the ninja trilogy: ninja iii - the domination

ninja 3 - the domination follows telephone engineer/aerobics instructor christie who finds a dying ninja and is possessed by the evil spirit living in his sword. christie then becomes a ninja herself and decides to take revenge on the policemen who were responsible for her predecessor's death. when she's not possessed by an evil ninja, christie and her cop boyfriend attempt to figure out what's happened to her and how to stop it.

this film is insane, and by far the best entry in the ninja trilogy. for a start, christie (lucinda dickey) is an awesome protagonist. not only does she have a blue collar job which you very rarely see in genre cinema, she's also shown to be able to take care of herself even without being possessed by an evil ninja. there's also an actual sex scene early on, which christie instigates, ruining my theory that all ninja films are really about sex. that said, i did wonder if there was a transgender message in this one. the floating possessed sword asserting its will over christie is so obviously phallic that it doesn't seem like such a huge leap to conclude that this is a story of a woman learning to come to terms with the fact that she identifies as a man. then again, it also feels like there's a theme of christie resisting the 'dominance' of men so it's possibly less about her transitioning and more about her fighting to stay female in a world in which masculinity is the dominant force. i don't know, but there are definitely some interesting ideas under the surface of this film, intentional or not. there are also two moments where ninjas crush balls in their hands - first a golf ball then later christie crushes a pool ball - but i'm not sure i want to explore that particular visual metaphor in this review.

the tone of this film should really be an issue because our protagonist is massacring innocent cops. the cops are never shown doing anything bad, and when they kill the first ninja it's only after he himself has murdered about twenty of them so it feels justified. nevertheless, whenever christie encounters one of her future victims she flashes back to a slow motion image of the cop in question firing bullet after bullet into the helpless ninja in a way that clearly portrays the cops as being crazy. it's kind of interesting, because by simply using imagery and editing we are allowed into christie's evil-ninja-possessed head. the real hero of the film is sho kosugi's character, yamada, who wears what looks like a cd for an eyepatch and tracks christie down so he can help her out, and yet he only has about ten minutes of screentime overall. despite all this, there is enough of a mystery in the story to keep us invested in christie, even when she's murdering innocent cops.

there is also a fantasy element in this film, and maybe it was just because james hong appears at one point but i couldn't help being reminded of big trouble in little china. there is an exorcism scene that plays like something from a horror movie and the final sequence has magic and an undead ninja and all kinds of things you don't expect from an eighties action movie.

i thoroughly enjoyed this film and would go so far as to say that it's worth investing in the whole ninja trilogy just to see ninja 3 - the domination. it's also the one that looks the best on blu-ray as it's the most colourful and is mostly set during the day. this is certainly the most interesting film in the series and the most bizarre, but mostly it's just a lot of fun.

ninja iii - the domination will be released by eureka entertainment as part of a 5-disc dual format (blu-ray & dvd) edition on 18th january 2016

the ninja trilogy: revenge of the ninja

like its predecessor revenge of the ninja opens with a ninja massacre, only this time it's the ninjas doing the massacring. cho osaki (sho kosugi) returns home to find his family slaughtered and his estate in ruins. after dispatching the remaining attackers, he takes his mother and infant son to the states where he swears off being a ninja in favour of running a gallery instead. however, it's not long before cho is drawn back into a life of combat when he once again becomes the target of a powerful and malevolent ninja.

kosugi, who played the evil black ninja in the first film, ostensibly takes the lead in this film, except he doesn't really. much of the action is concerned with his american business partner, braden (arthur roberts), who is revealed to be a ninja himself. braden is using cho's gallery as a front for a heroin smuggling operation, but when the local mafia boss screws him over he wages a one-man war against the mob. braden isn't a hero, him being a heroin dealer and everything, but revenge of the ninja seems to be much more focused on braden's revenge against the mob than cho's revenge against the ninjas who killed his family. that's partly because as a character cho spends most of the film not wanting to get involved, even when he is beaten and nearly killed by mob henchmen.

where enter the ninja was a film about impotence and masculinity, revenge of the ninja is very much a film about abstinence. i try not to equate every film i watch to sex, but here it's kind of hard not to. in the second scene of the film we see braden's assistant, kathy (ashley ferrare) coming on to cho. what begins as a seduction soon turns into a fight as the two spar, ending with cho on top of his opponent. despite the sexually charged exchange, cho refuses kathy's advances and in the following scene we find out why - he has sealed his ninja sword and vowed never to unsheath it again. the rest of the film mostly consists of braden killing mobsters and the police asking cho for help, i.e. to unsheathe his sword, which he consistently refuses to do. until the final act at which point cho is left with no choice and has to face braden one-on-one. it turns out he was just saving himself for the right person, and he says as much in the film - 'only a ninja can defeat a ninja'.

sexual analogies aside, the focus on braden rather than cho does make the film a slow watch at times but there are some fantastic set pieces along the way. there is one really long fight scene in which cho is forced to defend himself against a group of mobsters after they attack his gallery, and it's actually a pretty intense scene with some impressive stunts. the final rooftop battle between cho and braden is an exciting finale and does make the somewhat bumpy road you have to take to get there worthwhile. also there are some truly bizarre moments, like when braden distracts cho with a lifesize fibreglass replica of himself during the fight, as if he just had one in his pocket or something. and then there are these guys -

in a lot of ways this is a more entertaining film than it's predecessor, but it also has very little going on in terms of the plot. it does have some great ninja action though, so it's worth checking out for that.

revenge of the ninja will be released by eureka entertainment as part of a 5-disc dual format (blu-ray & dvd) edition on 18th january 2016

the ninja trilogy: enter the ninja

enter the ninja follows cole (franco nero), an american army veteran who has spent years training to be a ninja in japan. on graduating ninja school he decides to visit his friend frank who owns a farm in the phillipines. there he finds that frank and his wife are being harassed by a local organisation intent on taking all the oil-rich land in the area for themselves, and this gives cole the perfect opportunity to put his ninja skills to good use.

the opening of this film is a ten-minute sequence in which cole, a ninja in a white outfit, takes on a bunch of red ninjas and one ninja in a black outfit (sho kosugi) who seems to be some kind of super-ninja. cole beats them all and beheads his master, at which point it is revealed that it was all part of his training, even down to the fake beheading.

i came away from this sequence with a bunch of questions. what do the different colour outfits mean? is franco nero allowed to be a ninja? there are so many ninjas in this sequence, is this film set in ninjaland? why is his moustache so huge? are ninjas allowed moustaches? you can see it through his mask! how and why do you fake a beheading? do ninjas really need a ninja licence? what are ninjas anyway?

so i asked a couple of these questions on twitter (thanks to everyone who responded!) and apparently ninjas were a real thing, not just something invented by movies. in real life, however, they dressed like civilians to blend in, which makes much more sense. ninjas were mercenaries, hired for covert work like espionage and assassination and there's evidence of this in the film when the bad guys hire the black ninja to take on cole. i wassurprised the head of the ninja school wasn’t more concerned with who he was hiring out his ninjas too, but i suppose if you're a mercenary it doesn't really matter.

in between ninja battles, the film actually has quite a sombre tone with occasional moments of ridiculousness. there is one interesting juxtapositon in the film where frank recruiting farmers for his land is contrasted with the bad guy recruiting his thugs, and that part actually works quite well, but otherwise the underlying themes of the film are mostly to do with masculinity. there’s a subplot about frank’s impotence and failed masculinity in comparison with cole’s uber-alpha male that seems directly related to killing and the ability to kill. frank was in the army with cole and even saved his life, but whereas cole trained himself to become a super-assassin, frank has seemingly lost the will to fight and the film makes a clear connection between this and his inability to perform in the bedroom.

it almost seems like the power of the ninja is somehow connected to masculinity, with the black ninja being masculinity gone too far; with great manliness comes great responsibility. worryingly, both ninjas have a similar reaction when the first encounter frank's wife, the only woman in the film. when cole first meets her he wrestles a gun from her hands in a moment that’s one grope away from a sexual assault, and then when the black ninja first encounters her he cackles like a crazy person and takes great pleasure in manhandling her. this presents a troubling theme of women as playthings for men in stupid costumes; something that continues to happen in superhero movies today.

all you really need to know about this film is that the ninja stuff, which probably makes up about thirty minutes of its running time, is all pretty cool. i mean it’s insane and ninjas certainly use some bizarre tactics to get the job done, but because of that it all feels a bit different and interesting. the fight scenes are actually pretty good in places and there’s a satisfying amount of bloodshed, particularly in the final assault. it’s worth seeing for that, but be prepared for some dubious gender politics and dull plotlines along the way.

enter the ninja will be released by eureka entertainment as part of a 5-disc dual format (blu-ray & dvd) edition on 18th january 2016