Ep 27. American Ninja - Ninja November

An ancient art. A hidden army. A Michael Dudikoff. These are the elements that make up the first American Ninja. After uncovering a plot to steal army weapons and sell them to the highest bidder, ex-con turned soldier Joe Armstrong (Dudikoff) teams up with Curtis Jackson (Steve James) to bring down the operation. As he works to stop the evil Black Star Ninja, Joe discovers that he himself is THE American Ninja.

Join us in this first installment of "Ninja November" as we review and discuss every installment in the American Ninja franchise.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
We emotional content. I'm gonna showyou how great I am. If you
want me here, you're gonna giveus one mind everything we do keep Welcome

(00:23):
to the Pot of Five Rings,your Martial Arts podcast, where we talk
about martial arts, martial arts,movies, and all things martial artsy with
your Martial Arts hosts Joseph Bullin,Rob Roland, Rob Happy Friday, Man
Man Happy Friday. Even though youmay not be listening to this, we
always record these on Fridays, soyou should listen to it only on Fridays.
Yeah, Live, we should doa live call in podcast. It's

(00:46):
like, all right, we'll goto the phones and there's nobody there.
They'd be really embarrassing for us toset up a number for them to call
and just be like, I'm surewe'll take questions in a minute, Joe.
They've got to be wondering as werecord the audio podcasts that they can't
watch along with us. Mister Showhad a whole skit about the pre recorded
radio call in show. It's likepeople would call in and they're supposed to

(01:10):
be asking questions about next week's guestsrecorded all right today, I am very
excited we are watching one of myall time favorite ninja movies, American Ninja,
and we are watching along. Sowhat you need to do is you
need to go to Amazon Prime orwherever because it's it's part of Prime on
there, and you're gonna cueue thisup to the second Lions roar. So

(01:32):
it's just like how you start WizardOz when you're listening along with Pink Floyd
if you didn't know that Dark Sideof the Moon. So yeah, so
queue up Dark Side of the Moonand American Warrior and we're gonna, we're
gonna, we're gonna roll film.Are you ready for this? In three
two one role? I just wantto say, as we're doing this,

(01:55):
uh, we watch a lot ofmovies on Amazon Prime, and we talk
a lot about movies that are featuredon Amazon Prime. We talk a lot
about their products. Jeff Bezos,because I know you're listening sponsor the podcast.
Yeah, I mean, what's up, dude, We're paying our whatever
Prime membership does or whatever we got. We sent you to space man.

(02:16):
Yeah, here we are, weare, we are. We're in a
military base. It's as good introscene. Here a very tall white building.
This is Fort Sonora. Shake,shake, fort Sonora. And here's
how we know he is an edgelord because he has a knife. It's
a butterfly knife. Switchblade's a switchblade, right yeah, And he has to

(02:38):
look at it, just so thatwe were aware that he is the edge
Lord. Well, this must bethe California guy who's friendly, the friendly
guy in the film. What wasthe text I sent you this morning?
Just play what's wrong with you?He doesn't want to show off his ni

(02:59):
jitsu. Who is this one ofthe first movies where the main character already
knows martial arts? Because I thinkso, because because that's like the big
reveal. He doesn't even know howhe knows it at this point, because
he's amnigiac. Well that's how nijitsuworks. The true ninja doesn't know.

(03:20):
That's why he's so good. That'swhy he has great skill. Come on,
edge Lord, it's like it's literallylike right there, just pick it
up and toss it over here,like what the hell? Doesn't even look
at him? Joe, can youtell me who is this edge Lord?
This is Michael Dudikov. Michael,this is his breakout role he'd been in.

(03:43):
So here's the story. I knowa little bit about Michael du Ducov.
He grew up on the East Coast, family moved out to La ended
up getting into a little bit ofmodeling, which led to some acting gigs.
His biggest role before this was inthe Tom Hanks Classic Bachelor Party,
and then he ended up getting thisrole with noel martial arts skill, knowledge
or experience. As the story goes, he just had a James Dean look

(04:05):
that the director was looking for,and the fight choreographer said, I can
teach him. He's very athletic.You know. I wouldn't have pegged him
for not being a martial artist,right, Like, not that he's spectacular,
you know, he's not like asavant, but the level of martial
arts in this movie and the choreographyis being asked to do it. He

(04:27):
looks pretty good, like he's keepingup with everyone. He's very athletic.
It's just the application that I lovethat scene there where he's like, you
know how important she is to me. It's like, if anything ever happened
to my daughter, it would bebad. I don't know what I would
do, but it would be veryvery bad if anything were to have happened
to my daughter. You better protectmy daughter. Now get into the suspiciously

(04:49):
unorganized military caravan and drive across thedangerous jungle. What is like screenwriting?
One oh one? If you're amovie character. Never say there's certain things
you just shouldn't say right. Neversay I'll be right back in a horror
film. Never say how far awayif you are from retirement yep. Never

(05:10):
never mentioned the family that you haveto go home to. Those are just
basic rules of movies. Because what'sgonna happen when you say I'll be right
back in a horror film? Justset yourself up. It's called foreboding.
I mean foreshadowing. You're either aboutto die or you're Arnold Twarzenegger. And

(05:31):
that guy was no governator. That'sright now. I will tell you Chuck
Norris turned this role down because hedidn't want his face covered at any point.
Really, yep, this could havebeen very different. I could have
seen. Yeah, I would haveenjoyed the pedigree I think of having Chuck
Norris playing Joe, But I alsothink it would have taken away from the

(05:56):
every man quality of it. Youknow, well, I don't think it
would have been It would have beenjust another Chuck Norris film. It wouldn't
have been the cult classic that itis now. And I think of all
the American Ninja films and we're goingto do them all. Oh yeah,
this is the least unbelievable. Thisis the one with kind of the tamest
plot. I suppose since we justdropped it now, we should talk about

(06:18):
our American Ninja Month so that theaudience knows what to expect. It is
American Ninja Month. Every week,We're going to do another American Ninja film,
another film from the American Ninja Library, I should say. And if
you guys click the links in ourbio and donate enough money, maybe we'll
run the actual American Ninja Warrior.Course. Hey, let's make this happen.

(06:40):
And I know some people that'd beamazing. If we'd wake up tomorrow
with like thousands of donations. MyPayPal just lights up. I said it
was gonna happen. Now. Ihad to look up the plot of this
movie before I started watching it,just to make sure I was like following
along. And I just remember along, what is it Cavalry Kid or whatever.

(07:06):
Michael Dudikoff's car is attacked and hehas to fight the Black Order ninjas.
And the first thing I see arethese guys in or in safety vets
with purple gloves and machine guns.And I'm like, you know, my
experience with ninja's firsthand, isn't thatgreat. I fe like it's not the
safety vest guys. Everybody's stripped.Pedro here needs a jacket. Yeah,

(07:36):
we can't get him the army hat, but not the shirt. The female
lead here, the general's daughter,is just inconsistent. Here. She's being
all bold and brave. We canrun, we can get away in approximately
ten minutes. She's gonna be cryingbecause her shoes are dirty. Yep.

(07:58):
Also, she's gonna flip a thatshe's driving spoiler warning and be inconvenienced that
the car flipped while she was tryingto get away. She'll come out of
it and be like, oh no, and then that's kind of that's the
end of her plan to get awayfrom the kidnappers. They wouldn't shoot the
guy that literally elbowed their boss ofthe face, but they'll shoot the girl

(08:22):
who's trying to drive away in thecar who they were trying to kidnap.
That's all right, she drives upa tree. She is not great at
ramp jumps, and there's his sidekick. Well, everybody else just stands there
watching. Well, if edge Lordover there is gonna put up a fight,
maybe we should all try. Ohwe can hit them. Cool,

(08:43):
these guys are soft dive and rolland pocket crowbar. I love how it
opens up like a video game UnlockerPocket. There is something cool to the

(09:05):
just being able to use what's inyour environment, like it's all sort of
it's like jazz, you know,but fighting. Oh well, there's your
ninja who also is not dressed toblend into his environment at all. He
sticks out. Yeah, he sticksout as much as safety of that guys.
Oh she's like, dang it,I flipped the car unless it has

(09:26):
I don't want to date this podcastand ruin everyone's escapism. But wear your
mask over your nose, for God'ssake. If you're a ninja and you
have a star shaped tattoo on yourcheek, make sure the mask covers that
shit. The only people that blendinto their environment here are the Army guys

(09:52):
pretty much, because they're in ajungle environment and they're wearing which By the
way, this film is like aseries of eighties and seventies action films in
the seventies. I get it thatkind of has something to do with ninja's
or like Chinese culture or Japanese culture. But take place in the Philippines.

(10:13):
That dive right there, He justdives on the road and then the truck
drives by. There was no establishingshot. It was the Austin powers No.
As the steamroller drives by real slightlyand see and again, and I
like this. There's some athleticism here. He grabs the chain. He's just
going to use what's in his environment, and he probably doesn't know like how
he knows how to do this.It just makes sense. Grab the wheel,

(10:35):
jump, pull, crash the truck. That's a good move. That
should be in the Army training manualof if your caravan has ever assaulted and
somebody tries to take off, youcan blow up to the dive, roll
out of the way, and thenon top of an escaping truck. Yeah,
but to your point, I'm Ifeel like at this point in the
eighties, like anything Asian was justAsia, you know what I mean.

(10:56):
It was like it was foreign,it was different. There's a little sense
of escapism here, especially with theninjas. Because it's not something everybody even
knew what a ninja was. Yeah, I think that's what I was getting
at, that you can get awaywith putting the ninjas in the Philippines here,
whereas nowadays, like people kind ofhave an idea of what Japan's supposed
to look like. Yeah, soyou do that. They're like, why

(11:16):
would there be ninjas here in Manila. I do love how these puny military
weapons are no match for the ancientweapons of the ninja, like spears and
they jump rope and they jump rope, he jump rope. I also love
how the dude held his hand outfor his teammate to throw him a staff

(11:39):
which was also a blade, whilehe was wearing a sword around his back.
Uh. Poor Pedro here can't getthis girl. She's using grass to
stop him, and he has agun in his hand. I will say
this film, more than any filmi've so far, has the most embarrassing

(12:01):
ninja run because they have the swordshop to their back and they have to
like hold on to them with bothhands, so everybody looks like, oh,
oh about to fall outmost God,I love that right there, he's
like sneaking up on her. I'mgonna grab this guy and then like nope.
Then we get close quarters with thebroken shovel. Oh and he falls
on it. Oof. I willtell you there's an homage to that exact

(12:28):
shot in American Ninja too. We'lltalk about that when I get there.
So just remember the shovel in frontof the face he pulls the arrow out.
It's a lot of arrow breaking inthis film, I notice. Yeah.
I think the body count on thisone is like one hundred and fourteen,
so yeah, there's no shortage ofslaughter. Who is he? He

(12:50):
have a great old skill so bad? Well the uh, the spoiler,
one of the main bad guy inthis film doesn't even he speaks the worst
English so far that he doesn't speakEnglish at all in this film. Someone's
dubbing over him and it's still intangible. Yeah, which I think is a

(13:11):
progressive choice for an eighties film becauseso too there's always characters. Yeah,
there's so many Asian characters in thisfilm, and they could have given them
the stereotypical mystery. Now, Ido want to point out that Romancing the
Stone was released the year before this. Okay, you've seen Romance in the
Stone, right, yes, Sothis whole scene is basically an homage to

(13:33):
Romance in the Stone. Again theygo, they follow the Uh the Jim
caught a message of looking for peoplewhere they just run in a straight line
and everybody looks left and right,but you don't fan out at all at
all, or look for like,you know, clues. Yeah, because

(13:58):
if you have ten people looking forsomeone in a straight line, what are
the guys are looking at. We'rechasing an army guy and not some kind
of well trained ninja. Here.We don't have to like put effort into
this. Yeah. I just recentlywatched James Gunn's Suicide Squad and they have

(14:18):
a character who looks kind of likeMichael du Dakoff in it. And now
I would like to see an olderMichael dudakov in the Suicide Squad because he
would fit right into that universe.Here we go, Rip the heels off
the shoes. He said, she'sangry. Now she's got like dirt on
her shoes. This is the mostinconvenient thing that could have happened her today.

(14:41):
Yeah, that knife got way bigger. M. That is not the
knife he was playing with this morning. No. Also, if you pay
attention, you'll notice that Michael duDukov has to be in his starring role
for the first time ever because heonly has like ten lines in this film.
Yeah, his first line isn't untillike the fourteen minute mark. He's

(15:05):
faking less than Conan in this film. Yes, and he doesn't get a
prior to crumb. No, Ilove it that would go to there leeches
other things in there, and hejust OK, John Wayne's are right in
there, and these guys all right, could they be in there? I

(15:30):
don't Should we jump in the water, Ah, dude, there's like there's
probably leeches, and like, Iain't going in there just to swim with
a mask on. Well, youcan't run with the sword strap to your
back. You're gonna swim with theone like I ain't getting leeches. Screw
that. We're right out of here, lunch break, shift change. Listen.

(15:56):
If you're gonna run what has tobe a multi high hundred person ninja
army, you gotta have regular shiftchanges. Yes, they can expect to
have dental like the regular jobs exactly. Did ivery tell you my idea for
a sitcom? Mm hmmm. Icall it a Goons And it's literally about

(16:17):
like a production company that just ownsthe henchmen that all bad guys come and
just rent out for their evil plan. I like it. So it's like,
what do you want? You wantninjas? All right, we've got
ninjas over here. You want likegangster guys, we got them over there.
You want robots, We don't reallyhave robots, but we could dress
them up like that. Look,we're out of ninjas this week, but
we got guys we could put inninja costumes exactly. And so it's just

(16:38):
like it's they would all be likeshort episodes where the guys come back or
going to jobs, like, yeah, I'm working with doctor Insano again today.
Probably gonna die because he just keepsthrowing us into his particle accelerator machine.
But whatever, My kid wants togo to prom in a limousine,
So what are you gonna do?Titus nipple shot mm hmm, and not

(17:00):
of the not of the girl.Yeah, she's hiding in the bushes over
there. Do we get boobs inthis movie? I don't think we do.
We get a lot of Michael Dodakovthough this is a classy film.
I like how awkward he is,like he's never seen a girl before.
Yeah. Yeah, because they makeit clear. He's like a street urchin.

(17:21):
It's been to prison, a guywho lives on the streets, has
never spent time with the girl before. Just call me Joe, Joe all
the yo. What Joe, Mamabody bags? Huh? They got him

(17:42):
a body bag ship. It's misterhan Oh no, so let me let
me get this. This is thethird time this month that a caravan's been

(18:02):
hit and he still sent his daughterout ahead of it. Well, she's
obviously the bait, but he doesn'tknow what. He doesn't know what would
happen, What he would do issomething happened to her. Yeah, if
anything happened to her, I don'tknow what I would do. It would
be very bad. I also justfeel like I don't know. I at

(18:26):
this point spent most of my lifeliving in a wartime America, you know,
whether or not we agree with it. We have been at Warson for
most of my adult life, andI kind of have an idea of how
tactics works. I feel like youdon't send out a convoy without like some
kind of scout ahead and something runningalong the sides. Yeah, you know,
especially if you've been ambushed three timesalready. Well, and it's always

(18:49):
the same Amo. It's always like, oh there's construction, we better stop
and ah, shucks, we gotit ambushed again. God damn it.
One guy fought back and now theyhave to shut down the entire operation.
What does he know? Speaking Japanese, it is death to teach the secrets

(19:15):
to the westerner. An American ninjawas there, But also like, what
so far makes you think Joe isa American ninja? Well, he punched
a guy. Yeah, he didn'tdo anything particularly ninja. Like, he
did block arrows with shovel handle.That's true. No one else but Ninja
could do that absolutely. Who elsewould think I should use this solid heavy

(19:38):
object to stop a solid less heavyobject. Hey, what do you know
about Hanso Hittori? Quite a lot, but not enough so the historical not
the character from the Quentin Tarantino film. Right, So he's sort of like
you know, King Ninja, rightright, And he was tasked with guarding
the Imperial gates, to which theysay nobody ever passed the gates. And

(20:03):
as the story goes for those ofyou at home, he was the gardener
and that that was the thing.He was this dangerous assassin and he was
just over there, just gardening,and I would think how easy it would
be for somebody to come up andbe like, hey, how do you
get in the gates, and himto just be like stab yeah, not
so easy, and then just buryhim in the garden anyway, that'll come

(20:27):
back later. That's always a funthing about ninja history when you actually do
some research onto it. You know, it's like we think of them as
the guy's dress and all black ridingon the rooftops, right, but then
you look at like the historical ninjaswe know about, and it's like they
were farmers. Yeah, it wasthe guy that you wouldn't suspect to kill
a bunch of people because obviously that'show you infiltrate somebody. And I love

(20:53):
this. You brought her back.So now you're in trouble because you're like,
you're a rebel, you're too edgy, you're loose cannon. Yeah,
how dare he try to save peopleand himself and that guy's daughter to just
let himself Wait? Wait, hejust said there was nothing in that convoy

(21:15):
worth protecting. But if anything happensto my daughter, yeah, I mean,
it's literally hanging her out as baitthen like, if there was nothing
in there worth protecting, then whysend her m h. And also,
this is the same exact problem asthe last Jedi. Why would you not
tell the people involved what the wholeplan is? Well, because it's you're

(21:41):
trying to write a script and you'rehalfway through and you're like, wait,
that doesn't make any sense. Yeah, why would this guy be mad at
him unless the plan was to notget not save everyone? Obviously, of
course we're getting now we're getting background. They just found him and put him
in the army. Yeah. Idon't understand how they could let someone in

(22:06):
the army with vis little information aboutthem, Like they just say birthday unknown,
family unknown, And I'm like,we're still in a cold war right
now, sign him up. Wejust got to the side of the road.
Yeah, so he's got a sketchypast. Do we ever actually see
his sketchy pass at all? Dowe just hear about it? We just
hear about it. It's the storyyou don't tell, you know, Rebel

(22:30):
without a clue. He's very JamesDean, but he somehow knows ninjitsu.
Dude. Since you mentioned the JamesDean thing, like seeing him walk down
the street right now, I getit. Yeah, I could see why
they want that. And here wemeet his buddy, well not buddy yet,
but this right here, Jackson isactually a martial artist. Yeah,
And apparently in the filming of this, Michael Dudakov was very sensitive because he

(22:52):
didn't want Jackson showing him up,so that that actor who plays Jackson purposely
tried to convince everyone to shoot hisaction scenes far away, like on the
opposite side of the stage, soas not to intimidate Michael Dudakov, so
that he could actually perform. Well, they said about halfway through filming,
the two of them just sort ofcame to an understanding and it wasn't a
thing anymore by the end of theseries. The character of Jackson is the

(23:15):
American Ninja. Nice spoiler alert.It would have been cool if that was
like a trial they set up inthis game, like Dudakov might be the
American Ninja. It's a sacred title. Yeah, it could be anybody.
He's like Captain America. Mm hmm. Man, I cannot get over the

(23:36):
James Dean comparison. Now, Likeevery shot you could see is what they're
going for m HM, which nowmakes me think like, could they have
done this with James Dean back inthe day. No, because he didn't
know ninjitsu. Neither did this guy. Oh okay, you're right, yeah,
I'll have you know the poster onthe wall back there. I read

(23:59):
this on I am that is likea limited edition kiss poster, And to
avoid getting sued, they put allthose stickers over their faces. Oh that's
smart and does it kind of lookfamiliar? Where have we seen that guy
before? Should I give it away? It's a gardener, it's Hansa.

(24:27):
The ninja magic that their magic handsare doing there kicked off Naruto twenty years
before it happens. Yeah. Now, I don't know if you know this
about me. I actually used totake ninjasu when I was a kidd.
Yes, yeah, and the stylethat I studied. Supposedly down the line
somewhere did the the hand thing thejuices. I never learned it. I

(24:49):
never met anybody who learned it.It was apparently just like a like a
raiki thing. It wasn't like magicwhatever. It was just like the thing
you would do. Yeah. Ilearned that by watching this movie growing up.
It was just like with the handmovements you would do before you like
go for a deep tissue massage supposedlylike opened up chakras or whatever, but

(25:10):
like I never met anybody who didit. They basically the answer I kept
getting was like, yeah, thatused to be a thing we did,
but like not really anymore, andwe're kind of focused more on purely martial
arts now. So it's like itis kind of nice to know, like
ninjitsu still exists, but the peoplethat do it are kind of like,
we're not We're not that, youknow. Yeah. It was a really
interesting, uh I don't even callit a documentary on Discovery Channel where they

(25:32):
had a guy who was like amaster of ninjitsu. There's the gardener,
but he did this whole thing oflike how a ninja would actually assault a
palace, And so they set uplike a Japanese palace and they had a
statue with a hat on it,and the goal was if you could knock
the hat off the statue, thathe would win, and nijitsu was invincible.
And so what the guy did isinstead of coming in like a ninja

(25:56):
trying to sneak past everyone, hecame in like a lighting guy. He
brought a lot and he went upand he's like adjusting the lights on the
set and like changing light bulbs andstuff, until the guards got so used
to him being there that he justwalked over and like dove and knocked the
hat off. It was like missionaccomplished. But I love that idea.
I love the approach of like,it's not the person you expect. It's
not you know, this unstoppable forcethat's coming for you. It's something that

(26:19):
you can't even imagine, right,it's not these guys training at this secret
military base. What do you thinkthe different colors mean? You wear the
yellow to blend in when you're fightingon the sun, you wear red to
blend in. Red guys can gounder the monkey bars, Orange guys go

(26:40):
over right. Blue guys are waterninjas, yep. And black guys are
for when you go fight in Harlem. Here he goes. Red guys go
under, Orange guys over the top. I will say this will I can
see the reasoning for doing like this. Imagine you come to whoever the fuck

(27:00):
is running this thing, and you'relike, I would like to become a
ninja, sir. I would liketo make this my career. He's a
martial artist, he says. Okay, I need to be able to figure
out who is good at this,who's been doing this for a while,
and who's brand new. I don'treally want to do the belt thing because
it's still too subtle played out.So I'm just gonna do the whole uniform

(27:21):
in different colors. We're not gonnado white, because what are they entered
in the Ninja two or three theway they have the white ninja. Yeah,
yeah, we're not gonna do that. And also, you know,
it looks kind of gaudy. We'llstart with yellow. Yellow meant the entry
level. Orange is slightly intermediate,Red is you know, as you start
getting darker down the spectrum, Sowhen you're finding a black ninja, you're

(27:41):
ready. That's gonna be my headcanon. Okay, And I say this
because I've given a lot of thoughtto starting my own martial arts program,
and I would like to do awaywith the belts because I prefer training in
MMA shorts. But I would dothe shirts. I would do ranked color
shirts, and you know that Iwould do that. Honestly, It's like
everybody at the school should kind ofknow who everybody else is and sort of

(28:04):
work to that level, work toimprove each other. So I don't like
the separation of rank. It's likeit should almost be knowing that. This
is what my my sword master wastalking about one time of I don't want
to give you a black belt.I want you to be able to walk
into another school and have them saywho is your instructor and you say his
name and they're like, awesome,you must be very good, you know
what I mean? Like his hisreputation should precede you. And that's the

(28:27):
job of the master is to havethat reputation, to be connected enough that
other people know who you are andwhat you teach. If somebody shows up
at your martial arts school and they'relike, oh, I trained with Joe
School up in Minneapolis, like youwould have a set of expectations based on
what you know about me, AndI like that. I think that that
bears more true weight than like,oh, yes, I have a fifth

(28:47):
degree black belt in karate. Andthen you're like, well, which system
with school? Who is your instructor? Like there's a bunch of follow up
questions to that. I I boughtit on Amazon. Jeff Bezos gave me
my black belt. But see,if if I produce ranked colored shirts of
different designs, then I can makesome money. Well. See, but
that's the whole reason that the ranksystem actually exists, yeah, is because

(29:10):
you have to test every couple ofmonths, and so there's this extra income
into the gym. It's one hundredand fifty dollars for your rank test.
You'll have to do that every threemonths. And then when you go for
black belt, like you have topay your thousand dollars a year to be
part of the future black belt club. It's all just a money grab.
When I was going to get readyto do my black belt test, I
was told it would cost a thousanddollars just to take the test, and

(29:33):
I was like, uh nah,I make college sophomore at this point.
Yeah, I don't have a thousanddollars. And they were like, you
could just save for it, andI'm like, I still have the skill,
I don't need it. But Ido like the look of the ranked
color shirts. I don't like thebelts just because, like again, it's

(29:56):
not big enough and like you said, it's not really an indicator of skill.
Yeah, but I do like theidea of shirts just because like,
I like the uniformity of rainbows.Well, and I'm traditionalist in that as
a taekwondo guy, I like thewhite uniforms, white collars, colored belts,
and then when you get your blackbelt, you get a black collar

(30:17):
and that's it. I don't likeany printing on the uniforms. I don't
like logos. I don't like itshould just be as plain as plain can
be. Is that what that is? With two? I thought it was
a black uniform when you get ablack belt. No that and see,
and I don't like that either,and I have those because there's different schools
do it different ways. But Iwould rather just like, Nope, when
you get the black belt, youget the black collar and that's it.
That's the only thing that changes.I used to train at a Hawaiian tempo

(30:41):
school that also trained seven star pragMantis, and they had the black gi
because that's kempo, where campos allblack because they were also kung fu.
They had like Chinese lettering on it, and if you were a student you
got white lettering, and if youwere red lettering, you were an instructor
and go and that you were theowner. Interesting, yeah, and I

(31:03):
just remember being like, but thelettering is like only on the left collar.
It's very small, and presumably Iknow if I walk in, I
don't know who anybody is, sothe color doesn't mean anything to me.
And if I am in here,then I know who everyone is, so
the coloring doesn't mean anything to me. Well, these guys are going to
throw down. I can't believe it'sbeen thirty minutes before Jackson and James d

(31:34):
meat. Well, they've been reallytrying to broil this up. This is
this is the kettle pot is boilingover right now with rage from the amnesiac
American ninja. Let me ask you, does your taekwondo training have one steps?
Yes? This is all one stepfight? It is. It is

(31:56):
very much so. But even evenlearning that, you know, going through
the ranks and learning and all that, it's like, yeah, this is
how you would choreograph exactly an interaction. I mean, it makes sense.
But I'm going to give credit touh and and I forget the actor's name
here, I had looked it upearlier, but to Jackson, because as
an actual martial artist, your jobin this scene is to make the other
guy look good. Yeah, andso I feel like his performance helps that

(32:19):
happen. Credit where credits due.It's a Steve James playing Jackson. By
the way, there you go.Let's got two first names. Should be
able to remember that. Yeah,But I will say I personally am not
a fan of the self defense techniquetraining. You know, I like focusing
on fundamentals and movements rather than likeif A, then B. However,

(32:40):
if you, like you said,if you hired me to choreograph a fight,
I could teach you ten one stepsthat we would just do in sequence
and make Michael Dudakov look like anexpert yep, because it's very easy to
condense that condense fighting down into stepone, two and threep, you know,
and and I agree. I meana real fight doesn't flow. Ope,
you grab my left wrist right,So now I have to use this

(33:02):
part like, the less you haveto process, the more efficient you're going
to be. The quicker, themore efficient you can respond, the more
likely you are to win. It'sbuckethead. But I did like one steps
because it did teach you to getcomfortable being at range. Yeah, to
understand you know how a move couldwork, but it could never be This

(33:27):
is how it will work. Andthat's where I think a lot of schools
get on. No, this isn'thow you break a risk grab. This
is how you could break a riskgrab. But if you actually like win
at it, it would never happenthat way. Nobody would ever grab you
so stupidly. But one thing Ido like about this film, and this
is something the director was quoted assaying, was that there is just a
playfulness and a friendliness about this film, and I agree with that. I

(33:52):
like the fact that these two havehad this rage boiling up and they had
a chance to fight it out,and then it's like this level of respect
is developed, and throughout the wholefilm series, these two are like inseparable.
They're basically brothers from this point on, and there's something very true about
that. In my experience, thisis kind of how guys do it.
When a new dude walks into theroom. You start kind of rubbing each
other and you kind of hate eachother, but not that way. Don't

(34:14):
look at me with those But eventually, eventually, once they have it out,
a level of respect should be developedand then you're on the same team.
You're here for the right reasons,but there's also the truth in like
your your reality comes out in yourfighting skill, you know, the ability
that you have to control yourself inthat environment, even when emotions are out

(34:37):
of control. It's very masculine tosay no, you were able to keep
a cool enough head to say wecan still be friends after this. Yeah.
I'm always less impressed with someone's fightingability when they first come into the
gym. You know, they couldbe good, they could be bad.
I have no way of knowing,right, I'm interested in seeing how they
handle the aftermath, right. Youknow, It's like, if you've got
your ass beat are you in agood mood about it? Or are you

(34:59):
like I need some revenge, which, like, I can also respect the
guy who's like, I didn't likethat shit, I'm going to make sure
it never happens again, right,Nothing wrong with not liking getting beat up.
Yeah, But you can tell alot about a person based on how
they react to that. Yeah.Yeah. There are guys who I've sparred
with, you know, like theirfirst day. You know, because I'm
at the point now where it's likewhen someone walks in, it's like,
hey, spar with Rob, sparwith whatever guy because he's not gonna hurt

(35:20):
you, but he is going toshow you the pecking order around here,
you know. And there have beenguys who like, they don't like it,
and they just ruminate and they getpissed and they start to turn it
into a fight. And if youare not experienced in martial arts and you
try to turn sparring into a fight, it will turn into a fight for
you. He will not win.No, I got to think about sparring

(35:43):
that people don't get. There's nowinning or losing. There's learning or not
learning. Yeah, but if youtry to turn it into a fight against
someone who's better than you are,I'm not gonna work that well for you.
Well, it depends too on whereyour level's at. Like I remember
having a Olympic caliber heavyweight came downto our gym to train one time,
and you know, he was justkind of going down the line and sparring

(36:05):
with some of our heavyweights. AndI was one of the team captains,
and so you know, he giveme a little something, I would take
it, you know. And thenI was like, you know, I
didn't come here to like play withyou, like I want you to fight,
man, Like I've seen you sparlike a hundred times, like I
know what you're capable of, andso he did something kind of soft and
I went for it, like Ithrew a spin hook kick at him so
far, like so fast, andhe ducked out of the weight and he

(36:27):
brought it right back and he'd missedmy chin, and like I could,
the air went past my chin.He actually glanced my shoulder and it spun
me, is how hard he kicked, and I sort of spun around and
I came back and we just lockedeyes and it was just like all right,
like now we know where we're at. And it's like but again,
there's like this level of respect oflike, oh, you're not just some
some hoky joe who's out here tolike, you know, spar with an

(36:51):
olympian. I was like, you'regood and you're confident and you want it
like here it is, and it'slike ooh, and I liked it,
you know, Like that's that's verydifferent. It's different than when you go
in and some guys like you know, cocky about it or like like you
said, not it should be enjoyable, like when you're done, like you
should want to shake your guy's hand. Hey, that was a good fight.

(37:12):
You're doing the movie tai stuff forme. You know, I make
mistakes. I dropped my guard,I catch a punch. It's like that
dude is good for seeing it,and I respect that about him. But
that's why he wants me to comeback, you know. Meanwhile, I
have a friend that is spar withHe's really good at the clinch. He's
just got these long, bony arms, and if he gets you in that
little headlock thing, it's just like, holy crap, that's hard to get

(37:35):
out of it. And I wantI want that. Yeah, I will
walk into it because I'm a finda way out. I need to take
that away from you. I toldmy coach, we're talking about getting me
some muatai fights, hopeful by theend of the year. But my life
is what my life is right now, right, Yeah, so we'll see
that works. But he's like,we'll get you some multi fight that I
told him. I was like,what do you think about getting me some

(37:55):
kickboxing fights? And he goes,what do you mean? I go,
I hate the cling? Why becauseI like socks. I like kicking people.
I like throwing spinning hook kicks andyou know, pushing them away from
me, and I can't do that. When they grab on to me and
he goes, you can do somewhite tie, he'll be fine. Yeah.

(38:21):
Oh, my coach chuckled because,like I like to kick, guys
like to grab legs. But it'slike, Jesus, I'm kicking soft on
purpose, you know what I mean. I'm like, I'm showing you where
you were weak. I'm not givingyou my leg to catch it. Some
of the guys they'll do that.They'll catch a leg and then act like
they did something and it was likethe fight ended, my friend, Like
your liver is in six different piecesright now from that kick. I just

(38:45):
want to point out, so we'regoing back to the movie, we have
our third fourth male nipple exposure.Yeah, and as many minutes now,
I want to also point out fiveminutes previously, everybody in the army hated
Joe yep, and now we haveour group of best friends. Well,
I mean Jackson gave him the okay, which I do like that. Now

(39:09):
they're gonna break him out. They'regonna get him off base a wall so
he didn't go on a date.By the way, this film is a
constant series of Joe breaking out ofplaces pretty much. Yeah, Like everybody
tries to put him in a cornerand he's like, nope, see he's

(39:30):
gonna jump the wall. I dohave to wonder if you are sent to
the army as an alternative to prison, isn't there gonna be some kind of
probation officer there with you? Likethis just seems like a not ideal program.
Oh, the dude bounce his faceoff the windshield in slow motion?

(39:51):
Did you see that? No?What the stunt man ahead, but the
windshield on the fight. Oh that'sdedication. That was not Michael, by
the way. Smack, we're keepingthat in the final cut. Charlie's hair

(40:15):
is really offensive to me in thismovie. Oh, it's amazing. Everybody's
hair in this movie is amazing.I just feel like, I just feel
like it's not regulation like anybody.I don't feel like anybody has a regulation
haircut. All this so you cango on a date with the general's daughter,

(40:35):
which also just sounds like a badidea. You know, he doesn't
like you. Here we go Romeoand Juliet. Okay, picture it,
Romeo and Juliet, but they're ninjas. There's our next feature. M prepared

(41:00):
this for you. I wrote youthis poem. There was was a man
from Nantucket. Let me get thisvery I want to make this very clear.
I don't date. I stand bymy truck and I flip my butterfly

(41:22):
knife. That's kind of my thing. Do you want to join me?
Oh, first use of a gopro? Yeah? Actually, I will
say GoPros have kind of revolutionized theway you would do a driving shot like
that. Not just go pros,just camera camera development to begin with,

(41:45):
right, because back in the day, what they did with this shot was
they would mount the motorcycle to essentiallya trailer. Yeah, and then they
would just have the camera crew siton that trailer and you know, like
yeah, have a pickup right,you know, pulling the bike behind him.
They would just be in the backof the pickup with the camera.
And there's been even modern, moremodern films, some interesting rigs attached to

(42:08):
the outside of vehicles just they canget cameras. I should to think of
the movie where they actually passed thecamera through the car. Do you know
what I'm talking about. It's likeit starts on the wheel on one side
and they literally picked the camera upand like pass it through, so even
the actors are actually moving the camerapassing over their faces trying to remember what
that what that is because it's notsuper old. M hmm, let me

(42:32):
look it up. There's the Generaland the bad guy, or not the
General. I guess he's like thenumber two. The most egregious thing to
me in this film is that thebad guy can just smoke cigars in front
of people in restaurants, right,because I'm just like, even if that's

(42:53):
legal, at this point, it'sso rude. Well in this it's just
like, oh, there's that guythat like fought back. We should kill
him, And it's like, ah, maybe we should just like not,
no, he definitely needs to die. He probably will forget about all that,
you know, I mean just literallyit could be like, you know,

(43:14):
what we should do honestly, thatlike this could change the whole outcome
of this film, Like what weshould do. We should walk over there
and we should congratulate the two lovebirds, and we should do everything we can
to make sure they hook up,because if they do, he is not
a threat to us anymore, yeah, at all. Instead, they're like,
we should send ninjas to kill him, which is the most non ninja

(43:37):
thing you could do. Going backto your story about the guy who pretended
to be a lighting technician, Yeah, you know, it's like, what's
the best way to get in thehead of your your enemy. Make him
relax? Mm hmm, give hima girl. Have you know pay this
bill? When when I worked forthe Department of Corrections, the food at
the institution was amazing, and Iremember actually talking with one of the chefs,

(44:00):
one of the cooks that prepare thefood for everybody, and he said,
yeah, the thinking here is fathappy prisoners don't riot. It's like,
that's true if the food is good, you know. So if you've
got this guy who's you know,rough edgy, looking for a fight,

(44:20):
and you get him lazy, fat, happy with a girlfriend, you know,
maybe get him smoking cigarettes and drinkingon a regular basis. He's not
a threat to your elite ninjas anymore. But nobody in this film has too
much planning or foresight because everyone putstheir sights on Joe. Yeah, no

(44:44):
one leaves this guy alone. Howdo you yell at Michael Doudakov's face like
that, like, look at thoseeyes haunting. I can't be mad at
you. You just kids. Ifeel like I'm not even getting through.
It's just anger isn't gonna work here. That being said, they could have

(45:05):
probably spent a little more money onan acting coach. I don't know what
expression he's ever trying to show,Like these are the same fuck me eyes
you gave his girlfriend earlier to this, he's like a special assignment, and
the guy's like, oh, Igot an assignment for you, buddy,

(45:35):
yeah, oh yeah, this ishis second encounter with the Ninja's right,
this is not an obvious setup.It's definitely not an intuitive setup. Needs
you to drive this truck to thewarehouse. There's nobody there. Oh,
they're all gunning for me. Ijust fought off a bunch of evil ninjas.

(46:00):
Just saw the rich guy that ownsthe plantation or whatever. There's R
two D two sitting in front ofhim. Oh it's a spear again.
There's no way he can dodge thespear. Okay, spear was too slow.
Try the arrow. Oh he's justtoo quick. It just pops up

(46:23):
again. Though, you didn't decideto lay booby traps at all for him,
Like arrows and spears was the onlypart of your plan when you had
time to set up this kill house. I think he goes with the underhanded
sword stuff again. And Harry Cantville, I think we've talked about this before,
but I hate hate when people arehandling katana and their hands are together

(46:49):
on the hilt, so that that'sactually a film thing, right, It's
well in the stage combat thing,because when your hands are together, it's
really easy to bend your wrists back, so you can take a full swing
without actually extending the blade. Ifyou have your hands apart, there's a
tendency to actually extend the blade.So you're trying to use that depth perception,
right. If you're in stage,you're closer to the audience than the
guy you're cutting, and you canswing hard and it looks like you swung

(47:13):
through. But that blade is rightnext to your arm, so it's not
anywhere near It's feet away, literallytwo three feet away, And so a
lot of stunt actors have just beentaught that for safety reasons. That makes
sense. Still annoying though, Yeah, but the ninja sword was also not
a real katana, so yeah,what the hell am I complaining about?

(47:37):
Yeah, if you're a fan ofthe straight edge ninjatoe sword, not a
real thing. No, I thinkit was actually the James Bond films that
invented it. Yeah, and probablybecause they were just easy to produce,
right. Yeah, it's hard toget that bend in a katana, it's
not natural. You have to dothat curve on purpose, but straight rate

(48:00):
your bladed pretty easy. And alsoit is cool looking. Yeah. I
do love how that guy got hishis sickle grabbed and still had the wherewithal
to draw his sword as he wasfalling. Yeah, that's some ninja shit.
H Net guys are here. Theydidn't plan on him using the sword

(48:20):
that was in his hand. Howdid he know that guy was in there?
He just start stabbing the barrels randomly. He found me. Imagine that
they had done that in Raiders ofthe Lost Ark when Indy was hiding.

(48:43):
It was a good move though,throwing both swords at the same time.
Yeah. I also couldn't tell thathe was purposely like disguising the throwing of
the free sword with chained sword,like he has some real nujitsu training And
honestly, I know we're making funof him for handling it reverse blade a
reverse grip. He does look goodswinging a sword around, he looks.

(49:06):
He looks competent for sure. Thefight choreographer, I mean, did his
job in this one. And theysay by the end of the film he
earned his black belt. But I'mlike, black belt and what? Yeah,
I mean, I'm sure they justgave him one as a ceremonial.
You survived this this shoot, congratulations. My understanding is that he, you

(49:27):
know, continued with martial arts traininglong after this film, I mean,
not just into the sequels. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's the williams
Adco effect. Right, Like you'rein a martial arts classic. Maybe you
should learn a thing or two aboutwhat people associate you with. Yeah,
let's see, what does Michael duDAKOFV have guild stunt? This guy is

(49:51):
having a bad day. Duda Kovhas since trained in karate, iiketo,
judo and Brazil jiu jitsu. Thereyou go, okay. Dudokos said that
he doesn't lift weights, but isa swimmer and does isometric and dance exercises.
No, he looks good, helooks fit. Like you said,
he's athletic. Here we go.Nope, never mind, that's not his

(50:15):
black belt. Does Michael Dudukop hasa black belt. He does pretty classic.
Why is there a fruit stand here? Oh, specifically so this truck
can drive over it? Yeah,how is that truck ever gonna catch that

(50:36):
motorcycle? I mean, come on, well, if it just see more
than twenty five miles an hour.He's trying to fake his own death here.
Yeah, that looks really painful,though I don't know how you would
fake that. It's more Indiana Jonesgoing on here. I rolled over his

(51:05):
motorcycle. Might as well drive directlyinto the heart of our secret base for
some reason. But first I willstop at quiz nos. Let's see.
I guess he has a black beltin karate because it's like the most extensive
information I can find on him.Maybe under maybe in jiu jitsu, but

(51:29):
I don't think so. I wouldbe interested to find out who, like
the most pedigreed and well trained actorturned martial artist days, not martial artist
who is also an actor martial artsactor, but like what actor who had
zero training became a goddamn lethal weaponas a result of his career got really
into it? That is an interestingquestion that takes him dig into I bet

(51:52):
it's Will Smith. You think so? I heard that he actually got like,
at least in terms of firearms,like competent at handling guns because of
all the cop and you know,action films he's done. I've heard that
he just he got insanely into itso that he could portray them properly,
and like he will sometimes even schoolthe armorers on set on how to handle

(52:15):
guns and stuff because he's like,no, that's not the way it's done.
And also there was a time whenWill Smith was the most banquill action
star on the planet, so Ihave to imagine he trained with some of
the best. Yeah, and againwhen you're around it all the time,
it makes sense. H Also,as we killed that random guy that was

(52:36):
so annoying to you, Oh thisis a great day. Nothing bad could
happen from here on out. Itis easy street, my friend. Would
you like to discuss our plans outin the open for anybody to slow to
us like a salmon to capastrono.Now we figure out what's really going on.

(53:00):
Guns, army guns. You cantell their army guns because they literally
say army on them that you're gonnasay because they're green. This is if
you didn't know this franchise, ifit was your first time watching and I
told you we're watching American Ninja.What would you suspect the plot is,

(53:23):
there's a ninja, but he isAmerican. Where would you think that takes
place? America? America? MaybeJapan, maybe probably America? Yeah,
and what would you think happens insaid movie? I mean, just based
off the title, he would fightninjas? Right? Would you suspect that

(53:44):
it actually is an American in thePhilippines who doesn't know that he is already
a ninja and uncovers that's the twist? He uncovers a plot to steal and
sell army surplus weapons. I guess, let's be honest, The plot here
is completely besideable. They just neededa thing to give them something to do

(54:05):
while they were shooting their action sequences. It just seems so convoluted when you
could just literally just be like,he's a ninja in America. Get some
montage scenes, have a sword fight, call it a day. Little parkour
here, good work. Hide behindthe trees, he's very good. Old

(54:29):
hide around the corner. Throw youin the trash can. They used to
do that to kids in high school. Yeah, wait when you jump up
on the window, I need youto smolder for just a moment before you
start walking across. That's important.It's also his audition for Spider Man.

(54:51):
He does a fair amount of divingonto pads in this film, just so
every one does, but they makeno effort to hide the paths. Like
that truck he just jumped on.It was just a big black landing match.
Just sitting right at it. You'retelling me your car hood isn't soft.

(55:12):
The dude on the left its justshaking his gun. I was about
to say, you to say,everyone who fires a machine gun in this
gun in this movie is just likethe bad guy looking at the gun,
Like the bad guys look at eachother, are like, why do all
your guys shake their guns when theyshoot? I don't know, bad training,

(55:32):
I guess. So you just sawyour long lost son running through the
jungle and you're like, come thisway, and he's like who are you?
And you're like, you will knowwhen the time is right. In
about twenty minutes of screen time.Also, this like slow, methodical conversation

(55:53):
his dad is having with him iswasting time. Yeah, And that's my
point. It's like, shut up, just follow me. You know who
I am. Obviously, move yourass come with me if you want to
live, let's go. Oh,no, anybody's seen the gardener again.

(56:17):
It's very good that he's still wearinghis army greens because he blends in way
easier than those ninjas. Do youknow camouflage is a real thing. It's
effective. Yep, Look, howis that my problem? You see your
guys were using I didn't send mymilitary units after it. Also, you

(56:44):
can definitely tell this was made innineteen eighty five because splattered in that background
shot. Yes, yeah, I'lljust go back to base where I'm safe
and absolutely nobody is trying to getafter me. I noticed there's a bunch
of baseball caps just hanging in theback of the sergeant's office, just various

(57:06):
colors of not army regulation baseball caps. Off to jail with you, no
trial, no jury, because youhaven't escaped anything yet. Yeah, this

(57:31):
guy looks like the principal from FairyDealer. Yes, he does what he
did before he became the principal.He dealt with another kid who keeps breaking
out stealing military equipment. Look,now there's different baseball caps in the world.

(58:00):
Yeah. Also, just a thingthat's weird, even though I know
we talked about Remo Williams not toolong ago. There's only one computer in
this whole office. Everyone else usingtime. Everyone else is using typewriters.
Yeah, that's the tech department.And of course the sergeant is chomping on

(58:24):
a cigar. Given all those poorladies secondhand smoke put with a name.
I get the feeling Jackson's not goingto forget about him. No, I
feel like Joe's gonna have to havea flashback here, remember that time I
wasn't in jail. M h.This came out a whole year before Top

(58:52):
Gun. Yep, this is whenwe're gonna get our long reminiscing motorcycle ride.
Are you trying to say that thisfilm inspired Top Gun? I was
just thinking a minute ago. Iknow Top Gun inspired like a whole crop
of people to enlist in the AirForce. I'm wondering how many people enlisted

(59:15):
in the Army as a result ofthis movie, and then we're disappointed when
they didn't become a ninja. Iknow, so unfair. I know at
least two guys who went to RangerSchool because they were like, it's the
closest I'm going to get to actuallybeing a ninja. So whatever, I
call it good and I'm like,actually, you know what, that's admirable.

(59:36):
I wanted to play for ten asmuch as I could in my real
life, so I went to theclosest thing I could, Ranger School.
I'm like, yeah, sometimes youeven get to wear a mask perfect.
So I have the subtitles on justlike read and he goes hey, and
it says speaking Japanese. Really.Also, I just have to say the

(59:57):
Blackstar ninja is instantly in his uniformand angry. Well he's in the Philippines.
Dude like yeah, Like he's wearingan all black robe, layers and
he's got it one hundred percent atthe time. Like no, he's dying
of dehydration right now. And Ilike yeah again, his black outfit with
his red highlights cuts the power.And look at that. You know he's

(01:00:22):
an instructor because he has red lettering. That's right, I'm across the power
lines. That's why he had tocut the power. Oh here comes If
that's what he did right there,if just pause and rewound this film a

(01:00:44):
hundred times to figure out how youget it out? Is that one is
that retsu or sign of it.That's what That's what Joe from American Ninja
did, So that's what I did. He does it in American Ninja too,
American Ninja Too two and also anAmerican Ninja. Now. I am

(01:01:08):
a avid fan of stealth based videogames, like I love any game that
has a sneak around feature, Andwhat I get to play is the ninja.
The thing I don't want to dois what this ninja's doing right now.
But thank god he has commas whichcan kill silently. Yeah, no
one's gonna scream when they get comatopen and apparently cut open locks. But

(01:01:32):
he has to do Yeah, butwhy didn't MythBusters do that? Can you
actually cut a steel like a masterlock with a comma maybe if it's a
laser comma or if it's an aposture commas. I mean, I just
testing Scorpions Spear video a couple monthsago. I should do slicing things with

(01:01:53):
comma video. Yeah, let's doit. Break my hand open? Where
did he go? I also don'tunderstand how this ninja is so dangerous,
but he fell for the blanket.The pillows into the blanket routine, Like

(01:02:14):
really, you're the biggest threat toJoe's life right now, and you fell
for that. Also good good timingon his escape though there. But also
he's hiding right above the doorway.The guy didn't see him. I think
he did. He had to dealwith the guy with a gun first,
which is why it was good timingon his escape, like, oh you're

(01:02:35):
busy, I'll be back all right, see you. Good talk. God,
if this ninja only had a firearmor something, you could shoot him
at range, even if he hadlike a little pea shooter. Mm hmm.

(01:03:00):
There's so much as leaping in thisfilm. People spend a lot of
time just jumping off one thing towardsanother. Mm hmm. I'm Climbing on
top of stuff is very important whenyou're in Ninja, so you have to
have at least six different ways toget on top. But this is where
you can tell that monkey bars trainingreally pays off. So he must have
at one point been a red Ninjaand then learned how to get on top

(01:03:20):
of the monkey bar so he couldbe an orange ninja sidekick. Didn't work,
let's both roll together, Oh pocketstaff, Now do we know what
happened to do? I mean presumablythe army took it away when they put

(01:03:40):
him in the jail cell. Butwhat happened to his pocket knife? Yeah,
like at all these fights he's beenhaving, I feel like I would
immediately reach for my knife. Nowthe guy draws his sword. I see
hand to hand hasn't worked. Perhapshad to blade. This is actually a

(01:04:10):
pretty cool fight. Again. Ihave to give props to Michael Dudakov for
knowing how to move his body.M HM actually got involved in a comment
section yesterday on YouTube talking about ifit was possible to learn martial arts from
YouTube, you know, watching videosand just practicing on your own to a
certain extent. I can agree withthat. I agree, And it's basic.

(01:04:33):
There's some basic things, like it'shard to learn jiu jitsu without having
somebody to learn jiu jitsu with,Like you're missing a huge component of it.
But like you can learn some basicthings for sure, and basics can
take you a long way. Imean it's, you know, the whole
world and a grain of sand kindof a thing. Given enough time and
enough resources, like, yeah,you'll figure it out. Yeah. I

(01:04:54):
think the other thing people don't talkabout often is just different learning styles and
ability of people. Right, Like, if you're a hands on learner,
you probably won't be able to learnfrom YouTube videos. Right. If you're
a visual learner, you'll probably bebetter off. Like I have, I
know people who can watch videos onlinefigure shit out. I think, well,
we all know that guy who likewent to the library, checked out

(01:05:15):
a book on nijitsu and then wasable to actually like pull it off.
You know. Yeah, it's like, hey, he's probably pretty close.
Yeah. You can see guys whoteach themselves backflips from just reading a manual
about it. Because that's why Ilove those TikTok videos where it's like how
to backflip and three steps Yeah,step one jump and step two talk and
then step three put it together,and then the third video is them just
flopping on their back. Yeah.But the other side of that coin is,

(01:05:39):
I think just natural athletic ability.Yeah. You know, if you're
naturally a good fast twitch athlete,you're probably going to pick up martial arts
very easily, even without a lotof training in it. Yeah. And
we don't want to say that,right because strength and size of skill don't
matter. It's like it does matter, It does matters. I think Michael.
The example Coach Blower always said was, you know, if you and

(01:06:00):
I are both like expert drivers,like best two drivers in the world,
then we decide to have a demolitionderby and I get behind the wheel of
a Humbee and you get one ofthose little smart cars. It doesn't matter
how good a driver you are.Size matters. Yeah. In fact,
on the on the tag of allhis T shirts, it'll be like signs
large, and then underneath it itsays size matters. Yeah. No,
it's true. But I mean that'sin terms of conflict with other human being

(01:06:25):
if we put it in this specificsituation of learning choreography for martial arts,
like, yeah, athletes have anadvantage over Like I don't look at the
MCU, right, There's so manypeople in the MCU who have to do
a fight scene in every single movie, and we kind of know who the
better fighters are, you know,like we kind of get that. Chris
Evans and his stunt double, ChrisBrewster. They both are really good at

(01:06:48):
those flippy giant like push kick,push hit kind of motion like Scarlett Johansson
her double. They like the wrestlingmoves, you know, RDJ not quite
so much. The fighter. He'svery good at wing, so it's like,
hey, let's get in tight andlet him do some stuff with his
hands. Don't ask him to kick. Yeah, And every single one of
them when they first start out,if they don't already have a martial arts

(01:07:08):
background, the fights are kind ofsilted. You know. Yeah, that's
just the truth. If you're nota martial artist and you're expected to do
martial arts in a film, itkind of comes down to your natural ability.
It doesn't matter how good your coachesare well, and just being an
actor. Like I said earlier,Jackson sells the fight. The guy who's
losing sells the punch, right.That's the job of the stunt crew is

(01:07:29):
to make that actor look good.You know. Scarlett Johansen, her her
job is to look good. Everybodyaround her their job is to help her
look good, so she should lookgood in the films. That's the goal.
That's what they're going for. That'swhat they're pumping all those millions of
dollars into. Is that. Ithink that's also a coach Blauer quote about

(01:07:49):
how you can tell if a techniqueis real or viable is you don't look
at the guy doing it. Youlook at the guy. He's doing it
too. Yeah, because again,his job as the guy, the demo
dummy I to call him, isto make the instructor look good. Yeah.
And if he's getting touched and goingoh, throwing himself to the ground,
probably not a legit technique. Well, but if you're also same conversation

(01:08:13):
with coach Flower, if you're tryingto help somebody learn, your reactions need
to be realistic. That's true.That's another problem. I have a lot
with my students in terms of teachingself defense techniques and sparring, you know,
especially with the sparring, because I'mlike, there's an element of pretend
to this that has to happen.Guys. Yeah, Like we have a
guy who's taking a lot of judonow, so he will just take he'll

(01:08:33):
take punches to the head, he'lljust walk through them to grab onto you
and you know, throw you.And he's like, I think my judo
neutralizes everyone's striking, And I'm like, no, you just don't pretend like
those punches that are coming at youtwenty percent speed. Yeah. Yeah,
you know, it's like if anybody, even if our white belts are you
know, one hundred and ten poundswhite belts punched at your head with intent.

(01:08:55):
You would not walk through them.He just jumps out the window.
Here, He's like, I'm doneplaying out of here, suckers. He
also clearly tripped jumping out of thewindow. Oh that's hilarious. When did
double pane glass become a thing?You think when he kicks the gun out
of that guy's hand and he's like, I'm just I'm sorry, I'm done,

(01:09:18):
I'm not fighting. I want youto shoot the guy. Yeah,
I don't know, but you'd haveto, you know, maybe study the
history of glass here. But clearlyit didn't work out well for action films
because you know, throwing people throughthe picture window has been a thing.
I mean, watch the Old ATeam show. Somebody gets thrown through a

(01:09:40):
glass window every episode and that wouldn'thappen anymore and just be like thunk.
I just imagine the head of likeglass glass and porium walking. It's like,
guys, we're losing stock every singleday. People do not have faith
in our product. Does the hudsuckerproxy chicks out the window and then later

(01:10:00):
in the film, it's like justinstant glass. It's that every single movie
shows our products shattering. We needto stop. And I have seen people.
This was in my teen years whenmy friends were dumb. I think

(01:10:21):
that they can just throw themselves outof window. And this is not sugar
glass. Let's just make that clear. That's how I learned about sugar glass
and double pane windows made specifically sothat they won't shatter when someone hits the
shouldn't have been a bad guy.Yep, all right, Joe Smolder.

(01:10:42):
Ask why that car exploded though,because cars explode when they crash. Yeah,
and they crashed into trees. Probablyhad some some bombs in it because
it was an army car. Iimagine the head of Jeep was like,
okay, we gotta put a statein the people think if you drive into
a tree at twenty miles an hour, your car will explode. It's not

(01:11:03):
good for us. All the guyssitting around the boardroom at Jeep like,
oh no, no, yeah.Every time a car explodes after a light
collision, every time a gun accidentallygoes off because someone drops it down the
staircase, and someone throws themselves outa window, the CEOs of these companies

(01:11:25):
are like, for fuck's sake,we're about to plummet. I've had to
explain it to a lot of peoplewho like talk about by the way,
straight up ass shot on the generalright now. But look at the picture
of John Wayne. That's what youcan tell. They shot this at like
a hotel. Yeah, I wantthat picture though, Holy cow. Also,

(01:11:51):
do you notice that his belt isrhinestoned. Yes, the general has
the most egregious belts I've ever seenin my life, giant buckles like steel
toe tip on it and then ryanstonesalong the side of it. Now we're
gonna kidnap the general's daughter? Why? Because that's the kind of thing that

(01:12:15):
ninja just do. Do we everget any kind of backstory on a Blackstar
ninja or is he just a mercenary? He's just a all right. It
seems like a lot of pomp andpomp and circumstance for a guy who's like
just doing the job. Come on, you notice that he just pulled the
sunny Chiba spunker in the neck.Just are for this guy. They couldn't

(01:12:43):
manufacture a full ninja costume for him, so he has to wear like a
doily on his head. I don'tknow why the mask has like an extra
piece of fabric on top of it. But it looks ridiculous. The General
is losing his nerve. Is thereanybody in like the up straight up ashots?
Seriously, this dude's the biggest wedgieI've ever seen on screen. That's

(01:13:05):
standard issue military pants right there.They're so tight. It's because that belt.
Yeah, and this guy with hislike shirt halfway open, giant bling.
Uh. It's so it's such justa bad guy stereotype, you know

(01:13:28):
what I mean. Listen, ifyou came to talk to me and your
shirt was that open with that manychains, I would assume you're a drug
dealer. The General really should makemore of a move to stop this guy
from leading his house. He justthreatened your daughter and you punched him in
the face, and you're just gonnalet him leave. He just told you

(01:13:48):
I have four million dollars riding onthis transaction. M he's not gonna let
it go. I'll be honest withyou. If you and I had some
kind of plan and it was fourmillion riding on it, and you will
like, you know what, I'mgetting cold feet, I'd be like,
Joe Goo, fuck yourself, suckit up. Four million? How did

(01:14:10):
he get on the roof Ninja Ninja. That would be a fun game to
play, see if you can likesneak into high security situation. Yeah,
Rogue Warrior wasn't that Uh oh,what's his name? Marshenko? Dick Marshenko.
That was his whole book. That'show he became the guy who breaks

(01:14:31):
in a military basis to test theirsecurity. That sounds like a badass job.
Also sounds like how I die.Did you notice that he just did
like an X block punch to thoseguards and then just slip that guy into
the shadow double high block and seethe body double high block. You should

(01:14:55):
do it your next YouTube video.It needs to be on the comma and
the X block. Dude, Ilike the X block. I'm not gonna
lie I love. It's time toremember everything. I'm going to fix your
amnesia, a medical condition that youhave using Ninja magic. I mean,
what does science know that magic doesn'tknow better? Also, why is he

(01:15:15):
just here? He's a gardener,I understand, but like he just has
like carte blanche to walk wherever hewants on his property. He's the gardener
when I was six, that's beforenow as shot hm hmm, So he

(01:15:39):
is not Joe's actual father, right, right, So he just found Joe,
So we still don't really have abackstory. This really says just at
you were a baby when I foundyou, and Joe was the only American
name he knew. If we're goingby because presumably this guy is old enough
to be a World War Two veteran, I would think presumably presumably then he

(01:16:02):
would have had more exposure to Americathan just to name Joe. So there's
a world where instead of being namedJoe, he's actually named Mickey Mouse,
right, Mickey Mouse, the AmericanNinja. It was the only name I
knew. The explosion. It's agood thing that explosion didn't blow you in

(01:16:32):
high heaven. Yeah. I justkind of feel like his dad here is
way more powerful than anyone else he'sseen in this film. It could probably
solve the problems of this film prettyeasily and quickly. Yeah, but he's
old. Such a good scene though, mm hmm. Ninjato, Okay,

(01:16:57):
here we go, Here we go. This is what you got to pay
attention to. Cobra, the handsymbols, citezen. I love how you
asked to explain ninja magic. Whatdoes that mean? Who knows. Yeah,

(01:17:19):
ninjas do not follow the bashido,just so you know. Yeah,
I'll be honest with you. Samuraialso did not follow the Bushido mm hm,
because that was written after samurai wereabolished. They had a code of
honor, just didn't call it bushido, which sucks to have to learn about.
Yeah, you know, so,dear audience. For those who don't

(01:17:42):
know, Basically, the code ofthe Bashido was written by a Westerner who
wanted who was studying the samurai andwanted to find something close enough to chivalry
because he was like, oh,samurai are basically nights. Cool, So
they got to have a code.But there wasn't like a written code of
the samurai. They just kind ofhad their expectations of how to live their
lives and how to serve their masters, and there was kind of a vague

(01:18:03):
idea of what that meant. Butthat's why you have some samurai who are
like soldiers, were generals, somewho are police, some who are basically
politicians. Yeah, because like therewas no real rule for what a samurai
was. It was just high class. Basically, it meant you weren't a
merchant. Yeah, you know,you weren't a farmer. You're basically a
samurai, right, So to helpWesterners understand that, this dude wrote the

(01:18:28):
code of the Bushido, which kindof is what all samurai believed in,
but not really. Yeah, likethey didn't have to believe, they didn't
have to abide by it. Now, there was no swearing in ceremony when
you became a samurai. Yeah,but it is interesting that they all kind
of agreed that Seppuku was going tobe a real seminar, as was Gimpuku.
Yep. So it's like, yeah, Bushido wasn't organized, but there

(01:18:51):
was there were some things that wereuniversal across all samurai clans. We must
be getting near the finale. There'sonly fourteen minutes left and we still have
a lot to tie up. Forexample, what is that ninja's name,

(01:19:13):
Black Ninja? He's just Blackstar Ninja. How did he get on that truck?
He's in Ninja? I want aT shirt now that says because Ninja.
Yep, you break my arrow,I break my phone. Yeah,
it's like, why would you stop? Why would you stop shooting arrows?
It seems why would you break thebow? That makes no sense? Also,

(01:19:35):
that's your dad's bow. Literally,this is worthless. I fired one
shot and he broke my arrow.I'll never shoot this poem again. He's
just so upset. God, thisthing is stupid. Break Ninja suck.
Also, we're making fun of theBlackstar Ninja for having his red accents.

(01:19:59):
Joe's dad has straight up red pants. Red pants? Am I the only
one when they say you have tenseconds? I actually start a timer to
see. There's only one filmmaker Iknow who actually does adhere to timers in
his films, and that's Christopher Nolanin the Batman films. An inception in
I think even tenant when there's likea timer, I think he needs to

(01:20:24):
get done by a certain time.It tends to happen in actual screen time.
Right now, ten seconds could belike thirty minutes in this movie.
You'd ever know. Yeah, timeis so relative. But now this is
why Chuck Norris wouldn't take the role. Right. However, this also makes
it really easy to get stunt menin wait, is that the gardener?

(01:20:50):
Well, I guess the mass didn'twork very well. I really don't like
how he's holding the sword backwards,pointing at himself. Now just imagine you're
you're some Spanish speaking multi millionaire who'sflying into the Philippines to purchase American weapons
on the black market. And whileyou're there, this ninja pops up and

(01:21:13):
all this stuff is going on aroundyou. It's like, oh, no,
just relax, have a seat.This happens all the time here.
No. No, this guy's insanelycalm about the ninja raid happening in the
backyard. So you seem to havesome difficulties going on. Perhaps I should

(01:21:34):
leave. Also, I hate they'rejust holding on to the girl by like
her wrists. No one's bothering tostrain her anyway. Like, it just
seems like a waste of manpower.You've got two guys holding onto her while
these two other guys are killing allyour friends. Dad just turned invisible.

(01:22:02):
Ninja Magic, I don't understand whatjust happened. Ninja Magic sacrificed himself for
no reason at all. He totallycould have caught that knife. Everyone's catching
everything in this film. Is whyis he catching the spear tip with his

(01:22:23):
body? And here comes Commando.See how many of these guys are just
waving their guns back and forth.All better bang the drums. That's we're
gonna be okay, as long asI can get to the drums and send
the signal, get the neighboring tribethere, he is, you just go

(01:23:01):
around. I don't understand this.This this playground. It's a playground routine,
is what it is. He's like, if I'm going to sit on
this jeep, I better rip thesleeves off my shirt make a headband.

(01:23:23):
It seems like one of those thingswhere like you might have the idea,
but then it really wouldn't work inpracticality, like driving down the side of
the building like that. I hearit. Now, Now we see the
comma's natural enemy, the sigh handclocks. What is the techo is what

(01:23:45):
they're called. I like this weapon. I like what it allows the hand
to hand fighting to look like.And then here's our Bolo Young substitute.
Right, I was thinking the samething. I mean, that's clearly what
they're going for. The burning rope. They did that in Ninja Ninja flame

(01:24:12):
Thrower. No, nutsis they're notnumb. I'll tell you right now.
That's kind of the issue with thisguy being discount Bolo Young. He's not
quite as imposing. No, it'sthick though, I really like that they

(01:24:40):
just turned Jackson into Carl Weathers atthe end pretty much right, Nope,
one of the good guys went down. I'm gonna ride on the front of
the tank with my handgun. I'mgonna ride right here on the front of
this indestructible tank which everybody's shooting atand I'm just gonna have my hand pop

(01:25:00):
pop unnecessary rolling. And now I'mjust like, you know what, I
don't feel good about this deal anymore. He just shoots a bault in the
back and now he's gonna steal theirhelicopter. Like, what's gonna happen when
all the other bad guys find outthat you You like, he just ruined

(01:25:20):
his business credibility. Yeah, it'slike, I'm not flying to some island
to watch this dude shoot me inthe back once he takes my money,
Like, there's no I thought thiswas business. And also like outside of
that, I don't want to dobusiness with a guy who keeps having ninja

(01:25:40):
raids in the middle of our transaction. Yeah, like what about the chopper
pilot? Doesn't he work for thetwo guys that just got a shot.
It's true, he's like fly,Like, where are we going, I
don't even work for you. Idon't know that we even speak the same
language. Yeah, Now, howmany of those smoke bombs do you keep

(01:26:03):
in your pocket at any given time? Because I'm pretty sure that black ninja
is running out by now, youwould think, but that's why you're not
a ninja. Oh all right,everybody shoot his last words. I just
feel like somebody has a better shot, has a clear enough shot at the

(01:26:25):
guy to kill him before he killsthe girl, you know, like he's
not that squared away with her bootknife. There go, it's about time.
Who laser beams? Yeah, wheredid this guy get these weapons from?

(01:26:53):
And why wasn't he using them earlier? He only gets one shot on
that laser and then it's like outof juice. You know what would have
been really helpful in the jail cell, the flamethrower. Yeah, because even
if the dude's hiding on the ceilinglike it was earlier, fire rises.

(01:27:15):
Well, this is like he's beensaving all these weapons, you know,
for the right moment, and howhe recognizes he might not get another chances
like being at the end of thevideo game with all the items that you
stockpiled. Yeah, I mean,this is this would be a great like
character moment if Joe and this guyhad interacted at all before that. All

(01:27:40):
we know is that he has nothonored the code that none of the Ninja's
honor, and therefore must die.I mean, essentially his dad turned him
into a child soldier. Then prettymuch. Yeah, helicopter stunt. What

(01:28:01):
do you think is that a realperson attached to the helicopter and that wide
shot? You know, it's hardto say because they might have actually had
somebody harness up and do it becausethey got to do all of these stunts.
Anyway. Oh, hey, lookat this the army gun. He's

(01:28:25):
got a milk crate tied to theside of that gun. I never understood
what that's for. Is that forlike extra shells? I don't know,
Is that like some maybe radar guidedOh maybe it's just jump off the chopper
man. Just there's the pad andthe poor pilot who literally like he might

(01:28:55):
have just spent a day higher.Hey, we used to fly us to
the Senate of the end Okay wekilled Now we killed those people. And
then he's taken hostage by this drugkingpin and told to fly and then this
dude just shoots him out of theair. Jackson. That's straight up murder
man. And Joe, please smolderone more time, Yeah, long shots,

(01:29:24):
smolder. Here we go and hegot the cheap flex even. Yeah,
the dimple flex is what it is. There we go, I save
the day. Everyone's dead and that'sit, folks, the end. That
American Ninja for now, for nowwe have eight more is Steve James.

(01:29:46):
He's the guy. Let's see.I guess shin Yuki Ninja. That's his
name. He's never referred to byhis given name Black. It's actually not
a giant cast. I want tosay. It was a million dollar budget
on this and ended up being prettyprofitable all things considered, though it wasn't,

(01:30:10):
you know, a highly rated film. Surprise surprise. But we've said
this before in this podcast. Nobodygives these martial arts movies any credit for
being good films because they're like they'reexpecting some Oscar Award winning production value and
it's like, nobody's gonna put thatmuch money into this, Like, so
stop holding it to that standard andjust enjoy it for what it is.
And it should be just just adifferent rating scale. So I propose to

(01:30:33):
you. I don't know. Weneed to come up with a name for
this, the pot of five ringsrating scale, which is a way to
rate martial arts movies aside from criticalreviews, Like this is, you know,
five out of five ninja stars becauseit's like it's an awesome ninja movie.
Yeah, it's not an awesome pieceof cinema film history that like it's

(01:30:54):
going to get all the art houseguys fired up. That's not the point
of it. It gets five rings. There you go, five rings on
the five rings scale. I likeit because I think what every martial arts
film needs to It needs to beentertaining, It needs to have good martial
arts. Yeah, maybe it needsto show us something outside of the stereotypical

(01:31:17):
fare. You know. We kindof like innovation should be one of the
one of the rings. Maybe maybestory and plot goes on there and that's
four. We want five to beacting, No, because I don't I
honestly don't expect Michael Dudakov to bea good actor, you know what I
mean? Maybe maybe this is likethe unknown. Maybe this is the it

(01:31:38):
factor, like did it did itpull it all together? You know what
I mean? And this one whateverthat whatever that it factor is, this
one hasn't. It's like it's acomplete It's a solid conglomeration of all those
parts. It's not missing something.If I were to remake this movie,
there's not a lot that I wouldhave to change about it to to to
capture to capture that, it's justfun. Wait. Wait, the events,

(01:32:03):
characters, and firms depicted in thisphotoplay are fictitious. And here I
thought this was a documentary filmed inreal time. My history class failed me.
All right, friends, American Ninja, tune in next week and we'll
do American Ninja too, which isactually my favorite American Ninja movie in the

(01:32:24):
franchise. I'm excited. Let's kickoff American Ninja Month and have a grand
old time. Here we go.Make sure to subscribe to the plot of
Five Rings on whatever major platform.Leave us a five star review and share
us with your friends. Yeah,amen, get on the social media.
We want to hear from you.Give us, give us five rings.

(01:32:45):
There you go, Rock what isyours? Rock dot N dot r O
W L A n D Rock andRoland and I'm at Joe Underscore Sabula ce
b U l A Joe liked theAmerican Ninja. Thank you very much.
You should change it to Joe theAmerican Ninja, Joe at Joe Underscore the
Underscore, American Underscore Ninja. Doit, oh, I think that might

(01:33:10):
screw up my business. Just doit for a week, for week,
see, maybe it helps your business. Like I said, we could wake
up tomorrow to thousands of donations.I'll just put that in my Instagram bio
Joe like the American Ninja. Mmhmmm m