greatest unintentional comedy of all time is, and they will almost invariably tell you Battlefield Earth or Plan 9 From Outer Space. They're wrong. American Ninja has those two turkeys beat down for a number of reasons, not the least of which being a script that was quite clearly not thought through. While I fully support the B picture industry for keeping slobs like Michael Dudikoff in work, a little work on the product would have gone a long way.

For those who give a rat's posterior, my next few paragraphs will give away significant parts of the plot.

First of all, when we are given some background information on the titular hero, we are told his date of birth, next of kin, parents, and so forth, are all unknown. I don't know about you, but I expect the US army to take fact-finding about its personnel a little more seriously. They also manage to screw up the continuity of dates quite effectively, although I don't remember quite which dates were screwed up and when. This is actually one of American Ninja's less obvious flaws.

It has been pointed out before, but a common failing of many martial arts films is that when our heroes are confronted by large numbers of antagonists, said antagonists attack one at a time. More recent films such as The Matrix Reloaded defy this convention, but just about every film from the 1980s has the audience screaming, "hey, why don't you attack all at once???". Martial arts films tend to be a lot more impressive when the fights are more extensive than one-on-one.

The central premise was originally a joke, but in light of recent events where the US army cannot crush a mob of insurgents simply because they won't delegate to the specialists, it seems strangely ironic. Phillipino renegades are stealing weapons from the US army's local division for sale to wealthy clients. Never mind that such a theft would prompt the army to give the local businessmen responsible, or even believed responsible, an aerial rectal exam, this is a cheesy 1980s action film, after all.

By far the funniest part of the film is the climactic battle, however. As Joe and Jackson turn combining posing and fighting into an art form, evil Ninjas start to explode for no readily apparent reason. I agree with one previous commentator in that this film should have been called Ninja Holocaust, because I'm willing to bet a total of at least three hundred evil Ninjas bite it during the film's running time. On top of that, the Black Star Ninja starts fighting with rocket launchers, laser beams, and all sorts of ridiculous implements that are not only poorly thought out, they're flat-out poorly executed. You'll never see a laser beam effect that looks cheaper.

What tops it all off is that the film takes itself so damned seriously. During the scene when Joe is meeting up again with his old mentor, I dare the viewer not to laugh at the hideous dialogue. Not that I know any modern practioners of Ninjitsu, but the logical part of my imagination has a hard time believing that they have spoken like this at any time in their history. During this mentoring scene, I half expect the old guy to tell Joe he must prove his manhood by cutting his own head off with a blunt plastic spoon.

In all, I gave American Ninja a 1. This is a special score in my system in that it is reserved for the worst, most appalling, most offensive films I've ever seen, or films that make me laugh without even bothering to try. American Ninja is definitely an example of the latter.

I think this should be required viewing for any male child 13 years or younger. I have no idea how many times I saw this movie growing up, but it is easily over 15 times. Maybe twice that. It has everything a boy who plays with action figures could want, NINJA's, G.I.Joe's (for god sakes his name was even Joe), lasers, flips, sai's, cat's claws, wrist lasers, machine guns, sword fights while in knee deep water (fights in water are always WAY cool), buff dudes with muscles, motercycles, a chick, characters with a disrespect for authority, a butterfly knife being flipped back and forth as Joe cooly leans against a truck, guys getting kicked in the nuts, did I mention flips? Anyway it goes on and on. All the cheesy effects make it all the more fun to view. I just watched the DVD after not having seen it for a few years and I just caught another good effect. When Joe and Patricia jump off the roof, there is an obviously inflated balloon on the roof that they land on. I remember my brothers and I putting sweat wrist bands on our hands as a child and pretending they were the cat's claws thingies that the black star ninja and Joe had. We had some awesome battles. I was probably a ninja for at least 3 Halloweens when I was a child as well. I was an "army guy" for another few Halloweens. I was the coolest. Anyway American Ninja rocks. By the way I don't know the name of the movie (I'm sure I could find it out here on imdb easy enough if I cared to look) but a few years back I was flipping throught the channels and I came across a movie where the Michael Dudikoff and Mark Hamill were fighting. Luke Skywalker fighting the American Ninja!??! I kids dream come true. So go see this movie. Or even better, show your young son, nephew, or whoever this movie.

American Ninja was a winning recipe. Take ninjas from Japanese films, and put them together with American macho action men. That's all you need. Along with some Sho Kosugi flicks American Ninja must be the definitive western ninja movie.

I didn't see this movie as a kid but I remember hearing about it in school every now and then. I had seen Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and I imagined American Ninja must be something similar but more violent, a big boys' ninja film. Well, I don't know about that. Watching it today it seems pretty tame with comic book violence and ridiculous (but fun) colorful ninja costumes.

The four sequels that came later aren't bad but I guess the original movie is still the best. If you want to look for a plot or character development...there is a little bit. Like...very little but that's still more than can be said about the sequels.

The best thing is the combination of Michael Dudikoff and Steve James who make great buddies. First they don't like each other but then they team up. Joe (Dudikoff) also has to remember his past which he has forgotten. That's, like, all the deep stuff. Other than that, there's soldiers with guns who are against evil ninjas hired by some crime lord. And an old ninja guru who just happens to be there... Practically everything in this movie just is there and does not make much sense. But it's all entertaining.

Maybe not one of the best films ever but there is something special about it that makes an essential watch for anyone interested in action movies.