Revenge of the Ninja (1983) & Ninja III: The Domination (1984) with the Long Rewind

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Most
Excellent Eighties Movies podcast. Want to skip those ads and
get early access, become a member at true story dot
fm slash join and discover all the other great perks
that come with it.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hello, everybody, Welcome to The Long Rewine Slash, the Most
Excellent Eighties movie podcast. That's right, it's a crossover episode.
When you're dealing with a topic is big and is
important as the one we're dealing with today, it takes
not one, but two podcasts to address it, and that's

(00:49):
what we're bringing you today. So this is I'm Dustin Borrow,
I'm the co host of The Long Ride. I'm joined
by Chrissy Linz and Nathan Blackwell, the host of the
Most Excellent Eighties Movie podcast, and we're going to talk
to you today about the scourge, the infection, the fascination
with ninjas that permeated the nineteen eighties. What was that

(01:12):
all about? We don't know, but we're going to get
to the bottom of it. And by the end of
this episode you were going to learn stuff that you
never knew you needed to know. And so we're gonna
start though by talking about our shows So if you
are finding this podcast in the feed of the most
Excellent Eighties Movie podcast, I will tell you just briefly
about our show. It's called The Long Rewind. It is,

(01:37):
like my compatriots here, a deep dive into the cinema
of the nineteen eighties. So we tend to dedicate episodes
not to individual films, but to like motifs or trends
or technologies or you know, sort of cultural impact. Were

(01:58):
looking to provide some context as to why the cinema
of that decade looked the way it did, why the
films that were being made in that decade were being made.
I'm a professor of film at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon,
and one of my areas of scholarly study is actually
the cinema of the nineteen eighties. So I actually give

(02:18):
this stuff some professional thought, believe it or not, and
try to bring some of that, some of that contact,
some of that experience of not just studying that but
also working with my students on it, on these ideas
to our show. So we drop every Wednesday morning. We
have a new episode every Wednesday morning. We started out

(02:41):
by doing a year by year deconstruction of the of
the decade, which took us through so many episodes, and
then we then we moved into like tackling a different
topic in each week's each week's episode. So, Christy or Nathan,
why don't you tell the people who are finding this

(03:01):
episode on the Long rewind Feed a little bit about
the most excellent eighties movie podcast.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah? Absolutely, it's the podcast where a filmmaker and a
comedian rewatch the eighties movies we think we love or
might have missed with these our grown up adult eyes
to see how they hold up or not. We just

(03:29):
choose based on vibes. We don't necessarily go through any
like rationale as to why we choose what we choose.
It just it just comes to us, as if in
a dream. And then we do those movies. And I
am a one of the directors and a performer at

(03:51):
the Neighborhood Comedy Theater in downtown Mesa, Arizona, where I
do comedy each week. And Nathan tell everybody a little
bit about what you do.

Speaker 4 (04:02):
Uh So, first of all, I'm most known for my
terrible self introductions. But yeah, I'm a Phoenix based independent
filmmaker and I thought that I was going to be
the one who brings in the the like, the the
the amusing commentary. But it's really just more like the

(04:24):
filmmaker tidbits is my my niche in the ecosphere of
the podcast. Uh and maybe more sarcasm than Chrissy.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
I'm more of an earnest recapping of the movie. And
then Nathan chimes in with brilliant filmmaker insights and not
a little bit of sarcasm.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Yes, you bring the suite and Nathan breathings the salty.

Speaker 4 (04:54):
Currently, I still I still blister at giving movies ra
because you know, art is so subjective, so I don't
want to come off as as someone who really likes
to put things in their place. I guess, just my
if if Chrissy and I have a double act, then

(05:15):
I'm I'm the darker one. I guess.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
All right, Well, I should say that I think your
podcast is delightful. I think that people who listen to
your podcast would like our show, and vice versa. So
wherever you're finding this episode, check out the other show too,
because I think that you will you will also dig it.
So should we dig into a into Ninja's Yeah exactly,

(05:46):
I mean breakdancing body switching, teen horn dogs, teenagers getting
slaughtered by serial killers, quicksand I mean, these were the
things that you found in every eighties move and U
and Ninja's goes on that list for sure, for some absolutely,
for some reason, inexplicable reason that hopefully maybe by the

(06:08):
end of those like forty five minutes will be a
little more explicable. Ninja's were huge in the eighties. There
was It was a real tread for a while. There
there were a ton of these movies. Let me start
by asking you, guys, what is your first memory of
like exposure to just the idea of a ninja. Was

(06:29):
it from like one of these movies? Did you see?
How did you learn? Can you can you remember how
you learned about ninja's.

Speaker 4 (06:38):
The moment where we went from pre ninja life to ninja.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
Life exactly now? I can't.

Speaker 4 (06:44):
I feel like as a kid in the eighties, like
you were just always aware of it, Like I don't
remember the moment I first encountered dinosaurs or like knights
in armor, but they was kind of in the same bin.
You know, it was you You know, there would be
ninjas in like g I Joe, there'd be ninjas on TV,

(07:07):
there'd be ninjas in you know, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,
things like that, and it was just kind of like
as synonymous as like vikings and things like that and pirates. Yeah,
so ninjas were always and we were, of course led
to believe that ninjas were the super soldiers. Sure, maybe

(07:29):
samuraized were like the normal soldier, but ninjas were the
mystical super soldiers. And I think even even in the eighties,
we knew that that they weren't historically accurate how they
were portrayed in all the movies we saw, not at all.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
From what I understand, Right, how did you learn about ninjas?

Speaker 3 (07:54):
I learned about ninjas through all the kid friendly ninja
content out there, like Teenage Ninja Tar of course Three
Ninjas and Three Ninjas Kick Back, which is the story
of three little not even teenage, but little boys who
become ninjas and fight to save their family and the world.

(08:18):
Beverly Hills Ninja. Let's say, like all of the comedy,
kid friendly ninja stuff. But after seeing these two movies,
I think my knowledge of ninja's is woefully misrepresented.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
All right, Yeah, for me, it's like Nathan, I I
remember them first through, like toys the Snake Eyes and
storm Shadow action figures, which were like my very favorite
Gi Joe's when I was a kid, and I remember
they started to show up on a lot of the

(08:56):
TV shows that I watched, Like there were ninja episodes
of Magnum p I and Night Writer and The A Team.
There was a whole uh TV series with Inexplicably again
with Lee Van Cleef. Oh yeah, yeah, called The Master

(09:18):
co star Tim van Patten, who went on to become
a major Hollywood director, Game of Thrones and Sopranos, and
a bunch of other shows. Very strange show also starred
show Kasugi I think in the villain role, who is
the lead actor in the two movies will be discussing
most extensively today. But yeah, there were toys. There were

(09:40):
There was a ninja magazine that I used to buy
on occasion for all of your latest ninja news. I
had a couple likely I think it was monthly you
can find. I looked it up in preparation for this
just to see, if you know, my mind wasn't playing
tricks on me, Like, was there really a ninja magazin scene? Uh?

(10:01):
And I found old issues on the Internet archive, so
you can look there and it's I was just like,
what kind of articles were being written in Ninja magazine.
What's funny about it is it's so clearly it's a
very as you might imagine violent magazine, but it's so
clearly aimed at kids. And I it was through Ninja

(10:22):
Magazine that I got my ninja outfit that I had
as a kid. I ordered from the back of Ninja
Magazine a ninja costume, and I had. My parents were nuts, man.
I had. I had actual like steel throwing stars which
I used to run around in the backyard and chuck
at trees to see if I can get them to
stick in trees. And uh yeah, I had swords, like

(10:46):
plastic swords. Yeah, tons of Ninja action figures. I was.
I was all about it. I was fully committed to
the ninja lifestyle as a young man.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
Yeah, I oh, go ahead.

Speaker 4 (10:59):
And so I down the street was a store called
karate Maart, and and that I think my obsession with
martial arts and really more of the like the culture
and the fantasy and not the actual physical practice of
anything athletic, just like my interest in skateboarding as long

(11:22):
as I didn't actually have to leave the house, and
I was still interested. I think it was because of
Karate Kid that I really got into martial arts. And
then also like teenage mutant ninja turtles got into just
the knowledge of what are all the equipment and all
the weapons and things like that, And so I would

(11:45):
routinely go down to Karate Mart and just browse and
look at some of the stuff. And then when I
got older, I I this is still spoken of in
my family. I decided just as a gag, I got
everyone's crip misgifts across the board at karate Mart. So
it was just from like a Batman throwing star that

(12:07):
was like the Batman symbol to like coltraps or throwing
spikes and things like that. And yeah, there's a pretty good,
pretty good time.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
So that's where ninja go to do their shopping.

Speaker 4 (12:19):
Yes, Karate Mark, Karate Mart, and it's still open. It's
probably a front just like Map World.

Speaker 3 (12:26):
Yes, there's they're doing real ninja business in the back.

Speaker 4 (12:31):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
I wonder if that's when the whole idea of the
karate dojo in the strip mall exploded was in the
I wonder if that was an eighties thing.

Speaker 4 (12:42):
Yeah, I think there was definitely like a spike of
of martial arts and karate in ninjas, and they all
kind of fueled each other just of a general interest
of young kids wanting to do this stuff and to play.
And then that became more mor Ninja's more ninjas to
where it wasn't just about like the blinding smoke powder.

(13:05):
It was now that they could, like you know, use
magic and double themselves and hypnotize people and cheat death
and things like.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
That, twirl themselves into the ground.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
Well, that's a good segue. Christy's, of course, referring to
a key moment from Ninja three, the Domination, where a
Ninja to escape has to do this sort of I
don't know what kind of how you would describe this maneuver,
but yeah, he spins very quickly and managed just to

(13:42):
drill himself down into the dirt. Where he goes from
there is unclear, but somehow manages to escape. So we
were talking before we went on the air here. Nathan
had seen these movies before. But were these new movies
to you, Chrissy? Had you brand new? Okay, no, were

(14:06):
you even aware of them? Had you heard of these things.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
No, no, never, And I was I'm so thrilled that
now they're part of me because they will never leave
my brain. No never. They're perfect, lovely, bizarre, bizarre, bizarre movies.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
Yeah, once you see them, you can't unsee them.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
Nope. And I was just gleefully consuming this brand new content.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yeah, Nathan, had you seen either of these movies as
a kid.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
No, so not as a kid. They were too violent
for me to get away with renting. And but I
remember the box art. I remember from the video store
of the box art and seeing along with just a
number of horror movies. I wasn't allowed to see either
of these images and pictures. And so then when later

(15:04):
in life, I was literally doing like research for a
movie script that I was writing, where like Genres Crossover,
I discovered these films and also just kind of like
the wide treasure trove of Canon films, and so that
was really where So this is probably the third time

(15:27):
I've seen both of these films, or at least definitely
the third time I've seen Ninja three The Domination. I
think this is the second time I'm seeing Revenge of
the Ninja. Yeah, and so I discovered these just a
little less than a decade ago, and they are very

(15:47):
close to my heart, along with some other ridiculous camp
be martial lart films as well.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah yeah, I found him as a kid and just
absolutely loved him. I had no business watching these things,
and I was like nine or ten because Revenge of
the Ninja in particular is like really graphically violent. But
I loved it. I mean it didn't matter. Yeah, I
mean I put on my little ninja costume and grabbed

(16:15):
my nunchucks, my padded nunchucks that I had, and ran
around my house and I was sho kasugi for you know,
in my head, and you know, it was just great.
So Nathan mentioned Canon Films there for those of you
listening that I don't know what he's talking about. Canon
Films was an Israeli but Hollywood based Israeli production company

(16:39):
that produced just an endless number of genre films during
the eighties. They were releasing at their peak something around
forty to fifty movies a year, which is just mind boggling.
It was run by two cousins, Monoch them gol On,
who handled the creative side, and your Globus, who was
the sort of financier, and they you know, they made

(17:01):
all of the Charles Bronson movies and the Chuck Norris movies,
the Jean Claude Van Damn movies from that era, and
they were pretty much almost single handedly responsible for bringing
the ninja craze to the US, And in the early
part of the decade, there.

Speaker 4 (17:21):
Was they weaponized it, they weized it.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
They did. Yeah, there was, I mean, there were, there
were We should say that there were ninja movies pre
dating the eighties. There were b movies from Japan, and
there was of course a rich history of Hong Kong
cinema throughout the seventies, lots of ninja movies, but in
terms of the mainstreaming of ninja's and and the sort

(17:45):
of fascination with them in the United States, it really
came from these movies made by Cannon Films, which compared
to those movies are high budget but are really not
high budget, Like Revenge of the Ninja was made for
half a million dollars, which is which is a pretty
low budget, especially for a big a movie that has
so many stunts and effects, and and it was that

(18:06):
was a small budget even then. But there were and
there were other eighties ninja movies. Outside of Cannon Films,
there was a guy named Godfrey Hoe that was just
cranking them out. He made a ton of them. He
would make these sort of like Franken movies where he
would take footage from a bunch of different exists, already
existing movies and find really weird ways to cut them
together and make them into new films. He was also doing, yeah,

(18:31):
he was also doing a lot of like genre mashing,
so he was trying to mix ninjas with science fiction
and fantasy. And you know, Ninja Terminator was one of
his biggest titles from that era, and it is exactly
what you think it is from from that from that name. Yeah, yeah,
I think the first appearance of ninja's in an American

(18:53):
movie was a film from the seventies called The Killer Elite.
The first the first appearance of ninja's in an eighties
movie was a Chuck Norris film called The Octagon, which
is a pretty terrible movie, but has a secret ninja
training camp in it, which became a thing. There were always,
like in all of these movies, there were secret ninja

(19:14):
There were camps where you would see ninjas training in
the back practicing being ninja's Yeah, often in like brightly
colored ninja costumes, which seemed always to me to be
a confusing approach to I feel like there's a in

(19:36):
Ninja three. I feel addresses this that there's nighttime ninjas
and daytime ninjas, and I feel like that what we
really see in in Ninja three are daytime ninjas. They
should there be daytime ninjas.

Speaker 4 (19:54):
Well, it's possible that that's why they died out.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
Yes, I was so shocked at how visible the ninjas
were in all these movies. Like it's in the point
of a ninja to be like lost in the shadows,
which is why I'd be all black for you to
be a nighttime ninja. But like these ninjas are like
scaling buildings and stuff, but they're just like you could be, like,
there's a ninja, yeah right there, Yeah, where's the ninja.

(20:21):
He's right there in that tree. I can see him
clear as clear as day. He's hiding behind a bush,
but he's totally visible. There's nothing hidden.

Speaker 4 (20:31):
That was the downside of daytime ninjas.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yes, Indeed, killing people on a golf course, there's not
a lot of places to hide.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
Think of how good a ninja. You would have to be, though,
to be promoted to daytime ninja from.

Speaker 4 (20:46):
Or how much trust they had in you.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yeah, exactly, way easier. I would have to assume that
you start as a nighttime ninja, and it's only after
you know, proving yourself through many missions that you get
bumped up to being a daytime ninja.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
Right, and the top sphere is a brunch ninja. You're
just ninja brunch.

Speaker 4 (21:08):
I feel like each of these categories, you're like you're
getting older and your your back is going out. It's like,
you know what, I'm just gonna be a daytime ninja.
Now I'm not gonna stay I can't stay up.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
I can't stay up.

Speaker 4 (21:18):
Yeah, and then you get the brunch ninja and you're
just really just showing up for brunches.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, all right. So the first, the first Cannon Film's
ninja movie was a eighty one movie called Enter the Ninja.
This guy brought this concept to Monocha Golan, who had
never heard of ninja's and I think ninjas are actually
so Nathan was alluding to this. I think they're kind
of before this kind of a pretty obscure footnote to

(21:47):
sort of Japanese ancient Japanese military history essentially, and this
guy brought this concept of Monocha Golan, who immediately saw
dollar signs so much so that he decided to direct
this film himself. They went to the Philippines. He realized
that this guy couldn't act very quickly and fired him

(22:09):
as the actor, kept him on as the ninja double
and said, well, I need somebody to replace this guy
right away because I'm in the middle of shooting who's
in town. Legendary spaghetti Western star Franco Niro Italian actor
Franco Niro was there in the Philippines at a film
festival being given some kind of award, and so Monachem

(22:32):
called him up and said, hey, can you come over
and star in this ninja movie? And he did, And
that's how Canon films often made movies, just absolutely flying
by the seat of their pants. That movie was also
the first big movie from Sho Kosugi, who went on
to star in the two movies we'll be talking about.

(22:53):
Show was the first, I think Asian American to headline
an American, not Asian American, Asian an actor to headline
an American film, which is sort of mind boggling when
you think about it.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Yeah, So two years later we got Revenge of the Ninja,
directed by directed by Sam sham Furstenberg, who made went
on to make American Ninja and the Break In Movies
and a lot of other movies for Cannon Films. Just
an absolute genius of low budget genre cinema. Had only

(23:32):
made one movie to this point, and it was like
a relationship drama. And monacam Golan called him up because
Sam is Israeli and Monocca was always trying to promote
Israeli filmmakers and said, do you think you could direct
an action movie? And Sam had never done anything like that,
but said absolutely, and so off to Salt Lake City

(23:54):
he went to with five hundred thousand dollars to make
a ninja movie. Boy did he ever? Oh yeah, yeah,
this is I think the Citizen Kane of Ninja movies
like Ninja three is fun, but Revenge of the Ninja
is has the actual goods. I would say, there's just some.
I will put this up against any action movie of

(24:16):
the era. Yes it has a terrible script, Yes the
acting is terrible, Yes the narrative is a mess, but man,
thee the action sequences themselves, especially considering they were made
for like five dollars, are just eye melting, Like they're incredible,
I think.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
And there's so many surprises where you're you're just like,
why does this gallery owner hold a gun with him
all the time? And what is happening? Why do they
want to start a gallery in the United States with
someone who's clearly a ninja? What are they gonna sell?

(24:56):
And it turns out it's dolls? Like I was at
every turn of this movie, I was like, wait, what
I liked it?

Speaker 2 (25:05):
I liked it in a movie full of ninja action
and uh and magic and mysticism that your issue is
with the opening of the gallery.

Speaker 3 (25:15):
Yeah, it's true. I was like, what is the business plan?
I want to see some uh, some p and ls
from this doll selling business.

Speaker 2 (25:26):
Well, it ended up being a front for drug smuggling, right,
So they were they were they were smuggling cocaine or
heroin or something in to the United States through the
dolls behind behind shows back.

Speaker 4 (25:40):
I like to think that every exhibit, because this is
like years later, every exhibit that they have is also
filled with heroin. And so he's like mystified that this
place keeps getting robbed.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
Yes, why did people are really keen to buy these dolls?
But they're not really the client til I thought they
would be.

Speaker 4 (26:02):
So yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
So for those of you that haven't seen it, first
of all, shame on you. But secondly, it's a it's
about show. Kasugi plays a Japanese art curator, I guess
who teams up with this American financier to open said
art gallery in Los Angeles aka Salt Lake City. It's

(26:23):
the only it provides views of Los Angeles where you'll
be like, wait, do they have mountains like that right outside?
And there's they're smuggling drugs in through the gallery and
the you you come to learn that the the American
financier is in ninja, as is show, and the mafia
somehow gets in into the middle of this, and uh,

(26:47):
it becomes like Ninja versus Ninja versus the Mob, and
all of which is just like you know, stuff you
can kind of close your eyes and ignore until you
get to the next big ninja action sequence, which doesn't
take long because it's every three or four minutes you
get some kind of just amazing stunt sequence or fight

(27:09):
scene with some of the most colorful looking stunt men
you'll ever see in a movie.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
Oh my god, The Village People basically is what my wife.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
My wife is always like, is the Village People scene
came on. There's a scene in a park, a public park,
where they fight. They fight like a Native American, a cowboy,
a guy on bowler skates, a biker. Yeah, it is
a It is full on the Village People for sure.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
And I wrote down for that scene. This is a playground.
They're throwing ninja stars around.

Speaker 4 (27:47):
They're gonna leave one of those behind.

Speaker 3 (27:49):
They are, and some kids gonna find it and it'll
be like dustin running around and chucking it at trees.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
That's right. That scene. When you've seen this movie as
many times as I have, your eye starts to wander
away from the action. And I can tell you that
that scene has some of the greatest extra work you'll
ever see in a movie. So should you have the
opportunity to see it again or want to go to
YouTube and punch in that scene, just watch the people

(28:15):
behind because I'm sure that these are just the people
that happen to be in the park when the when
the cast and crew showed up, because they are smiling
and laughing, and it is some of the funniest some
of the funniest reactions, some of the most inappropriate reactions
you can imagine to the bloodbath that is happening in

(28:36):
the foreground of the scenes.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
I love it. And that whole scene is so weird
because they go to them to try and get information
about the Ninja gang or the or the or the mafia.
I know some people who might know about the situation,
so they go to them and then immediately just fight

(28:59):
to the death. It's like, that's not how you shake
down streak tups.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
Like but okay, yeah, once they do beat them down,
they make no further efforts to secure information from them.
They just wander away.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
Yes, yeah, well we've We'll just leave these bodies here
in this public park for the children to deal with.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
That scene ends with show pulling a throwing star off
of his belt as a belt buckle and then and
chucking it into a guy's hand. And I thought that
was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. And I spent
much of my youth searching for a throwing star belt buckle,
and when I couldn't find one, I just made one
myself by suck taping my one of my throwing stars

(29:44):
to my belt because I just thought that was the
most badass thing ever.

Speaker 3 (29:49):
It's very cool. Yes, it's very cool. And you know,
it just shows that a ninja, like a boy scout,
is always prepared. You never go anywhere without at least
one throwing star are on your person.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
That's right. And if you're as a first time viewer
of this masterpiece, what else struck you about Revenge of
the Ninja? What did you come away? Oh?

Speaker 3 (30:13):
Gosh, I was fascinated with the mafia characters. They were
so bizarre and like cliche. But there's a moment at
the end where they're doing the big siege of the
mafia power and there's like two old women who are

(30:34):
hanging out with them, and He's like, oh no, my grandma's.
I got to get my grandma's out of here, and
he No one ever acknowledges that there are these two
older women there, but they're in the middle of the fighting,
and I'm just like, what is going on at this
mafia headquarters that they're they're having like Sunday dinner with

(30:56):
the grandma's and the ninjas are attacking.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, and frankly, why did they have us? Why did
they have their own skyscraper? I mean that's pretty what
a lot of overhead. It is a lot of overhead,
a lot of real estate mm hmmm.

Speaker 3 (31:12):
And a lot of hallways that you got to patrol.
You need a lot of guys to watch out for
that many hallways. But I love the little kid, and
I loved Catherine, who was his assistant. Question Mark, is
this the blonde, the blonde, the unpaid intern?

Speaker 4 (31:34):
Blondiana Troy is when I wrote down the woman who
the woman who comes to karate practice without her pants.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
Right with snow pants, handy hose, hose.

Speaker 4 (31:48):
Yes, but the line was if you want to work out,
you forget your pants.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
Yeah. She has a great fight with the kid later Cain.

Speaker 4 (32:02):
Yeah, I love an adult versus kid fight scene.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah. Who doesn't. Yeah, especially when the kid is winning.
It's yeah. Caine's amazing. Caine grew up to be a
very successful stunt performer, an actor in his own right
in in Hong Kong cinema and was a like one
of the earliest champions of American Ninja not American Ninja Warrior,

(32:27):
but whatever their original version of the Ninja Warrior show
was Yeah, he's he's he's quite he's quite a talent.
He and his father had a falling out at some
point and stopped working together, which is a bummer because
it's fun to see Kathy. He and his little brother
Shane were in a lot of shows early movies. They

(32:51):
show up over and over again usually and they usually
get their own fight scene at some point, which is
super fun to see.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
What do you love more than a ninja? A kid ninja,
a kid that's right? Yeah yeah, and a blonde pants
lists ninja?

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, well, as a kid who as an aspiring ninja kid.
I took great inspiration from watching Cane's success. I mean,
I love I love the scene where he beats up
the bullies at the beginning. At the beginning of the movie,
it's like the first scene you get in the United
States is King.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
It just cuts to him being assaulted by bullies. Yeah,
and grandma just stands there watching. Who beats up? What
kids beat up another kid in front of a grandma? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (33:39):
And later we learned that grandma is kind of part ninja.
She has like some ninja abilities. Oh yeah, and she
just stood back and let this all happen.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Well, I think she was very proud of him. There's
you know, there's a there's a cutaway shot to her
where she's like clapping her hands and smiling, and I
think she I think she just kills that's right, look
at oh.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
Like let him go. I also really struck by the
deadliness in both movies of hot tubs and just the
overabundance of hot tubs and how they were used to
like hold people prisoner.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
Yeah again, I wonder an eighties then, yeah, I wrote
down the ancient Ninja execution of hot tub spray death. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:28):
They just they tie Kathy into the hot tub and
then there's just violent spraying of water in her face.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yeah. It's real subtle. You won't you won't get it
at all. It's real subtle. Yeah. Yeah. And then yeah,
and then there's a Yeah, actually that's three.

Speaker 4 (34:49):
Hot tubs between the two movies. There's three hot tubs.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
Yeah, because there's a hot tub murder earlier and Revenge
of the Ninja, Yes, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:57):
And I don't know if we explained this, but there
is is no real correlation between Enter the Ninja, Revenge
of the Ninja, and Ninja three. They're the only the
only thing is that they're made by Canon Films and
show Kasugi is in them. Yeah, that's the only connective tissue.
There's not reoccurring characters.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
Yeah, yeah, but they are tied together. There's a key. Yeah.
Keno Lorber is releasing a new like four K box
set of these three movies of the of the Ninja trilogy.
So yeah they are yeah, so place your orders today.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah, so they are held together. Although you're right, there's
like they have nothing in common beyond sharing the lead actor. Right,
did you what did you guys think of What were
your what are your impressions of show Kosugi as a
leading man?

Speaker 4 (35:50):
I go ahead, crizy.

Speaker 3 (35:53):
Oh, I was gonna say. I thought he was great
and was like very impressive in all of his like
fighting stuff, but he was just so naive in is like,
he was so easy to manipulate in his character in
the first movie, he's just like, oh, my whole family
is dead. Go with you and start a gallery. Oh okay, cool, cool, cool,

(36:16):
Oh just stalk these dolls in this neon filled room. Okay,
I'll do it. Like he just lets himself get bossed
around so thoroughly and then he's It takes him a
long time to be like, oh, my son is missing
and my mother's dead. I guess I'd better put on
my ninja outfit and solve these problems. And it's like,

(36:39):
you weren't really paying attention my friend.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Well he turned his back on his ninja history, right,
that's what That's where the sword was sealed. And he
had to break the seal on the sword. And it
was a big moment.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
He was it was sealed like a twist tie.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
It was, yeah, well, how else are you gonna do it?
He was, he was a Yeah, he was seeking to
escape Japan to.

Speaker 4 (37:02):
Get we're not barbarians.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
He couldn't have Kane accidentally getting into his weaponry and
hurting himself with it, right exactly. Uh. Yeah, I think
he's Uh. I think he's despite his obvious challenges as
a as a thespian, he's a real engaging screen presence.

Speaker 4 (37:29):
Yeah, I really like him, but I can I feel
like the thing that is holding him back from being
like a household name in the eighties is the acting part.
He's just a little just a little wooden mm hmm.
He's very he's charismatic and I love every scene he's in.

(37:51):
But he's definitely a little wooden on the acting part. Yeah,
And I mean there, there's there's I'm sure the language
barrier has something to do with it, but I mean,
you know, we're living in an age of at this
time in the eighties where we've got Schwarzenegger, We've got
damn later in the eighties and nineties, we can take

(38:14):
an accent and we can take But yeah, I feel
like that was the thing holding him back just a bit,
was just a certain degree of agency with the acting,
you know.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah, I think the other thing that heard him is
that he became too closely tied to the ninja movie craze,
and so that when it started to wane near the
end of the eighties, he struggled to shift his image.
He made a movie. He made a movie called Rage
of Honor, which is a Canon Films movie, which I

(38:50):
actually find totally it's bananas like all their movies and
very entertaining, but it didn't find any success. And it's
because he's playing like a secret agent. You know. He
tried to kind of recast himself in a few movies
as sort of like a James Bond character and he
it just didn't it just didn't work for him, and

(39:10):
and uh and he is essentially basically drifted out of
the film industry, you know, in the sort of late
eighties early nineties, which is a bummer because he was
kind of an intriguing screen presence. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 (39:29):
I thought he was very fun to watch.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Yeah, I loved him. So that's that's Revenge of the Ninja.
I would say, if you're if you're new to ninja movies,
you know what took you so long? But that's where
to start, because that's that's the one that I think
is uh, there's some real uh genius in its, in
its fight choreography, it's stunt sequences. There are just some

(39:54):
really some stuff that you're you're like, wow, somebody actually
did that, Like they didn't have There was nobody on wires.
There was no like ten million dollars stunt team. That's
just like three guys like hanging off the back of
a truck getting dragged at fifty miles an hour, getting.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
Dragged by a van like that scene was.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
It's just wild, wild stuff.

Speaker 3 (40:19):
Yeah, you're throwing axes at each other like it's it's nuts.
So that whole scene. I didn't even take any notes.

Speaker 4 (40:26):
I was just like, if you want the thrill of
an action scene where you are legitimately concerned for their safety, Yeah,
this is a their movie.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
Yeah yeah, yeah. The unsung hero of this movie is
Steve Lambert, who was the stunt coordinator and the lead
stunt man and he is he He is the double
for most of the ninjas in the film, which is
why if you look closely, you can see that most
of the ninjas look America.

Speaker 4 (40:55):
I don't even have to look closely.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
Yeah, you don't have to look too closely. They don't.
They do not look like they're from Japan. But yeah,
his he did all of the choreography for all the stunts.
I think Sho Kasuki choreographed the fights. But that Steve
Lambert's stunt work in this movie is wild. And he
only had like a couple of stunt guys with him,
so it's like the same three guys over and over again.

(41:19):
Which is one of the fun things about these ninja
movies is you know that it's the same ninja getting
killed over like that opening sequence in Japan in Japan quotation.

Speaker 4 (41:30):
Marks with the palm trees that yeah. The Tokyo Japan
is known for.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, but they're like, what thirty forty
ninjas killed in that scene, and I think I think
they're all Steve Lambert basically just over and over again. Yeah,
it's a you know, it's it's quite a thing. So
after Revenge of the Ninja, the the third film in
the Canon Films trilogy is The Great, The Mystifying, the

(42:00):
Flexing Ninja Three, The Domination. Mm hmm, I don't know.
Maybe we can figure out what was being dominated. But yeah,
as Nathan said, even though it has the number three
and it it really doesn't have anything to do with
the previous movies. This is a film about a telecom

(42:21):
line worker Slash what would you call her, aerobics aerobics instructor, Yeah,
I guess, who becomes possessed by the spirit of an
evil ninja and starts knocking off all of the police
officers who were partly responsible for the death of said ninja,

(42:45):
and Sho Kasugi shows up as the hero ninja who
is trying to track this spirit down and put a
final end to it. So it is it ends up
being kind of a combination of a ninja movie and
Flat Dance and The Exorcist. Yeah, it is, it is friends,
It is an unholy mix.

Speaker 3 (43:06):
Tell you.

Speaker 4 (43:08):
I put it in the running for most eighties movie.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Yeah. Her apartment alone has Neon and video game arcade
games and.

Speaker 4 (43:18):
Like CeAl it like like du Manakins, ducks and mains. Yeah,
and then like a Patrick Nagel painting.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
Yeah. Yeah, well you had to have one of those
in the eighties. If you didn't have one, they came
to your house and put it on the wall.

Speaker 4 (43:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
So I'm curious. I'm always curious when I introduced this
movie to somebody who doesn't really know what's coming. So
I'm curious to hear from Chris Chrissy about were you
just like, because I find this movie, on a scene
to scene basis to just be one of the most
mystifying movies I've ever made. It's just you're just like, wait,

(44:00):
what is this the same movie? What is happening now?
Why is this happening now? Was that your experience of it? Oh?

Speaker 3 (44:08):
Yes, I was thoroughly not understanding anything that was going
on the whole time, even though I took extensive notes
and it was like very like carefully parsing each scene,
Like I didn't get that the ninja was evil, like
at the very beginning, even when he's like killing the
people on the golf course. I just assumed that a

(44:31):
ninja would have good intentions, and so he was clearly
killing the Honiad people. Yeah, Like I imbued him with
honorable intentions. And then at some point, while he's being
shot one hundred and fifty times, I was like, maybe
he's not the good guy.

Speaker 4 (44:54):
Uh huh.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
So I had to like figure that one out after
a long long time. He killed the helicopter and and
kicked it out of the sky. I was like, wait
a minute, he's just killing people willy nilly, Like I
don't think he's on assignment for some sort of noble.

Speaker 4 (45:10):
Cause I feel like maybe he was on it because
it seems like they've got a VIP the guy who's
who's golfing and he's got security. The fact that he's
got security, that's the only information that the movie gives
me that that he was a target. Right, But it's
like it's like one of the It's like it's like

(45:30):
the Grand Theft auto game to where it just spirals
out of control. You were doing one thing, and then
it just just got completely out of hand to where
he's fighting the entire police force, multiple cars, a helicopter.
He's like, oh boy, this is really getting out of hand.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (45:46):
And and the thing that that is endlessly delightful to
me and and to some of our audience that that
may live in Phoenix, that this is all shot in
Papago Park. This is just.

Speaker 3 (46:00):
Across the street from I recognized it.

Speaker 4 (46:03):
Across the street from the Phoenix Zoo. I have legitimately
walked in some of the places that they have filmed
the seat these scenes in. So yeah, it's all it's
nuts the kind of stuff that they're doing. They're they're
throwing cars into these lakes. It's you know, there's gun battles,

(46:26):
the helicopter fight. It's crazy pants.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
He scales a palm tree in order to leap onto
a helicopter to disable the helicopter. Yeah, it's wild. And
then at the end of the scene, as Chrissy alluded
to earlier, he drills himself into into the ground in
order into the ground.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
Yeah, which is very impressive. But again I was like, oh, well,
he must be a good guy if he's got all
these skills and then it's like, oh no, he's bad.
Oh okay, that really changes things. I didn't know what
his mission was as far as being an evil ninja.
I think he was just up to no good. But
I really spent a lot of time being like, well,

(47:07):
who was that guy in the golf cart, Like why, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
I assumed he was like a highered assassin. I mean
that was sort of a ninja Like historically, that's a
ninja thing, right that they they're like these highed assassins,
And I assumed he was supposed to kill whoever that
golfing yuppie was. Yeah. Yeah, I mean the fact that
a ninja movie opens on a suburban golf course is
just a wild Yeah.

Speaker 4 (47:31):
In broad daylights, Yeah, but that's that's a daytime ninja thing,
you know, Like he's not gonna wait till night. He's
not gonna wait till night, and he's gonna wait till
it's bright. And he is dressed he's not dressed in black,
he's dressed in gray. Yeah. And at the beginning of
the scene, it seems like he's got like a secret

(47:53):
cache of weapons that he's opening up, and it seems
like it's in the same mountain region where the golf
course is. So is that just super convenient or does
he have multiple Like is his hideout just happened to
be right near this golf course or is does he
have like multiple like safehouses.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
I don't know multiples, But you bring up another question
I've always had about ninjas though, which is and this
is especially true of the for the final act of
Revenge of the Ninja, where the two ninjas infiltrate the
nut Mafia tower, they have an astounding amount of weapons
and things tucked into those costumes which don't appear to

(48:37):
have any pockets from what I can tell, And they
have like a number of swords and throwing stars and
nun chucks and at the end flame throwers. On one
of the ninjas at the end of Revenge of the
Ninja has a full sized body double of himself, Like.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
Yes, more than one.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, they're there's one that comes out
of a hot tub. Oh you forgot about that one, Nathan,
there's actually.

Speaker 4 (49:04):
Like, oh, I definitely did not know that. I included
that one as a third, but maybe I'm forgetting another one. Yeah,
he had got mechanical.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
We've got the You've got the Ninja three hot tub
with the cop that gets You've got the torture execution
hot tub torture excuse me. Then you've got the hot
tub where the murder is in the Revenge of the
Ninja where he kills the like the mafia nephew.

Speaker 4 (49:27):
That's what I'm forgetting. That's the one I'm forgetting.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
Okay. Yeah, and then the one at the end where
the robot arm comes out of the roof. Yeah, where
was he? Where was he keeping the robot arm? That's
what I want to know. Where did he?

Speaker 4 (49:40):
Don't want to know?

Speaker 2 (49:40):
Where did he have the flamethrower? Yeah, so it's it's wild.
I mean, I I do remember as a kid trying
to pack a bunch of weapons into my ninja costume
and finding it to be very difficult. Real yeah, real
hard to move.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
Yeah, he carries the his ninja tools around in a
briefcase for a the movie when he is Yeah, he's
got a little briefcase of of ninja weapons and there.
So obviously when he's being a business ninja, he couldn't
fit all of those things into a suit.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
Yeah, maybe he's just got a series of fanny packs. Like, yeah,
around his chest, just one on top of the other
something like that. So okay, so you are. That is
the opening scene of Ninja three, which has got to
be one of the great openings of any eighties movie. Yeah,
it's just it's just like fifteen minutes of utter mayhem

(50:38):
of a of a ninja fighting an endless number of
cops and eventually going down, and then he transfers his
soul into into Breakin' Star Lucinda Dickey. Lucinda Dickey was
a professional dancer. She was in Greece too and some
other things and was discovered basically by Monocham Golan and

(50:59):
he thought she was going to be next big thing
and he went all in on loosend to Dickey because
she started breaking and then went immediately to the set
of like with like One Day's Break, she went to
the set of Ninja three and then into Breaking two,
and like he really thought she was gonna blow up.
It is funny that she is at the center of

(51:20):
these two incredible cinematic trends, and that's like break dancing
and break dancing and Ninja.

Speaker 4 (51:29):
And to give you an idea of like the pace
in which Canon films, Canon makes films. It's so they
they liked her and Breaking, they put her in Ninja three,
and then they put her in Breaking two. All three
of these movies came out in nineteen eighty four.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Yeah, it's wild.

Speaker 3 (51:49):
Yeah, and she works hard. She does her job like
she's there to work and to dance away the evil
demon inside her. But I the most negative thing I
have to say about Ninja three of the Domination, and
I know that's a shocking thing to hear that there's
anything negative about it at all, but one of the

(52:11):
cops takes a liking to her and keeps asking I
know where you're and she keeps saying no, and I'm like, yeah, girl,
you don't need no.

Speaker 4 (52:20):
Man, and then it just flips a switch.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
Yeah, well he negs her. He's like, fine, if you
don't want to go out with me, to get out
of my car in the middle of the street, uh huh.
And she's like, oh, well, when you put it like that,
I'm in love with you.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
This isn't what I thought you were going to say
that I think I would. Yeah, that's horrible. I think
there's one more disturbing thing in the movie, which is
he they have a love scene where he takes off
his shirt. He is like the hairiest man who's ever
acted in a movie. I mean, he takes off his
shirt and he looks like he's wearing a sweater underneath
his sweater, and and and then they get V eight involved,

(53:02):
which was a big time I'm sure it's still around,
but it was a big time eighties drink. It was
tomato juice basically, and tomato juice, icy tomato juice. And
they involve nine and a half weeks Mickey Rourke and
Massenger style. They involve this tomato juice in there their
love making processing. And let's just say, let's just say

(53:24):
that a guy this Harry should not get anywhere near
tomato juice to.

Speaker 4 (53:30):
Thick tomato liquid.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
Yeah, it is. It's calling it problematic as being generous.
It is a it's a pretty disturbing scene, way more
than like any of the possession stuff that it's later
in the movie. But yeah, there's a it is just
it's a movie full of just one insane element after another.
There's a there's a haunted video game. There's a scene

(53:54):
where she they're trying to exercise her and she starts
doing flips on this scene with James Yeah, with James
Hong from Big Treuble in Little China and so many
other movies. Yeah, it is just one wild, wild sequence
after another. Yes, yeah, magical. I showed this movie when

(54:19):
I was like ten years old. I showed this movie
at a birthday party. Oh boy, yeah yeah, And all
the guys were really into it, and the girls were
bored stiff as you can imagine, until the like the
exorcism element came into it, and then they started to
get into it. And and I realized later. I was like, oh,

(54:40):
I can see, like on the face of it as
a as a kid, I really was. It was not
you know, it was lesser Ninja to me Ninja three,
like it was compared to Avenge of in Ninja. This
was lightweight stuff. But I can but I kind of
get the even though I think it's crazy, I kind
of get the intention. I can understand where Golan and

(55:01):
Globis were coming from. They were like, we've got this
very male driven action genre. Maybe if we make the
lead Ninja a woman, we make her an aerobics constructor,
and we put in this whole other genre of genre filmmaking,
maybe we can bring in a broader audience, So I

(55:25):
get it. But I've seen interviews with Sam Furstenberg, who
directed it, and even he's like, it was a bad idea.
It was never gonna work. It was just the strangest
idea to combine these things.

Speaker 4 (55:37):
I think That's why I prefer it, though, is because
each scene is more banana pants than the last. Yeah,
you know, like Revenge of the Ninja is on a
straight course of an action film, but when you get long,
aerobic scenes and like Exorcist scenes and just like crazy
character logic, I find that I personally enjoy Ninja three more.

Speaker 3 (55:59):
That's you really have to ask yourself what is going
to happen next? Because it could be anything.

Speaker 4 (56:06):
I was hoping. So so the Evil Ninja is basically
possessing uh, Lucinda Dickey. What I would have loved is
if the Evil Ninja found himself in the middle of
having to teach in aerobics class, yeah, or.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Oh shoot, what do I do?

Speaker 4 (56:28):
Okay now this?

Speaker 2 (56:30):
Or do or do telecom line work which at her
other job, Like I don't know anything about telecommunications I am,
but an ancient ninja, Yeah, that would be That's that's
on the cutting room floor. I'm sure it probably exists.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
Probably I want to see it.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
I demand, Yeah, where is the where's the directors at it?
So let me throw a couple of other titles at you,
just to see if I'm just curious if either of
you have seen these, are aware of these?

Speaker 3 (56:57):
These were the other Well, let me get my pen.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
Okay, Uh, American Ninja? Are you familiar with this one?

Speaker 4 (57:05):
Familiar? Yes? Was that that Waskov? Right? Yes, Michael Michael, Yeah,
I'm familiar, but I haven't seen it.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
Yeah, his first movie as a lead. It's also Goal
on Globis. It's also Sam Furstenberg, and it's thoroughly delightful.
If you enjoyed the two movies we've been talking about today,
you will inevitably also like American Ninja, which also has
a killer opening. Like they canon knew that you had

(57:35):
to like hook your audience in the first ten minutes
or risk losing them. Yeah, what about Jim Katta g
Y M K A T A. Do you know this movie?

Speaker 4 (57:47):
Yes? I know it.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
I've heard of it. I've heard of it.

Speaker 4 (57:50):
I've tried to get Chrissy and I to cover it
since the beginning of our podcast. Not super passionately, but
it's one. It's one of the it's been on my
radar that I've seen clips of and again I haven't
seen yet. Basically, they take it can We've seen movies
where it's like, oh, we've got a boxer, let's put

(58:12):
them in a movie and make him an action start
and guess what he's going to do some boxing. This
is them doing that with a gymnast.

Speaker 3 (58:18):
Yes, I love, I can't wait.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
It's the deadliest martial art, combining gymnastics and karate into
if you just add.

Speaker 4 (58:27):
Up actual injuries, it's the deadliest. Mark gymnastics is the
deadliest martial art.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
Yeah, it is u it is. It is cuckoo. It
might be crazier than Ninja three. Even it's not explicitly
a ninja movie, but it has a ton of ninjas
in it, and it has a lot of ninja action.
So it has a lot of ninja's in all colors
of the rainbow. So if you're confused by the gray
ninja costume, may be really really confused by the bright

(58:56):
yellow one. Pray for Death which was which you probably
aren't familiar with, but it is great. It is a show.
Kasugi's first movie he made after he left Cannon Films
when they wouldn't let him do anything besides ninja movies.
He made his own ninja movie. And it's a it's
a it's another you know, if you like Revenge of

(59:17):
the Ninja, you'll dig it. Shane and Kane Kasugi are
in it. They play his sons again, and it's similar similar,
you know, it's not quite as good as Revenge of
the Ninja, but it's it's very good and I'm glad
it exists.

Speaker 4 (59:30):
Yeah, I've seen that one, but I remember much less
about it than the than these others.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
Yeah, it's it's not quite it's not quite as good,
but he's got it's it's got the best box art
out of all of them. It does. Yeah. Well he yeah,
his mask, he has a really ornate ninja mask in it. Yeah,
that's like fully, it's almost like a metal helmet. Yeah,
he looks like Yeah, he does look like Shredder. Yeah,
enough so that you kind of wonder if the people

(59:57):
that designed Shredder might have seen the movie like that,
how much it looks like it. And then a couple that
were discovered that were made in the eighties but discovered
later I'm curious if you know these Miami Connection m.

Speaker 3 (01:00:10):
Oh Nathan is always trying to get us to do
that one.

Speaker 4 (01:00:14):
Yeah, I seen that one maybe about four times.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
For our listeners that don't know it. It was a
movie made in Orlando, despite being called Miami Connection, by
by a guy who like, wrote, directed, starred in it.
He was a guy who had a franchise of these
strip mall karate dojos, and I think his idea was, like,

(01:00:40):
making this movie would help him promote those I guess
I think that's his initial intention. And it was completed
and just lost to time. It was a low budget
hunk of junk that went straight to video and a
print was discovered by the guys that run Alamo draft House,
the famed Austin based movie theater franchise, and they absolutely

(01:01:03):
loved it. They thought it was one of the funniest,
most unintentionally funny things they've ever seen, and they gave
it a complete restoration and released it back into theaters
and then on too physical media. And it is totally
worth seeing. It is really really funny.

Speaker 4 (01:01:19):
If you love they're so bad that they're great movies,
this is like near the top. This is like the
room level of that. And if we're talking about background
extras who are shocked that there's a movie happening, this
is like also the pinnacle that like there's legitimately people
walking down like like there's a fight in like a

(01:01:41):
park that has a level above it, and you see
people walking by genuinely like upset that there are people
fighting and they don't know it's a movie.

Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
Clearly, yeah, it clearly was made for like twelve dollars.
Yeah it is. It is hilarious. It has some of
the funniest uh writing and quote unquote acting that you'll
that you'll see. It's like the ninja stuff is actually
weirdly like the least interesting stuff in Miami Connection.

Speaker 4 (01:02:11):
It's like the it's all like a master Evil ninja. Yeah, yeah,
it's like a ninja. It's a ninja biker gang.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Yes exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:02:18):
They're the bad guys. They're the bad guys.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
Yeah. I mean, if I remember right, the premise is
like it's a they're they're drug dealers who hire ninjas,
like a ninja.

Speaker 4 (01:02:27):
By Yeah, there's like three there's like three factions. There's
like the drug dealers who are semi kind of Italian
you know, there's like a couple guys with like Italian
suits or whatever. But then there's the the the ninjas,
who are their own thing. And then are there's our
good guys who are more the Oh, we're the peaceful

(01:02:49):
martial artists who hopefully we don't have to fight. We
train so we don't have to fight. And then they
end up killing all these people.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
Yeah, it's good, good stuff. Great, Yeah, totally worth seeing.
And then the last one I want to mention it
had a kind of similar narrative, even more perplexing in
some ways that it's a movie called New York Ninja.
Oh yeah, h have you heard about this? And this
was a film that was discovered the raw footage, I
should say, was discovered by Vinegar Syndrome, which is a

(01:03:21):
physical media distributor who.

Speaker 4 (01:03:23):
And they redubbed it all, didn't they.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
Yeah, they cut it to with They didn't have any sound,
that was the thing they found. Only they found only
the picture and so they watched it and they tried
to figure out what the narrative might have been that
from watching the footage, and which was about a ninja
living in New York City, And so they cut it

(01:03:47):
together and then they wrote new dialogue for it and
brought in some actors, in fact, some well known actors
in some cases to dub in that that dialogue, and
it is a is a really strange, really strange movie
and fascinating when you know that that it's a road

(01:04:08):
to completely Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:04:09):
Yeah, I would say it doesn't quite reach the height
of Miami Connection. No, but it's it's a lot. That
one is a lot of fun and I and I
love the fact that they just had to replace all
the audio.

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
Yeah yeah, that sounds like an improv exercise.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, for sure. Perhaps they should have
hired more comedians, maybe it would have been maybe it
would have been better.

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
And we need the work so.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
Well, thank you guys for for joining me and and
uh and uh. I hope people uh feel newly inspired
to track down some of these movies. If this is like,
if you're listening to this and you're like, I don't
know what any of these people are talking about, I
would say, if you're looking at you, if you're looking
to laugh your off, go to Ninja three. If you

(01:05:03):
if you are a genuine fan of like down and
dirty action movies, I think try giving Revenge of the
Ninja a spin and you won't be disappointed. But really,
with either movie, you can't go wrong. At the very least,
you'll get a healthy injection of eighties goodness. As Nathan
was saying, Ninja three as one of the most eighties

(01:05:26):
things you'll the fashions and the hair and the music,
it's one of the most eighties things you'll see. Right.

Speaker 4 (01:05:32):
Absolutely, I wouldn't watch any of them in front of children.

Speaker 3 (01:05:36):
No.

Speaker 4 (01:05:38):
I would say Ninja three is a little more safe,
touch more safe in terms of that, but not by
a huge amount.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
Although I turned out Okay, he did, he did well.

Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
I mean, children can watch it, but don't you watch
it in front of children, because then you're gonna get
like socially shamed or you're gonna feel bad for having
in corrupted them. But kids feel free to sneak off
and see these movies not a problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Children see it on your own without adult supervision. That's

(01:06:10):
the best case.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
And if that blows back, you can address all letters
to the most excellent.

Speaker 4 (01:06:15):
Yeah. And I've been a long proponent of early childhood trauma.
I feel like it's important to see your your your
robocops or your nightmare on Elm Streets early on, and
helped shape your your strange twisted worldviews.

Speaker 3 (01:06:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
I mean I think as a generation, Gen X mostly
turned out Okay, there were there, you know, it's a
bunch of resilient people. And part of that was, you know,
the latch key thing, and part of it was a
sub category of that was the fact that we were
watching TV and movies and we weren't being policed about.

Speaker 3 (01:06:50):
We had no business.

Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
And you know, I think most of us turned out okay.

Speaker 3 (01:06:55):
So I think so too.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
Yeah, well, cool, well it. Thank you so much again.
If you're if you're discovering this in the long Rewind podcast,
you should absolutely go over and subscribe to the most
excellent eighties movie podcast because you'll love it, and vice versa.
If you're hearing this on on on their feed, then
come join us over at the long Rewind because I

(01:07:18):
think you'll you'll you'll find it to be fun. Thank
you so much, guys. This was super fun.

Speaker 4 (01:07:23):
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (01:07:24):
Thank you. It was so great. I'm so glad I
saw these movies and I have you to thank long Rewind.
I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
Now you're a new lifelong Ninja fan, and you're going
to go track down the complete, the complete Cannon, Complete
Cannon Cannon.

Speaker 3 (01:07:40):
I'm gonna go by myself some throwing stars.

Speaker 4 (01:07:46):
Yeah, Christy, I think we should follow this up by
doing Jim Katta on the show.

Speaker 3 (01:07:49):
Let's do It.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
I'm in Yeah, and then actually doing Jim Kotta and real.

Speaker 4 (01:07:54):
Nice yeah, and then doing it in real life the
one year Jim Katta Challenge.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
There's probably an app. It's probably an app for it,
all right, guys, so much, thank.

Speaker 3 (01:08:09):
You for listening to our crossover with the Long Rewind
podcast and our deep dive into Ninja's thanks for being here.
At the end, we want to say, as always, if
you love the podcast and you love our crossover episode,
please like, rate, review, subscribe, thumbs up, Tell a local ninja,

(01:08:33):
tell a local phone company worker who may or may
not be possessed by an evil ninja about the pod.
It really helps us, and tell them about The Long
Rewind too while you're at it. And of course, if
you want some bonus content and some extra fun, be
sure to become a member of the podcast, go to

(01:08:55):
true story dot fm and just click on our little
podcast on the Little button that says join and you
get extra special fun. You get episodes early and ad free,
you get some extra special bonus content at the end

(01:09:17):
of each episode, and you get to join the discord
discord and party with us. You can today in the
bonus content, I'm going to be listing some of the
movies that we might be doing coming up, and you
can let us know which ones you think would be
the most fun. We might do all of them, but

(01:09:38):
you can let us know what order would be the
most fun. If you remember, and as always, when you're
out there in the world, please keep the most excellent
Eighties Movies Podcast Modo in mind, be excellent to each other,
and party on, dudes.

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