Ep 30. American Ninja IV: The Annihilation

The plot of American Ninja IV is the same as it ever was: evil terrorist organization plans to nuke the United States unless their demands are met. Typical bad guy stuff. BUT! What makes American Ninja IV special is the return of Michael Dudikoff as Joe Armstrong, and David Bradley as Sean Davidson. Two American Ninja for the price of one. Will their team up be enough to save the world? Listen and find out.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
We emotional content. I'm gonna showyou how great I am. If you
want to hear, you gotta giveus one per everything. Welcome to the

(00:24):
Pot of Five Rings, the podcastwhere we talk about martial arts, marsh
Arks, movies and all things martialarts. And welcome back again to Ninja
November with your host Joseph and meRob Dodikoff Roland. I can't believe you
used are real names. Joseph isyour real name? No? I mean

(00:46):
is it? So for those ofyou who don't know, this is Ninja
November where we spend the entire monthevery week talking about American Ninja one,
two, three, four, fivesix and the musical. Yes, I'm
very very much slicking forward to themusic. Well, we have to write
and perform it yet, but itwill be coming to near you. So

(01:07):
this week's podcast is going to beanother watch along. I know we're not
super consistent about which ones are watchalong than which ones are overused. Today's
a watch along, so we foundit on YouTube. It is free right
now, so queue it up watchalongside us. But before we get started
with that, Joe, what's shaken? You know, it's it's been a
good month of watching a lot ofNinja movies, I've been excited. I

(01:30):
was hesitant to go into this film, but actually I really enjoyed this one.
This was this was way better thanAmerican Ninja three, And I think
that's all we need to say.Tune in next week, see see.
I am going to actually go inthe opfice train and say I enjoyed this
movie less than American in three.Well, American Ninja three was enjoyable because

(01:52):
of how absolutely terrible it was.This one, I thought was much more
on the American Ninja two level.I don't think it was executed as well
as it was written. There weredefinitely some like weird things going on,
But I think we should get itrolling so we can talk about it.
Well, it's going here, ButI do feel like this was much more

(02:13):
of like an episodic, like thisshould have been a TV series like The
A Team, because that's what itfelt like to me. I agree,
and we could talk more about howwhy we feel the way we feel about
the show real quick, before weget started. I want everyone to know
Joe and I are potting in fullninja regalia right now. Yeah, So
if it sounds a little muffled.That's because the ninja mask does muffle the

(02:34):
sound a little bit. But justget over it. Anybody who wants to
hire a ninja team Joe and Ican podcast from the uniform. We're not
even complaining about lack of oxygen.No, not at all, and we're
COVID friendly. So we got AmericanNinja four The Annihilation queued up on YouTube.
I'm at zero zero zero, Joe, where you're at zero zero zero?

(02:54):
All right, hitting play in threetwo one play. Here we go.
The MGM Lion is up, andnow we begin our fourth jump into
the world of American Ninjas. Forevery single ninja is a white person Japanese
to be found, and this inthis episode. Yeah, exactly. So

(03:21):
immediately, what's remarkable about this movie. It's the return of the Doudakov.
Yes, Joe Armstrong is back,and that I mean that in and of
itself, I think would be enoughto, you know, peak a fan's
interest if they had liked American Ninjaone, which who wouldn't because it was
like it was the ninja movie ofthe of the eighties, and then American
Ninja two, as we talked,was clearly the best in the series.

(03:44):
It's actually just a really fun movieto watch, carried the story nicely.
And then American Inja three was sucha departure from that because they had to
change the lead actor. They hadto change a lot of stuff while not
at all changing anything about the filmitself. And then now, oh,
the main dude is coming back,the dude that got me into this,
the original American Ninja is suddenly makinghis reappearance here and he's going to share

(04:09):
the screen with his replacement from thelast film. Just interesting enough to say,
hmmm, yeah, maybe I'll diveback in. This is kind of
like the scene in The Force Awakenswhen Han Solo shows up on the Millennium
Falcon. Again. I'm sure thatthe producers were like, as soon as
Dudekov shows up, everyone's going tobe like, oh my god, yeah,

(04:30):
excepting all the time I was waitingfor, like the big reveal.
And then it's just like cut toMichael Dudakov walking into a church, like,
uh huh, that's how that's howyou're going to do. He doesn't
get any fanfare, he doesn't getnone at all, like I was expecting,
Like, okay, because I knewenough of the plot to know that,
like the group that goes in getscaptured and Michael Dudakoff has to come

(04:51):
and rescue them. I knew thatmuch of the plot going into this,
so I was expecting, like,just as they were about to get executed,
like the ninja with the knife tothe guy's throat would peel his mask
off, and it was you know, Joe Armstrong all along and he's completely
infiltrated this place and now like allbets are off and it's just action blow
out to the end of the film. But it wasn't that at all.

(05:12):
It was very much like I mean, I mentioned the writing on this was
better than the execution, and thewriting wasn't good. Let's just put it
that way. Yeah, just likethink about it. We have a hundred
ninjas in mass in this film.I think this is the most we've ever
seen ninjas in this franchise. Weclearly see all the colored ninjas in one

(05:34):
shot. So we see the black, the blue, the orange, the
red, and the new white ninjas, which is funny to say on a
podcast when we're talking about American ninja, and then the highest ranking ones just
happened to also be the white ones. I just think it would have been

(05:55):
cool if one of the random ninjas, any one of them, at the
last moment, pulled and all ofa sudden it was Joe Armstrong. Well,
and I don't know how much ofthat was them trying to write backwards
as to like why he wasn't inthe last adventure, you know what I
mean, Oh, because he joinedthe Peace Corps because he's given up on
violence. Well, it doesn't takea whole lot for him to decide to
go back to violence, you knowwhat I mean. The guy drops the

(06:17):
file off, and then they gothrough this really cute sequence of him sipping
coffee beside the river. Will aduck swims in the background, and they
do like they do a couple oflike the long cuts that make it feel
like a lot of time has passed, and it's like, really, this
guy just spends an afternoon sipping acup of tea or whatever, and then
it's like, yeah, okay,I'll go back to my old ninja ways.

(06:38):
Also, Michael Dudakov doesn't really pulloff like zen No, you know,
No, we're meant to believe he'slike ascended beyond violence and he's being
dragged back into it. But becausehe only has the one look, which
is a good look by the way, Yes, but he's still only like
what do you think thirty two?Maybe? Yeah, he hasn't like wisened
up that much. So he wasjust like, I guess I'll kill some

(07:00):
people again, why not? Yeah, I mean it's what I know,
That's what I'm good at, youknow. And and realistically, I say
realistically because I mean the whole plotof the thing is ridiculous. But even
by by by the end of thelast movie, you know what Jackson is
going like, can we just stopfighting ninjas all the time? We find
bad guys who are just like regularthieves or something or just murderers. Why's
it always got to be ninjas?And it's like, well, these two

(07:21):
you know, American ninja guys,like they're apparently on call for the government
because as soon as there's any kindof ninja involvement, it's like, we
got to get one of these guysbecause we don't stand a chance, which
is stupid. I mean, theysent in Delta Force to try to take
these guys down, and they gottheir ass handed to them, and so
now they're going to send in oneninja and then a tag along guy,

(07:42):
because I don't know if they neededcultural diversity in this film or or I
mean, I don't really know whatthe other guy's role in this was other
than just get captured and almost killed. If he didn't send in, what
if you send in the two ninjasand Delta Force or the Seals or whatever,
or why not take these two ninjasand have them teach your Delta Force
guys what they do differently when they'reattacking ninjas. Yeah, now we're in

(08:07):
the very beginning here. This isthe what I call the Navy Seals moment,
because in the film Navy Seals,you know, the dude's about to
get married and he gets pulled awayat the altar to go in the Navy
Seal mission. So that's what thisis here. He's going to get married
and oh, cold Red, yougot to go right now? It was
like, really, does you haveto go right now? Can't we wait
five minutes? You know what Imean? Like this threat If I would

(08:31):
have gotten pulled away from my weddingto get the briefing that these guys get
after this, I would have beenlike, sir, this could have waited
an hour. I mean honestly,how long is the wedding ceremony? Well,
I mean even just go up tothe go up to the minister and
just be like, hey, comeon, we got a national emergency.
Can you wrap this up in thenext three minutes? Sorry you had to

(08:52):
rush at honey, Yeah, hurrythe quick quick version, just say man
and wife, Man and wife?Uh did the priest have a broken rm?
You know? Sure looks like hemight just be using his little tassel
thingy as like a garment, butit looks like he's in a sling and

(09:16):
cost him is hiding it me younever know. But I do love the
fact that he's like on a walkietalkie at the altar too, Like,
come on, guys, isn't thereliterally anybody else you can call? They
should have gone full Dick Tracy andjust had him speaking to his watch.
And they never go back to this. There's no there's no closure on this.

(09:37):
It's like, does he go homeand finish the marriage like that?
That would have been the end endscene in the credits, you know,
But they don't. He's like hegoes off, gets captured, tortured for
a few days, and then likeI'll fly home and finish Mary and my
girlfriend. She is not waiting foryou, dude. You just left her,
I hope now, So it can'tbe that's that's strong of a relationship,

(09:58):
you know. Yeah, just gogetting a limo and drive away like
the rest of the family and canunderstand he doesn't even look that happy to
be marrying her. Yeah, hejust kind of looks like. I want
to point out this scene where they'rethey're they're getting a briefing in the guy's
office. The picture of hw Bushin the background. It looks like he's
saluting the stripe on the flag inthe picture. Yeah. I kept looking

(10:22):
at that. I was laughing sohard. This is this darkiest picture that
they could have founded a guy.I just love the all the set design
that went into this situation where it'slike, how do we make this look
like a government building? Slap apicture of a Bush senior up there.
We're good. Yeah, I mean, what more do you need? Like
it sells it. It's a it'sa subtle detail. There's yeah, a

(10:43):
flag and a picture of the presidentthat puts it right in its time and
place. I mean, it's areal quick, easy way to be like,
Okay, this this dentist office thatwe're borrowing, Yes, is now
a government This is clear like aboardroom at a Ramona or something, because
what building has like a mix ofdrywall and brick, what government building would

(11:05):
have that? And two phones onthe desk, all kinds of briefs.
There's a butt. Yeah. AlsoI like that the Secret Service guys wearing
sunglasses inside. Yeah, as classicSecret Service guys go. But simple plot.
I mean, it's you know,there's nothing outstanding about this. You

(11:28):
know, we send in a teamof guys that they got more than naked
handle the ninjas took them down.That sets the ninja's up as very scary,
which you know, we're supposed tobelieve, even though we've now watched
three films of every ninja literally gettingslapped around like a rag doll, we're
supposed to believe that they're still somehowsuperhuman. Right In American Ninja too,
they were genetically modified. They weresupposed to have like all their muscles replaced

(11:50):
with high tensile steel and like youknow, super reflexes. Then as one
one dude just comes in and justwhoops them all American Ninja three, same
thing. They're supposed to be thenext general, and again they're just dying
left and right at the hands ofjust like a normal guy. We send
in the Delta Force here and theyjust get spanked. So we were gonna

(12:11):
send it. We got to senddown our one normal guy that just seems
to be able to take care ofthis. He just knows that you throw
a punch at them, you don'tjust walk stupidly around them. H And
they do. They do, justwalk right into the jungle. The ninja's
black suits just stick out. Theguys in camouflage. They're the ones that

(12:35):
are easy to spot someone like this. It's ridiculous. And I want to
point out too, as we getinto the into the film here, and
when they first arrive in the jungle, the one dude shooting it with guns
bang bang bang bang, and theninjas are literally dodging the bullets like freaking
Remo Williams style. Right, theother dude hits three of them with the
arrows, one after the next,so they knew they were coming, and

(12:56):
then hits three more with throwing stars. And it's like, so you can
dodge bullets, but you can't dodgean arrow that you know is coming.
Well, I do have to sayI love the Green Arrow TV show that
came out a couple years ago.Hawkeye is pretty cool. But in a
world where someone has a machine gunand then you pull out just like a

(13:18):
regular like recurve bow, that bowlooks so wimpy. Well, and he
does like a little ritual with ittoo, where it's like that's you pick
that up at like the sporting goodsstore. Like that's not like a traditional
Japanese bow. You have to sacrificea lot of suspension of disbelief to see
someone win a fight with a bowand arrow versus machine guns. Well,

(13:39):
and like I'll give you a bonearrow very quiet, a gun not quiet,
And even in the film Realm youjust put a silence around. That's
not how silencers work in the realworld, right, It's like, if
you have a silencer and a weapon, you probably don't need ear protection.
Like if you don't, that's thedifference. They're still very loud, right,
but a bone arrow quiet. Usuallyyou can't hear an arrow come in

(14:01):
until it hits something. I mean, that's the point of using the bone
arrow. So if you're an assassin, like okay, I mean, I'll
give you maybe maybe a bone arrowmakes a sense, makes a little bit
of sense, But if you're goingup against a squad of dudes with machine
guns that know you're there now,yeah, like, what do you think
you're gonna do with that? Likethey know you're there again? And I

(14:24):
do want to quite not that wherewe're at the scene here where they're getting
ready to jump out of the plane, and this is the most poorly shot
parachute scene. They're so far likeyou can't even tell what you're looking at
when you see it. This thisface gear looks like nothing I've ever seen
a sky to ever wear before.Yeah, even I couldn't piece right away
what they were doing outside of likethey're putting on parachutes. Maybe they're gonna

(14:45):
go underwater first, because look likescuba gear. But I mean, I
can't believe they didn't do like amore I don't know what's the word.
I'm looking for, more of anaction sequence of like the shoots opening or
even just zoomed in on the camera. Did we even see them jump?
Nope, they just cut to thestudy. They're clearly like on the on
the runway, just sticking their headout and then yeah, it's like the

(15:07):
planes in the air and you justsee the two guys dropping. Let me
see what the budget of this filmwas. I'm guessing not a lot budget.
Uh, let's find out. Estimatedone million dollars. All right,

(15:31):
that's six zeros. Yeah, sixzeros, so one million dollars. So
opening weekend US and Canada two hundredand seventy seven thousand, worldwide gross three
hundred and fifty eight thousand. SoI wouldn't say this was a bomb.
It was profitable, but not bymuch. But where I'm getting at with

(15:52):
it is that, you know,typically with franchises, the production studio wants
to spend less money on the sequels, not more. You know, it's
like, well, if we madethis for X amount of money, can
we make it for less? Becauseit's obviously financially smart. And so my
question is because the effects we gotin American Ninda two and three were pretty
cool. You know, there weresome cool stunts. I wonder if they
were just like you've got you've gotten bucks and a weekend with a stunt

(16:17):
double Yeah, yeah, so wecan Well, what I'll tell you this
this film, You and I couldshoot this ourselves with no budget. We
could find a way to make thiswork just getting creative with some cardboard boxes
and some visual effects. It's notI don't I don't know that it demands
a much larger budget than it got. Yeah, I will say I'm happy

(16:40):
with the fact that this is notthe plot of American Ninja two aka the
plot of American Ninja three. Again. Yeah, it is at least different,
and I think part of that ishow are we going to get these
two ninjas to work together? Howdo we get them on the same team.
Yeah, because we don't even knowthat they know each other, but
that clearly they know of each otherbecause he mentions Joe Armstrong and the beginning.
But this film is definitely lacking Jackson, which I said is a damn

(17:06):
shame because he was the best actorof the bunch, the most charismatic,
and probably the best athlete. Andto that end, I want to point
out the fight sequences in this arebetter than American Inju three. I feel
like our main character here, Seanis he shows off a lot more in
this one. I think there's alittle bit more flash, a little bit

(17:29):
more pizaz. There was some stuffwhere I was like, oh, that
was kind of an interesting way tohandle that situation. As always this the
stunt team does what stunt teams do. There's some high falls, there's some
getting thrown, nothing that we haven'tseen in other films, especially from this
era. But I did feel likethey were a little bit more brave than
they were in American Ninja three andshowing off what he's capable of as an

(17:52):
athlete. And I think also whenDoudakov does enter the film, he's definitely
more of a threat than he evenwas American Ninja two. He moves better,
he moves smarter, He catches anarrow in his teeth, and then
while it's in his mouth, stabsa guy in the throat with that arrow
that he just caught with his teeth. That's the kind of shit that I

(18:14):
write, Rob, Just so youknow that impressed me like that. That
is going to become an Internet gift. Not already. Oh, it's incredible.
Film doesn't have a bigger impact onthe Internet to begin with. This
entire franchise is ridiculous and rife formeming. So the fact that it's not

(18:36):
it's kind of ridiculous to me.Like I know, it's a very niche
market. But come on, well, I think we got work to do.
Yeah, I think we need weneed to start. We need to
get a couple of gifts and somememes in the pipeline and get people using
them. I think we need tostart The American Ninja the musical. We
got to get serious about that.And honestly, this would be a really
really fun thing to do. Iswe should write another like The New American

(19:00):
Ninja and like put it in themodern world and somehow convince Michael du Dakov
to reprise his role just as acameo of the Master of our New American
Ninja, just to pass the mantle. I just want to say, if
we're going to do this, Idon't want to do a reboot. No,
no, not a reboot. Iwant it to be this the same
guy and now it's it's twenty twentytwo, twenty twenty three, whenever we

(19:23):
want to plan this thing to comeout, and he's still around, He's
still kick him. But I wouldalso like to be After this little adventure,
they finally do convince him to liketrain operatives instead of just constantly being
the one that they rely on andthen try to pretend like they're still a
ninja threat that they he he's whatlike sixty eight years old right now,

(19:45):
and they're like, so these newDanjas killed all the Navy seals. They're
in the middle of Afghanistan. We'regonna send you in, Joe, you
go with that? What just imagineimagine on on screen. Now, So
we've got this guy maybe maybe it'sa similar situation. He's got his memory
wipe whatever, and he's in theBad Guys uh, you know, super

(20:07):
Palace and he's about to get caughtand the gardener saves him. And when
you look at the gardener in hiseyes, you see steely blue, cold
steel look, and you're like,awe, shit, here he is.
See that's how you reintroduce a veterancharacter. I'm not having him teach fourth
grader, Yeah, not by justcut to the door opens and he walks

(20:27):
in ready to teach kids about theenvironment. Also, Eric Roberts here looked
a lot like Blo Diamond Phillips.Yes, yes, and the main bad
guy here. The whole time I'mwatching this, I was like, he
looks like an evil Tim Conway man, I can't what is that guy's name?

(20:47):
That their contact Pongo. Yeah,Pongo, that's side character, Pogo.
Yeah, he's the worst that we'vehad this entire franchise. Yeah,
Pango, it is, it isPango. Yeah, just just a pain
to watch, honestly, pain goaway. It's just he's a pain in

(21:08):
my ass. You know. AmericanNinja two they had that the younger kid,
and this is like the same character. There's like nothing new about them,
but a little bit older and alot more annoying. It's like it
was cute when it was short round. There's a lot more Indiana Jones vibes
in this film. Mm hm.So I could see they were like,

(21:29):
well, last time we did thisat worked out, so let's do it
again. But god damn did theymiscast? Yeah, Panngo just just not
not well done. And I Andthere was a lot of Road Warrior in
this too, you know, asthey get to uh, I forget the
name of its Spring Valley or whatever, they got all these like road Warrior
doing Silver Springs. Yes, thoseguys pretty bad ass, pretty well done.

(21:51):
Like I could kind of believe like, oh man, these guys like
they could take over and like runtheir own thing, but they needed to
lean on that. I wanted alot more like road warrior action out of
this, a little less mellow drama, you know what I mean. But
another thing to think about this,this could have been told from one of
the Ninja's perspectives and still had themboth in it. Like one if we

(22:14):
take we take Sean's approach. He'sin here trying to save these these Delta
Force guys that got captured. He'salmost captured, He's rescued heroically by Joe
Armstrong in the mask, big reveal, huge action sequence at the end.
Joe's already recruited all these bikers tocome in, and we don't necessarily even
need to know why. We're justenjoying the show at this point. Flip
it and do it from Joe Armstrong'sperspective and have him do an entire investigation,

(22:41):
uncover clues, figure out who's reallybehind it, you know, and
then and then have to make thesecontacts where it's almost like a James Bond
film of him figuring out how he'sgoing to use the local resources to break
into this compound and save these guys. And then one of the guys he
saves just also happens to be theother American Ninja and the two of them
punched their way out. Both ofthose perspectives on this story would have been

(23:04):
way more fun to watch than havingit be part one part two. Yeah.
But now, if you're talking aboutlow budget TV like Saturday morning Action
Show, then this makes sense.You know, it's about twenty minutes of
stuff and then tune in next weekto see what happens next. And that's
how this film flows. For me. It was like watching season one of

(23:25):
The A Team back to back toback. It's even edited in such a
way where like they knew this wasgoing to be on TV, like there's
obviously I'll tell you. Just watchit on YouTube. The commercials pop up
and they didn't feel out of place. Yeah, it's definitely made with commercials
in mind. Mm hmm. It'smeant you to catch it on like a
Sunday morning after church, you know, which is fine, But I think

(23:48):
they could have done a lot more. And you know, we said it
a thousand times. They're not necessarilytrying to make high art with these with
these movies, but like shoot forthe stars, yeah, and try,
just try. Also, we're twentyminutes in and there's been fifteen minutes without
Ninja disappointed. Yeah, it takesa long time for this to get going.

(24:10):
Now, they do set the badguy up as being a real prick,
so you don't like him immediately,but kind of an easy character to
hate, you know what I mean. There's nothing I don't understand his motivations.
He hates Americans or he hates theBritish, but he hates Americans more
for some reason, even though itwas a British that screwed him over.
Oh and his little sidekick, bythe way, I couldn't get this out

(24:33):
of my head, GoldenEye, GeneralOrmov. That's his sidekick. It's like
mini Ormov. There goes that sugarglass. You know, there's a lot
more canopies and tarts happening in moviesand I've noticed in my real life.
Yeah, and to add to that, in addition to that, there's not

(24:59):
enough ninja training grounds where you mightdie if you slip. Yeah, I
feel like that's not a good wayto train people, like if you mess
up. Like I get that we'relooking for the best of the best of
the best in our ninja recruiting,but like everyone has it off day from
time to time. Well, yeah, but this, this whole I'm going
to demonstrate how good my ninjas areby putting up this impossible course. And

(25:22):
then you know, everybody who doubtsme can watch them die on the course.
Like, dude, you're not sellingme. These ninjas are good.
I just watch four of them dieon their training course. What you are
telling me, however, is thatyou make badass booby traps. That's true,
that's true. Why don't I justhire you to design like traps for
my would be hero to come fallinto. Yeah, as they're running through

(25:47):
this market, though, did younotice there's a dude standing there who's got
to be like seven foot tall,just like some extra that they had in
there, just right before the hats. When they sit up with the hats,
man, Sean's got to be meltingright now. In the black uniform
he showed up in like a leathercoat, you know what I mean.

(26:11):
And when Armstrong shows up, it'slike, well, he is the American
ninja, So what's more American thanblue jeans and a white T shirt,
the exact outfit we left him into, literally the exact couphant we left him
in. Uh. But man,you take the character of Joe Armstrong and
nix in just a little bit atJason Bourne, and you've got something super

(26:32):
cool right there. You know,this guy who knows how to travel internationally
using pseudonyms or fake passports, youknow what I mean, able to blend
in, disappear, knows the locallanguage, like he just flies in on
his own passport, walks off theplane sticking out like a sore freaking thumb.

(26:53):
Yeah, there was an opportunity tomake cool Jason, make Jason Bourn
before Jason Bouren. Yeah, JoeStrong, and I mean they could have
even done the cool thing where it'sthe government's like we never didn't know where
you were. We just didn't needyou, you know, yeah exactly.
That's always the coolest thing for meabout m I six and the James Bond
films. It's like, yeah,you're retired and you went off the grid,

(27:15):
but like your most valuable asset,of course, we keep eyes on
you. Yeah. Well, andthat's different from the way they start this
In the beginning. It was like, you know, you sent Delta Force
in and they all got captured,like well they were the best available,
right, and it's like now weneed you to go in and say to
save these guys, Well, whydon't you call the other guy? Well,
you're the best available. It's alreadylike you're not our first choice for

(27:37):
this mission. Okay, we're notconfident that you can do this, but
you're the best we got left,and we don't know what else to do.
We're kind of up against a wall. It's very different. But this,
this Sarah character, now the doctorthat works at the mortuary, what

(28:00):
all just add on? We needa bimbo in this film. Yeah.
Again, this is another one ofthose films where like, well we need
to represent women somehow. I guessjust slot in woman. What she do?
I don't know. She's here.They're like, all right, we're
gonna go this way. She's likeI'm coming with you, and he's like
you're not involved, and she's like, yes i am, and he's like,

(28:21):
okay, you are. I don'tknow why or how these that American
ninja is not super great at hiding. No, he just ducks. I'm
not hide by this cadaver. I'llbe fine. Yeah, everybody else is

(28:42):
hiding as a cadaver. He's like, I'll never debt to degrade myself to
that level. He does get capturedpretty easy. This smirks this man's memory.
Yeah, also like the they're notthat far away way that you guys
can just pop out of your hidingspace and be like, whoa, that

(29:03):
was close. Yeah, like theymight. They might turn around and look
back, you know. Yeah,that's always been my Maybe I've watched enough
for these movies where if I'm evertailing somebody and I walk into the room
and guess he's not here, Ileave one guy to circle back. Mm
hmm. Yeah, you just hangout here for a minute, just thirty
seconds all we need. They mightnot be here, but they probably are.

(29:26):
Do you hear him talking in there? Yes? Okay, yeah,
we know where they're at. Therewe go. But I am involved.
Fye. She's so so smitten withhim. It's so stupid. I mean,
yeah, but look at his hair, Like I just look at his
eyeliner sells it. How could younot be smitten with this guy? He's

(29:55):
like, yeah, you better comewith me. I sure, hope we
don't get captured later and you gettied to a pole in such a way
that you can show off your lacyundergarments. It's kind of what I'm good
at. I'm involved. That's sortof my thing. So does this take

(30:18):
one of genocide Americans? Their theirplan is to use a suitcase bomb to
blow up New York all of it. Yeah, that's supposed to that's supposed
to be the thing, all right, then, I mean that's like that's
the whole plot. Like this guyis a you know, a sadistic,

(30:41):
hateful doesn't mind killing people without thinkingabout it, specifically hates Americans in the
British. But he's also working forsomeone else. Yeah, but this guy
might be our evilest American ninja villainso far. Oh yeah, without a
doubt. I think they really.But like I said, it's almost an
easy character to hate because they justmake him so bad. I mean,

(31:03):
he just murders people in cold blood. Yeah, even our red Ninja from
the first film. He killed hisguys, but like he was all in
service of demonstrating how good they Yeah, how good he was. I guess
this he like he like toys withpeople. He's trying to teach him lessons.
But there's a sequence here later whenhe's he's got Sean and the gang

(31:27):
tied up and he's trying to makethat one dude like lick his boot,
and Sean still won't talk, andit's kind of like a or what,
You're gonna kill me like you dideveryone else? Like you mean you mean
I won't get to be burned aliveon a Tuesday. I might have to
wait until Wednesday. That's what you'regonna do if I don't lick your boot.
Like it's like very It's like amany python thing. It's just ridiculous.

(31:49):
It's like, no, you mightas well just torture me, because
you're gonna torture me anyway, Solike whatever, dude. That's kind of
the issue of movie villains, right, like they always jump to the worst
possible thing right away, and it'slike, well, where do you go
from there? Yeah, it justit gets impossible to do anything I do,
like him shooting the chair out fromunder the guy instead of just kicking

(32:09):
it out like a normal person woulddo. Yeah, I think it would
be funny if he fired that gunindoors and then like accidentally killed that cop
in the background with the rick.Oh shit. Gun safety. Yeah,
we have a lot of talk ofgun safety in the film industry this week.
Yeah, hey, we have,unfortunately, but I need to point

(32:30):
out to the media that a propgun that is loaded with real bullets is
just a gun. Yeah, it'snot a prop anymore. It is a
firearm. Yeah, I've heard,I don't remember the exact tears. But
there's three different types of movie guns. Right. There's essentially the toy gun,
which doesn't fire. It cannot receivebullets at all, it's just a

(32:52):
prop. And then in posts theyadd in maybe the trigger pulls, but
it doesn't do anything, right,just just see the trigger remove. And
in posts they add in you know, the muzzle flash, they add the
sound every not doesn't do anything.Then there's I think it's called just a
blank round, which is just agun loaded with blanks still fires. It
just fires. What is it salt? I don't know what it. It

(33:15):
depends because it depends on the roundyou put in the gun, right,
but it's not a bullet still.Yeah. So there's non non projectile guns
that have uh, you know,gas powered cartridge so that the gun reacts
to the bullet by rechambering around byspinning the the revolver part, so it

(33:36):
looks like a gun when you pullthe trigger, but nothing flies out into
the barrel. Yeah, it's likea cat gun, right, and then
we have our live round gun likethe gun that actually fires. And again,
if you're shooting blanks, don't shootthem at people, right. Yeah,
even even blanks have a projectile.It's and again there's different kinds of
blanks. Like a classic blank firesa wad because it's what keeps the powder

(34:00):
in the bullet in the first place, and it does come out with forest.
The concussive shock of that gas explosionhas killed people at point blank range,
like you don't even need to havea projectile in there. There are
newer blanks which have you can usuallytell pretty easily because they're like a bright
orange or a bright green tip onthe bullet. Those fire a matter of

(34:22):
feet and they don't fire particularly fast. I actually took two of those rounds
in a film project that I wasin, and the plastic tip actually burned
through my sweater and actually left burnmarks on my skin. But it wasn't
an impact from a bullet, butit was because I had to take these
two shots and then lie down andthe melted plastic like basically dripped through my
shirt. That's the thread of those. So still not one hundred percent safe,

(34:46):
but better than a lot of theprevious alternatives. However, to fire
those, you're basically using a realgun. You're just not using real bullets.
Yeah, you put real bullets inthat gun, it would fire them.
Those who don't know what we're talkingabout. Earlier this week, the
week of October twenty fourth, tragically, there was an accident on the set

(35:07):
of an Alec Baldwin film where anactor was told that a gun was not
live and fired it. I guessthey're either rehearsing a scene or filming a
scene. He fired it at thecamera again being told it wasn't live,
and accidentally killed the cinematographer and injuredhis director. Sounds like the cinematographer died

(35:30):
immediately. The director, I think, is on the mend already. It
was an accident. It seems likeit was an accident, but it was
very avoidable. Again, I heard. The story that I heard was with
the actor who I don't want toname right now, you can look it
up. The actor was told thisis not a live gun. Everyone who's

(35:52):
done any kind of gun safety courseknows that you can be told whatever you
want, it's still your responsibility tocheck it. You got to check that
chamber right away. That's like thefirst thing I was taught when I got
taught to handle a gun. It'slike they're like, let me see how
you handle It's like, right,check the chamber, make sure it's clear.
You know, there'd been numerous safetyviolations on this set, and apparently
the crew, the Union crew,had walked off the day before because of

(36:15):
repeated safety violations with firearm handling.So you know, we're watching American Nina.
Wait, holy mostly it's the samething, right, Like, since
can happen. Onsibility of the castand crew and the armorer to make sure

(36:36):
that everyone's handling the weapons to thebest of their ability with safety, you
know, and as a as astunt performer, like safety should be the
first thing on your mind. Right, every every punch is like on target
but out of range. Every weaponstrike is on target but out of range,
you know, and rehearse. Youdon't just like jump right into things.

(36:58):
Like the more time you have towork, the safer your set should
be. Firearms are always treated likea deadly weapon. You don't use firearms
unless like you intend to kill athing, so you treat it with that
level of respect. And again theset that I worked on, I mean
it was very very well controlled.I never felt like anybody was taking stupid
risks. Everybody who was there wascomfortable with the scenes that they were in,

(37:22):
and everybody was checking rounds, checkingchambers. I was using a plastic
gun for some scenes and still treatingit like a live weapon, just because
you don't want to get out ofthe habit of doing that. Yeah,
it's just good discipline and accident.Like the accidents like this should never happen.
No, And you know, oneof the I guess reactions to this
is like, why are we usinglive guns anymore? Anyway? Like it's

(37:44):
just not necessary. Now. Iunderstand if you're in a small production and
you just don't have a budget fora lot of CGI type stuff, you
might be like, it's just it'sgonna be quicker and easier to cut that
corner and maybe assume that risk.Then you have to be end times more
dedicated to the safety of your crewotherwise. I like the idea of not

(38:06):
having to use any kind of liverounds, right. I like the idea
of being able to tell a storyand rely on those, you know,
cinematic tools that are at your fingertips. I don't want to limit people as
to what they can do. Itjust frustrates me that something that's so obvious,
as in gun safety could be treatedso cavalier as it apparently was.

(38:30):
Yeah, because this is what happensnow. I mean, go back in
cinema history. You're familiar with Hayescode. So this was the code that
the cinema industry came up with toavoid government censorship. They didn't want the
government cracking down and saying you haveto do actually, you have to do
why you have to do Z.So they came up with a code that's
probably way stricter than what the governmentever would have had. And everybody in

(38:52):
Hollywood just adhered to that. AndI don't want there to be some government
mandate about how you're supposed to dothese things. But this is the kind
of shit that leads to that.Yep, you know, these these kinds
of accidents are one hundred percent preventable. They're tragic, and we have to
make sure that we're learning from it. But I'm I'm interested to see what

(39:16):
happens down the road. I'm interestedto see, you know, in the
next Matrix movie is coming out Whatare they going to do with guns on
that set? You know? WhenJohn Wick? What are we up to
john Wick five? When that comesout? How are they going to do
with this differently? Or are theythis also? I think is is it

(39:39):
lends credence to the whole movie that'shappening in the film industry right now,
which is a lot of film workersmight be going on strike. And I
give you a moment because I couldtell you I don't know anything about the
production of American Ninja four. Tobring us back to this movie, I
can tell you almost certainty, withalmost certainty, every single one of these
Ninjas was on set for probably eighteenhours straight, yeah, and then got

(40:05):
a six hour time off, hadto wake up early to get to get
to rehearsal, to get to makeup, to get their costume on,
and then come back to another eighteenhour day. Almost guarantee you that's what
this set was like. And theyhad to keep those super hot ass costumes
on all day long. They weresweating in them. There was minimum water
Like that's just the way it was. And the thing is, that's just
the way the film industry has worked, right Like there's an awful labor conditions

(40:25):
since the beginning of time, andright now a lot of you know,
ralliance that because they realize it doesn'thave to be like that. Yeah.
So this sitution happening with the cinematographerunfortunately losing her life, you know,
like it's just it's again endemic ofwhat the big problem is on films,
which is just a lack of regardfor basic human safety and quality of life.

(40:49):
Yeah. Yeah, well, andjust an assumption that people are okay
with the risks they're taking, youknow what I mean. And I say
especially when it comes to stunt work, you know what I mean, Like
it is, it is, thereis a there's always a risk. You're
doing something physical, There's always goingto be a risk. There's also an
art to it, you know.And if you can go to like a
stunt school and learn how to dohigh falls and learn how to how to

(41:10):
you know, choreograph a fight,if you've got that martial arts experience like
that stuff makes a huge difference.If you want to mandate that every film
project in the United States needs tobe done under the Union flag, like,
ah, that gets kind of hard. You know. I live in
Minneapolis. There's a lot of independentfilm around here, and people want to
do this kind of stuff, Like, yes, I want them to do

(41:30):
it safely, but that's why theyhave to be selected. They have to
be careful, They have to reallyregulate themselves on this stuff because there isn't
a rule right now, and ifthat rule comes into place, it's going
to be prohibitive. And that's adamn shame. I don't want I don't
want to see that happen. Butat the same time, I don't want
to see an actor in Minneapolis gettingkilled on a preventable kind of a thing.

(41:52):
Yeah. I think it's that.It's unfortunately the conversation we always have
of good cheap, safe or goodcheap and fast. Right, Yeah,
you can have two of those things, can't have all three. I think
it should be four. It couldbe good, cheap, fast, or
safe, and too often people justignore safety altogether. Yeah, it's the

(42:13):
first thing to get cut because it'salso the expensive thing, right, which
it really shouldn't be. How manyyears between the two of us have we
spent in martial arts, though,goes Oh Christ almighty? How many times
have someone pulled out a wooden,plastic foam sword knife or bow staff,
and you're told treat that life it'slive. Yeah, because the way you

(42:34):
handle this will tell me how you'regoing to handle the live one. You
know, like you can give aneight year old a fake sword, but
if you start seeing him swinging around, throw it on the grounds, like,
well, you're never going to getthe real one. Exactly. And
my sword master actually use that exactexample. You hand it out, you
know, here's your wooden sword,here's your wooden sword, like and we
start our practice and of course peoplewant to play Jedi knights with everything,

(42:54):
and he's like, this is whywe don't hand people live blades on day
one. You got to train fora law long time to prove to me
that I can trust you with thatkind of a weapon. Yeah. And
that's not even talking about like alive sharp blade, right, because for
me, the progression was it wasactually she and I first, then broken,

(43:16):
then a steel sword without a sharpenedblade, and then every once in
a while you got to use ashark blade. Yeah. But it's like
that's four levels you got to getthrough before you get to handle like an
actual sword that can kill somebody.Yeah, because a steel sword, like
a steel rod can still hurt likecrap. Well, yeah, but like
a sharpened sword, it's a yardlong razor blade, like, it's not

(43:37):
designed not to cut, you know, and you'll cut yourself as much as
you'll cut someone else screwing around,and you think when you do a chiburi
blood cleaning you could possibly decapitate yourself. You can't not be vigilant with that.
You have to stay on and stayaware of like where the blade is
and how you're moving and why,because again, even with a dull blade,
you can still damage yourself pretty danggood. Yeah. Now, I

(43:59):
will tell you're ninety nine point ninepercent of the time if I'm practicing with
a blade, like doing i idotype stuff, it's a dull blade.
There's absolutely no reason to have anedge on it. Now, if the
zombie apocalypse happened, it would nottake much for me to be able to
sharpen that edge. However, Ijust don't need it for practice, you
know what I mean. And Idid the same thing. It was it

(44:21):
was she and I then to yourwooden sword, and there was really there's
no reason to go beyond that.Most of the time. If you want
to start getting into cutting you needa live blade. Now you want to
take that into a ninja film anddo a bunch of ninja sword fighting.
I don't think you need a sharpedge at all, but you're going to
treat it like it's sharp edge anyway, and you're gonna rely a lot more

(44:43):
on camera tricks to make that looklike you slash a guy then to actually
go through with it. Yeah,bringing us back to the film, we're
at the uh lick my shoes tene. Yeah, and the ninja who just
forced the guy's head down guarantee youthat was a woman. Yeah. Yeah.
Also, can I tell you firstthing because we were talking about about

(45:07):
the accident over the scene, thiswas my favorite scene of the ninja demonstration
that this franchise has ever done.Yes, it was like the most wide
open you could see how many ninjasthere was, you know, they were
all separated from by color and theyhad a cool obstacle course. Yeah,
well it was very uh uh shellinthirty six Chamber of Shllen Like, it
was that kind of a setup oflike, yeah, I would imagine somebody

(45:30):
who can survive this is probably prettydeadly. Yeah. Now, what drives
me insane about the ninjas and thisfilm, all their masks looked like somebody
just took a sock and arbitrarily cuta hole. Yeah yeah, Like,
I'm sorry. If I'm signing upfor your shady ninja organization, what is
this one? The red Dragon?Yeah? Like the yeah, it was

(45:52):
the red something, I don't rememberwhat it was. That they are the
worst ninjas in the world. IfI'm joining your super secret group, I
want my uniform to look sharp,at least some level of uniformity to it,
you know what I mean. Yeah, Like, isn't that kind of
the goal too, that you shouldsee fifteen indos in a row and not

(46:15):
be able to tell the difference,Right, Yeah? If I could tell
that one guy has the cheapo maskthat barely covers his face and then one's
like wide open, well then Iknow I'm looking at multiple people. Yeah,
Or maybe they had the stuntmen changedifferent kinds of masks so that they
could recycle them, so you're notlike, hey, that was the same
ninja that got killed in the openingscene. All right, So here's the

(46:40):
deal. When we start our ninjatraining camp, we're gonna have to make
sure that we have, like ourcostume department fully staffed. We're gonna have
to make sure that there's women withneedlework skills. We're gonna need costume designers
to like sketch these things out makesure that everything's nice. So that's one
building that we're gonna have to havein our compound is going to be dedicated

(47:02):
just to manufacturing our uniforms, theSweatshot, the costume of Sweatshop, because
I mean, we could order themonline, but you know what happens,
Like, you know, you getsupply chain issues. You know, a
boat gets jammed in the Suez Canal. Next thing, you know, your
ninjas don't have outfits, and thenyou end up with all different face masks
and socks with holes. We're justgonna have to We're gonna have to produce

(47:23):
on site. Now, if we'retaking that approach, we're also gonna have
to like get our own cotton.So we're gonna have to have like a
cotton plantation so that we can growthe materials we need to make the fabric
and then we can sew that intoall our different things. Right now,
we're also gonna need our different levelsof dye, so we're gonna have to

(47:43):
figure out how to get like,you know, some indigo, some red,
some yellow. This is turning intoa much larger operation than I probably
originally thought, you know, becauseif we go with like, okay,
we're looking for ninjas, we're lookingfor ninjas, you supply your own uniform,
Like it's we're gonna look like abunch of schmucks. We're gonna get
like thirty red ninjas. Yeah,exactly, everybody's gonna want to be a

(48:06):
red ninja. Also, we're talkingover it, but guess who's back Joe
Armstrong hanging up by the dock withhis friend the duck thinking about violence,
and yeah, given as much ceremonyas I don't know, some random extra
entering the scene. Yeah, Imean pretty much. He's got a nice

(48:27):
little cabin there. We're kind ofjust led to assume that we know.
I guess if you're watching American Ninjafour, you've probably seen the first three.
But like there's no flashback. There'snot even like a sign that he
is a ninja. He's just thedude. Yeah. All they say is
he's in the Peace Corps. Now, Like, okay, you tell me
he's in the Peace Corps. Now, I'm like I don't see how he'll

(48:50):
be useful to us. Yeah,do we have somebody in like the War
Corps? That's what I want.But like, has he been there for
a while? Is that why hewasn't around last episode? Like, what's
going on here? I'm glad hegot his uh Miami Vice sports jacket,
though I know, like I said, he stands out like a sore thumb
getting off this plane. I'm hereon holiday. You realize this is a

(49:14):
terrorist nation people in the holiday here. But I'm a teacher. Yeah,
I go on in. I'm gonnacall my supervisor. Why didn't he just
say he was with the Peace Corps, Like, yeah, apparently they're there
because that's what Sarah's doing. Hey, I'm here to see my friend Sarah.
We're both in the Peace Corps together. Oh yeah, we know her
going down? You know that's whatgets you into war tones, war torns,

(49:36):
zones like that. Anyway, wherethe hell even is he? I
don't even know? Is he onan island again? This cam'py. I
feel like this isn't an island.He's the same He's on the same island
he's been on the last three movies. Yeah, I mean we know it's
South Africa, right, it's alwaysSouth Ama. Let me look it up.

(49:58):
Let's see if Silver Spring is realplaces. So for the city in
Texas. Oh, there we go, So they're in Texas. I guess
that doesn't sound right. American Jafourdid not film in South Africa. It

(50:19):
was in Lesotho, which is Italiannation encircled by South Africa. So it's
entirely different, totally different. It'sbeautiful. The like topography there is super
interesting. I don't see silver Springson the map. Lies. Also,
just because we haven't talked about ityet, what is the titular annihilation in

(50:43):
this film? Yeah? I havebeen thinking about that since watching it.
I'm like, were they hoping thiswas the end of the series or something?
Nothing really got annihilated except for allthose ninjas. Well yeah, but
I mean, are they really goingthat keeps happening? Yeah? Have you
seen No Time to Die yet?No? Oh, then I won't spoil

(51:07):
it. No, which is weirdbecause it's supposed to be like a love
letter to all the James Bond franchise, But no, there's no ninjas.
Well then it's not really worth mytime, is it? From now?
When we're just doing ninja movies forthe rest of this podcast. What so

(51:30):
I'm not the oldest person on thispodcast, I would say nope, but
I think I'm relatively versed in Americanhistory and American cultural history. When was
the period where car seats were deckedout with like tiger strikes? What is

(51:51):
this vehicle that they're driving right now? There are a lot thinking about that.
There's actually a lot of interesting vehiclesin this and when they meet up
with the road Warriors later, theyhave like some uh yeah, this looks
like construction style trucks that they musthave picked up to use. But there's
also like this one pink car.Yeah, like just like hot pink.
And it's like, you know what, if you're gonna live like off the

(52:12):
grid as an outlaw in a partof a road Warrior gang, Like,
hell yeah, I'd paint a carpink too, why not, you know,
like personalize it a little bit.Now here's my head cannon. Of
these ninjas. A lot of theseguys had to have taken this job because
they heard about Joe Armstrong. Uhhuh. They were like, there's an
American ninja. I could do thatshit. Yeah, And well they're all

(52:34):
Americans. It's like, apparently allninjas are. So imagine you've been in
your ninja training camp for the lasteight months and you're supposed to ambush this
dude in a yellow fire car.Who should pop out? But Joe Armstrong.
He just killed all of his biggestfans. Yeah, they have to
know who he is, because it'slike they got to know that there were
other ninja clans out there, youknow what I mean. So even if

(52:59):
they're just out for revenge, hinge, It's just I can't believe he killed
my cousin six years ago. Butmy cousin six years ago. Like if
you played a game of pickup basketballwith Michael Jordan when he was a kid,
You're gonna tell that story for therest of your life. Yeah,
Or like if Mike Tyson punched youin the mouth, I think it probably

(53:21):
like toys is so tough. Hepunched me once. So yeah, now
we're here at the road Warriors camp. Yeah, she has a bit of
an unexpected term for me. Iwasn't expecting the American Ninja to rally the

(53:45):
road Warriors. I'm okay with thatthough. Is he gonna rally? Is
he looking for these people or didthey just he's looking for their leader because
the guy that ran the bar intown told him this guy would be able
to help you get into the camp, and so he's here looking for that
guy, and these guys are here, you know, testing to see if

(54:06):
he's actually as tough as as theyare. You know, I love Joe
Armstrong. He doesn't look like hecan fight with these guys. Yeah,
nop, never mind, I guesswe're about to be proven wrong. Dude,

(54:29):
that guy pulled on his hair.I know that was like a subtle
little thing of just like, don'tmess with the flu. Now. I
will say this is a cool fightscene, I imagine because we can't see

(54:49):
any of it happening. Yeah,exactly, Like at this point, I
think Michael Dudakov has some good martialarts skill, you know, about what
six years after the first film,Yep, it's clearly improved. I'm guessing
these stunt guys don't know martial arts. Not these ones for sure. You
know, the these are the bigbully type guys. Yeah, they're in

(55:10):
for fisticuffs, not for ni jitsu, right, But I mean, like
down to the choreography, they seemto not be. They seem to not
trust this fight scene to play out, so we have to cut everyone's reactions.
Yeah, yeah, pretty much.And you know, like that could
be. They probably shot it frommultiple angles and then the editor was just
like, I'll just do it thisway. Yeah, I can't make it

(55:35):
flow either way. So yeah,men like him, you just need that
one guy. He just beat allyour guys. Yeah, like you don't
need anybody else besides this one guy. Isn't that the morale of the American
Ninja story. It's like when yourentire army has failed because you didn't try
Jill Armstrong, the Big Blue WreckingCrew. Does anyone pay any respect or

(56:07):
lip service to the previous American Ninja. No, so we don't have any
hold on. So we don't talkabout Jackson at all, not at all.
He's not even mentioned. And giventhat they had a perfect opportunity to
just pay an homage to him andsay, did you try Joe Armstrong?
What about Jackson? Like, oh, he's he's undercovered doing something, you

(56:30):
know what I mean, Like theycould have thrown anything out there. He's
also in the Peace Corps. Yeah, for my money, Curtis stood out
more and did a better job inthe last film than Joe has done in
the last two films, right,he just kind of seemed better at it.
Well, that's why I said Jacksonis really the lifeblood. I mean,

(56:53):
he was really brought that. Imean, what else can I say?
It's charisma that he has just verywatchable, very likable. It doesn't
take his role in this universe tooseriously, you know, it's it's the
difference between Joe Armstrong is very muchthe DC character and Jackson was very much
the Marvel. Yeah, you know, it's like just just self reflexive enough.

(57:19):
Although in this scene it looks exactlylike Joe Armstrong's looking at the camera
like they never thought anybody'd be stupidenough to try going in that way,
and then he looks right at thecamera. I think you played this film.
You make it again if you remakethe American indifranchise. You can play
it as straight like you can tryto make it the nude Jason Bourne film,

(57:40):
or you can make it money Pythonyeah, or mar Well. I
mean you could always make money Python. I mean you could literally do both
and release them on the same weekendand they would both kill it, you
know, what I mean, It'sjust they're different enough that way. I
just think you could you could reshootthis film with either style and it would
work just as well. And Ithink the happy middle ground between that would

(58:02):
be a Marvel movie. No,see, I would split it down the
DC Marvel away a little bit better. Like you can take a film where
this is very serious stuff. There'sno room for joking around, and you
might have some one liners here orthere, but no more than you would
probably have in a real situation.You know, as ridiculous as this is,
it's a real situation. It's probablynot something people are gonna joke about

(58:23):
Marvel. It's like we got spacegods and like, you know, weird
shit going on. People are mutants. There's a giant, walking talking shark
god, you know, like weYeah, nobody's taking this shiit seriously,
which you shouldn't. It's supposed tobe fun. Yeah, but that's the
point of it. I think bothare appropriate reactions. You know, mister

(58:52):
president, who that fright? Uh? Or? Just an hour into this
this this this is exposition. Thisis just plot points. Yeah. I

(59:12):
don't understand why mister mulgrew gets tojust hang out with the president of this
country though, Yeah, there's absolutelyno explanation as to why he has his
power is he's like what is hein charge of the police force? Like,
it's just weird. I thought hewas a known terrorist, Like I
thought people understood that's what he did. I think they all are, is
the point. But why they're talkingto an ambassador from the US and a

(59:35):
known terrorist nation is a kind ofan interesting uh hmm. It's like we
need a scene where somebody from theUS is scared, you know. But
here's the other thing. Why arethey waiting to execute these guys? You
know? I mean like their theirdemands are ridiculous. It's like it's not
something that anybody could ever fulfill.So it's like, why don't they just

(59:58):
execute? Like what why are theydragging this out and giving all of the
plot points in this story an opportunityto come to fruition, Like if they
would have just killed these guys,there'd be nothing to fight about and they
could just go on about their missionwithout having to worry about being infiltrated at
all. Well, it's because theyknow they're making a movie. I think
that's the only viable answer here.That or the US government is trying to

(01:00:22):
give Joe arms from the do Yeah, like they might just be like,
you know what, we haven't heardfrom him in a minute. We should
probably give him a task. Yeah, keep him busy, because if we
don't hire him, another government will. You can't just waste him in the
Peace Corps. Exactly here, hedoes the Vulcan death grip on this guy.

(01:00:47):
I do love that he's just walkingaround in a pre uniform. He
looks good in black. You knowhe does, My son, I've had
a good question downstairs. I'm prettysure this guy is like fifteen years older
than you. Joe, Yeah,just gives him the old neck pinch.

(01:01:08):
I don't know if you noticed theactor started like passing out before Joe even
applied the grip. Who was justlike the anticipatory pass out. That's how
we knew the grip would work,because the game was already blacking out.
Well, what Joe didn't know wasit this guy was like a minute away

(01:01:28):
from having a stroke and he wasasking for help, and he was like,
well that worked. I guess Ihave a dim mock now, but
this discing kills me too. Hebusts into this engineering office sorts through the
filing cabinet to find the thing.The guy pops in and the filing cabinets
open like just a couple of inches, and it's like, oh my god,

(01:01:50):
they were after the plans to ourbase, Like there's a jump,
there's a leap in logic. Whynot just shut the file drawer as you're
leaving? What could they be lookingfor in here? I have no idea,
And they even figure it out.They're like, I bet he's looking

(01:02:12):
for those old tunnels underneath our compound. Well, don't send anybody down there
to blow them up, don't sealthem off or post extra guard. Just
leave it there until you literally hearhis footsteps below you. Yeah, I
mean like, this will probably workitself out. You know, what does
every company, every business in theworld do when someone trespasses. Just let

(01:02:34):
him keep going, Just let themgo. Yeah, what's the worst that
can happen. I'm still confused bythis villain pairing of the American America hating
brit I guess or America British hatingthe Western hating Westerner. Yeah, and

(01:02:54):
then his Middle Eastern sidekick. Now, but the Middle Eastern guy is in
charge. And then the head ofthe police is just hanging out with them,
taking orders for some reason, becausethe white guy is not even the
boss here, but he's talking likehe is, but he's not, because

(01:03:16):
we know the money's coming from theother guy, and he takes his orders
right him, and so he's like, I think you should get the bomb
out of here, and the guy'slike, settled down. We caught the
ninja. I think I just sawthe rental tag on Joe's freestyle fit.
I think I just saw that dangling. They went to what is it Halloween

(01:03:43):
Spirit or Spirit Halloween? Keep thetags on it will return that keep her
budget down, ninja mask. That'sthe way of the indie film here.
He's where they're like, only acrazy person would try to go in that
way. And he looks right atthe camera. What is that eye line?

(01:04:12):
What are you supposed to be doing? It's so distracting. This kills
me too. So now we're inthe jail cell. Everybody's sitting on the
ground, just hanging out, justchilling. They're still still got their hands
cup, but they're sitting on theground. He's right next to Sarah,
whose shirt is now open, showingoff for lazy undergarments and they're having a

(01:04:36):
conversation, and the next time wecut to this jail cell, they're all
standing up again on their individual pollswith their hands over their head. So
somebody has to go into that jailcell at night and be like, well,
good days work of hanging out onthese poles. We're gonna let you
down for the night, and thencome back later and be like, well,
sleep time's over. Everybody back towork, stand up, hands overhead.

(01:05:01):
I guess the idea is that whileyou're sleeping, your body relaxes and
you might like fall out of yourchains or something. I don't know.
It seems like you almost want todo that in reverse, make them sleep
crucified, and don't. I don'twant to try to wrap my mind around
the mentality of a terrorist, becauseif that starts making sense to me,

(01:05:24):
then I'm probably going down a darkpath I don't really want to go down.
This is my favorite line of thewhole films that way. My favorite
is where to And he's like Mecca, and the guy's like, yeah,
sure, hop it. How muchgas have we got? I don't know

(01:05:49):
that would be a great line.Which way is that I don't know,
and I love this too. We'vegot till on well, I have to
go forge a sword and some ninjastars real quick. I didn't bring my
own. He's over at the blacksmithsthe countlessness. Why not just take them

(01:06:11):
off the countless ninjas you've already murderedtoday. Where did he learn the art
of smithing? I mean, Iknow he learned how to fight with a
sword, but making a sword isa totally different thing. Ninja just seem
very so. I think it goesback to what you talked about earlier,
like you got to have the costumercustomer on location. They got to be

(01:06:32):
able to grow. Oh shit,dude, our Ninja school has to have
its own blacksmith. We're gonna needa mining operation just so that we've got
a steady source of iron order towork with. This is getting more and
more complicated. The fact of thematter is, if we're gonna start Ninja
Co Incorporated, we're looking at maybeseven years till product launch at least,

(01:06:55):
just because all the infrastructure will haveto build first. Just just building that
infrastructure is gonna take so much thatword, Yeah, we're gonna need a
lot of money up front. We'regonna have to go like raise some capital.
Yeah, how come all the billionaireswant to race each other to space,
but nobody's built a ninja training campyet that we know of. I'll

(01:07:17):
give you that. I'll give youthat. Listen. I'm just saying Elon
Musk seems like a crazy person.Yep. I don't doubt that. At
some board meeting he was like,guys, hear me out ninjas in space.
Uh, I love it. Iwill be the first to put ninjas

(01:07:40):
in the orbit. That that mightturn around my opinion on Elon Musk.
You know what I would love tosee that. I would love to see,
like, you know, the SpaceXorbiter goes up and then a bunch
of guys put their ninja masks on, and he's like, suck at Bezos,
and then Bezos gives him one ofthese. It's like, I'd beat

(01:08:00):
you by so far you didn't evenknow. I love the idea of rich
billionaires space ninja war. Hey man, we gotta be entertained down here on
Earth. You know. That's thepremise of American Ninja or whatever. There
you go, Yeah, the newAmerican Ninja. And now we're here getting

(01:08:23):
ready to raid the compound mad Maxstyle. Yeah, they don't show enough
of it though, you know whatI mean, Like they kind of storm
the gates and then that's it.Yeah, there's a little bit of fighting
in the courtyard, but mostly itjust comes down between like the head Ninja
and Joe Armstrong. There's just likea lot of moving parts of this film.
I'm realizing. Yeah, Like,I think this might be the most

(01:08:45):
we've ever spent time with the badguy, oh for sure, and the
most their motives made any sense atall. Yeah, as ridiculous as they
are, we at least told whatit is more more concretely, and you
do get to see a lot morebehind the curtain of Like, like you
said, you see all the ninjasin one shot, Like you see how
many of them there are, whattheir training situation looks like on this fucking

(01:09:10):
raft boat that smolder as he justlike down the water. Well, the
next little scene, the dude withthe red uh Ski mask on in the
background is super distracted ninja. Yeah, it's like, what do you I
don't even know what you were talkingabout. There's a dude back there who
literally cut holes in the pillowcase andis wearing it as a freaking mask.

(01:09:35):
What is his deal? Like helooks but he looks like Rocco from Boondocks
says, it looks stupid. Doyou think he just Do you think the
ninjas had to bring their own masks? I wonder, because my guess is
they use a lot of locals.You know what I mean, Hey,
we're filming in this country. Weuse a lot of locals as extras.
You want to be on set,show up with a ninja mask, you

(01:09:56):
know what I mean. They didn'tspecify color exactly. Yeah, because yeah,
they just cut away from the guy. We'll see him. Ah,
I see you've been raised back toyour standing chain bosses coming, everybody stand
up. Excellent. Is anyone gonnaask why Sean doesn't have a shirt?

(01:10:23):
Well, no, obviously he's themost jack guy on set. So,
like you would think by now,it's been what a week, maybe two?
I think it's only supposed to bea matter of days. Honestly,
I think it's supposed to be liketwo days from when they contact Joe Armstrong.
Oh that's right, but he hasn'tslept. Don't slap her. She's

(01:10:47):
involved. But we still don't knowwhy. It's a really dumb idea.
I mean, there's a point whereshe should have just said I'm not even
supposed to be here. It makesme, It makes me so upset.
I want to dive into a holeand magically change my clothes. That was

(01:11:09):
a rough cut. But of courseJoe doesn't put his mask on, so
why not wear a sleepless uniform?On? Off? Switch on? This
bomb? Armed not armed? There'slike a washing machine, to be honest

(01:11:30):
with you. Yeah, yeah,it's a simple prop device, you know,
the suitcase bomb to blow up allin New York. Okay, we
got our white ninjas. I hadn'tseen them in a long time. They

(01:11:50):
don't really do much and then standout like a sore thumb. I guess
they're the bomb guard ninjas. That'syeah. I'm still I didn't figure out
the rank structure here. Yeah,Black is obviously your grunts. Yep.
They kind of just do whatever ifthere's bombs involved. We got the whites,
yep. I feel like yellow mustbe like some kind of security because

(01:12:15):
they were always like securing an areathat's being patrolled by guys I'm black,
you know what I mean. Yeah, So I feel like that must be
like they're they're they're MPs of somesort. Yeah, and I guess maybe
red and Blue are training ninjas.I feel like the red are like the
elite, are they They're like thebodyguards, like the higher level, Because

(01:12:35):
when he sees the Red Ninjas inthe film, he's like the Red Army.
That's true, they're the best,although it does sound like a misnomer
since there's a lot more colors thanjust red. Yeah, yeah, I
can't figure out where the blues arethe blues, it would make sense.
They were kind of like the trainees. They're not quite good enough to be
the Black Ninjas. Yet we don'twant we don't want them running the death

(01:12:58):
course because too many of them die, but they're good enough hung food will
let them in. I mean that. Or maybe it's like janitorial staff.
They just get to wear the uniformso if you don't have to look them
in the in the face or something. What we're realizing is this is a
lot more logistic work than it is, you know, terrorist work. You

(01:13:18):
need someone to keep the place tidy. Joe said that rock well with his
little hand claws, like, ohthat worked. You would think that rock
climbers would use them, right,Well, you got to be specifically trained
to use them. Well apparently,I just want to let you know.
For Christmas one year, a friendof mine got me a pair of those.

(01:13:40):
Yeah, go and I Ninja grapplinghook m hm. And on the
box that they came in, itvery clearly said authentic, real metal,
not for climbing. I love it. And so I was just like,
what am I supposed to use thesefor? If not for climbing? Buying

(01:14:02):
the sport head gear for taekwondo,for Olympic style taekwondo, it says on
there, not for contact sports.Yeah, so oh that's a liability waiver
right there. So I don't wantto speak ill of my former employer,
but I don't give a shit.He came from a poll a full point

(01:14:23):
karate background. That's all he everwanted to do. And when it came
time to produce the school gear,he of course wanted to produce the foam
you know head gear, gloves andyou know think gear. And I told
him, like, you can dothat, but it's gonna be we're gonna
be selling a lot of them cheaply, like the Constantly He's like no,
and as like and also, they'renot going to keep anybody safe. Just

(01:14:44):
FYI, we're gonna deal with concussionsand broken fingers over and over again.
And he's like, well, weuse these all the time in point karate
days and it was fine, Yeah, because point karate is a one day
event. Yeah, don't train inthat gear like you're trying to sell these
students like you've got to give themsomething they can use. It's not gonna
rip. But he went ahead andproduced them, and sure enough, gear

(01:15:06):
kept getting broken, people kept gettinghurt, and I'm like, it's because
it doesn't protect you. Yeah,there's a reason that you know, boxers
don't fight in the foam gloves.Yeah, well, I think a lot
of martial arts gear like that.Less is more, you know what I
mean. Like, if you're notwearing gear like you you're just not punching
each other as hard because then thetraining's over, you know what I mean.

(01:15:30):
It's like, if you're doing boxingand you're wearing head gear, like,
your tendency is to punch a lotharder because you think the head gear
is gonna protect you. That's whyOlympic style boxing now head gear is outlawed.
You can't use it because it actuallyreduces the number of concussions, and
so it kind of has to goboth ways. Like you want enough padding
to make sure that you can getsome light contacts and then repeat the effort.

(01:15:51):
It's not there to like make youinvincible. I think you run into
that a lot with a tactical traininggear, you know, like the big
Redman suit. It's like, yeah, you can hit yourself with a sledgehammer
of that stuff and not feel it, But that's not real training. It's
like if you're training to fight theinvincible marshmallow Man, it doesn't make any

(01:16:11):
sense in a real world thing.You want to be able to make it
real but safer, you know whatI mean. Like, it doesn't help
me as the practitioner to hit somebodyin that full body suit because they can
take a full blown swing and justkeep walking right. It's like I don't
get to learn how a human beingwould actually react to that. Mm hmm.

(01:16:32):
Like you also want to know,like what it feels like to actually
hit something and to be hit,you know what I mean, so that
if you do get hit, it'snot the first time. Yeah, that's
what I think for me, thebest way to train is with pads,
not like padded armor, but likekickshields boxing, because you can hit that

(01:16:53):
full force and your your coach,your training parter can slap the shit out
of you with them. Yeah.It's just fun. Yeah, and it's
fun. And aside from some carpaltunnel syndrome that m I develop, it's
pretty easy in the body. Here'sthe scene where they're putting the bomb on
the chopper and the guy's like,is it dangerous? He's like, it's
the most powerful bomb in existence.You know, God go with you,
and then that one white ninja getsout of the help after see you guys.

(01:17:21):
You know, I do respect Joefor not distinguishing himself and then into
alpick or obviously helps you sneak around, but it would have been really helpful
if there was some kind of markerthat his uniform was different from everyone else.
Says that. I mean even justyeah, just to help the audience
a little bit, like a redtrim or just something. Yeah, speaking

(01:17:42):
of helping the audience and trims,I just bought a new ge and I'm
very excited for it to come in. Yeah, dear audience, if you're
not a member of the martial artscommunity. Join because the best thing you
could do is buy yourself new gear. There's no feeling like it. Oh
it's so good. I know.I now have two full like jiu jitsu
uniforms that I can wear, soyou know, when one's sweaty, I

(01:18:04):
can clean that one and have theother one ready to go. Yeah.
I got some new shine guards andsome new gloves, Like I did not
go cheap on them, and they'reso nice. They're like the microfiber stuff.
Oh man. Yeah. One thingI tell people when they're like how
much money do I have to spendto start training, It's like, you
don't have to spend any money really, Like you can just pay your dues

(01:18:26):
and get by. But the moreyou spend on your gear, the longer
it's gonna last you, and thebetter it's going to feel to use it.
Yeah. Well, and having gearappropriate to what you're doing too,
you know what I mean. So, like you said, you can use
the karate point style gear to dolots of stuff, but it's just not
the best. Yeah, dude,black ninjas yep. And I don't mean

(01:18:47):
like black uniform I mean black guys, like black dudes. Yeah, this
is a diverse cast. It's muchmore diverse. Like I said, they've
got female ninjas, they've got maleninjas, Ninjas of every race, creed,
and religion. This is that religionis ninja's. This is the most
woke ninja organization in this franchise.I'm very proud. I'm gonna find out

(01:19:12):
there were no female ninjas in this. I'm gonna feel really bad for making
fun of the stunt crew. Like, I don't know who that guy was.
He's very feminine looking. Did Joejust get captured? No, I
guess not. I just wondering whyhis mask came off and why he started.
He's just like casually walking down hishall because he was just like walking
up to this dude like hey,what's up. He's like, wait,
you're supposed to wear a mask,and then he just elbows a dude.

(01:19:36):
But this that that, to me, is actually more it's like more Ninja
than anything else they do in thismovie, because like, you just you're
not sticking out, You're just walkingaround like you own the place. And
the guy's like, wait, whoare you? I mean, that's what
they teach you in, you know, concealment school. It's like, the
best way to not stick out isact like you belong there. Yeah,

(01:19:56):
if you're being shady and you're sneakingaround corners, people tend to notice that.
Of course it's not very cinematic,no, but like this scene of
trying to get the two ninjas toface off after each other, You're just
like, wait, didn't we justsee Sean outside? Like it was so
confusing. Yeah, and then youremember American Ninja three and you're like,
oh, yeah, they have fakeface technology. But I will say it

(01:20:24):
is the only Asian guy I've seenin the film. But how do they
know each other? They're friends withJackson, the yearly American Ninja. They
meet after American, Like Jackson waslike, Hey, you gotta come meet
my buddy Joe. He's in thePeace Corps. Now. They sat down
over a cup of tea and talkedabout ninjas. Ironically enough, also a

(01:20:46):
ninja. I think the problem withthis film and films like it is that
it overestimate the amount of ninja's humanbeings put encounter in their daily life.
Yeah for sure. Again, yep, there he is. Like I remember

(01:21:10):
as a kid thinking there have tobe special ops groups that are based around
ninjas because look how often they're portrayedin movies. Yeah, like, this
is the best stealth organization universe hasever seen. Clearly, the US has
to have a ninja core, andso does Russia, and so does you
know, China, but not somuch. It's actually kind of hard even
to find it a legitimate quote unquoteNinja's school. Yeah, which is sad,

(01:21:36):
but that is the truth. Butmaybe it has something to do with
the fact that machine guns are reallyeffective. You can throw ninja stars really
well, but I will just keepshooting the caliber rounds as fas as possible.
I mean, you're amazing. Youcan throw three ninja stars a second.

(01:21:57):
That's so cute. Let me showyou my howitzer. Yeah, this
is my small gun and it's gota thirty round clip and I'm gonna empty
that in the next half second.But yeah, please tell me about your

(01:22:17):
little climbing hand thingies. Those arecool. And like I said that,
if that was as effective as hemade it, look, I would think
more rock climbers would have hand claws, but they don't. They use their
hands because their hands are better grabbingthe rock, yeah, than little metal
hooks. If the rock starts togive you can just let go and grab

(01:22:40):
something else. Uh huh oh,and you gotta find like the little crevice
right and those hand claws like,oh, you're just digging into solid rock
with those. Now, they obviouslywere doing the uh facetech thing that they
introduced a couple of films ago.Wouldn't it have been a much cooler twist

(01:23:00):
if Sean or Joe were on thewrong side of the story, like they
were opposed to see that. Ithink that's a good twist, but I
don't know if that actually makes sense, like suddenly that like why would the
one dude? I mean, thereare certain threads here that have to be

(01:23:23):
maintained to keep this universe together.There's yellow ninjas. Mister Mulgrove, mulgroom,
tell Sean, listen, you're obviouslya very school skilled ninja. You're
missing the support of a rich,evil benefactor. You become my nd Nia.

(01:23:43):
You need to go rewatch American Ninjathree. And remember what tool Sean
is from the beginning. I mean, he got captured immediately. But it's
good. Bad is bad. Goodwill always beat bad because good is good.
Now I love this. Here comesJoe Armstrong, the American ninja wearing

(01:24:04):
the yellow uniform with his face completelyexposed, and the dude's like, hey,
yeah, oh it's up Joe,sacrifice throw the one dude's burning alive,
and he's just like, stay calm, get in position. Now,

(01:24:25):
we'll say, an audience facing Joe, like, somebody should see that he's
just throwing people, right, Imean, you would think this dude that's
on fire just need to stop,drop and roll. Everybody knows that.
I do love the ninja smoke bomb, So there we go. I love

(01:24:46):
how he looked like he was aboutto go into a song. Yeah,
yeah, collaborate and see I think, oh yeah. The other black guys
in this film, mm hmm.The guy who kind of started the whole
story, and we haven't really spentany time with, remember, because he
left his girlfriend at the altar andnow all of a sudden he knows how

(01:25:06):
to fight. But she hasn't beenable to do the whole film. But
while they were in prison down there, apparently he was getting nijitsu lessons from
Sean somehow, what else are yougonna do? There's definitely three women ninjas
walking down the stairs there for sure, or very very pretty men. I

(01:25:27):
mean, now I have to watchthe credits. Who is this iPad weirdo?
No, he's literally nobody. He'sjust like their head ninja because you
have to have one, right,And he's wearing the uniform of the Red
Ninja from the first movie. Uhhuh, but like they don't seem to
have any relationship. No, andhe's wearing like chain mail or something too,

(01:25:49):
which is weird. He's wearing chainmail and a mirrored eye patch.
Yeah, and again no explanation,No, like who is this guy?
He's just he's a threat somehow.I will say, this scene of all
the Ninjas in their various colors andJoe kind of like taking charge in front

(01:26:10):
of Sean, it reminds me alot of Power Rangers for obvious reasons,
but also the Power Rangers show thatwas like a yearly special where the previous
team shows up to help out thenew team. Yeah, and they always
kind of do like a story hasunfolded that we didn't get to see.
So like whatever Ranger shows up haslike a bad guy. He's now trying

(01:26:31):
to fight. It's like I've beentailing him for one year. Yeah,
who is this guy? Let metell you see that, Like it's cool
to see if there's a story thatwe didn't get to see. Yeah,
and it seems like Joe has somekind of relationship to the iPad triirdo.
Well, it's clear because they dothis weird hand to hand before they fight,
like they were from the same schoolor something. There's some history there,

(01:26:55):
because why the hell would you everdo that? And I kind of
thought they were going to go intothe old WWS, grab the hands,
turn you know, on the ground, but they didn't. They didn't go
that route for you know, somereason because I didn't write it. And

(01:27:16):
now we're at the raid of thecompound. Yeah, at Max versus Ninjas.
You know, as far as meleebattles go, this is fairly decent.
There's a lot going on here.They make it look very crowded,
but you can't really you don't geta sense that anybody's got an advantage here.
Yeah, I mean the guys withguns definitely have an advantage. I

(01:27:40):
mean you would think, right,but like numbers wise, are the ninjas
winning? Are they are they gettingwiped out? Like it isn't very clear.
And then again, now all ofa sudden, they open the jail
cell back up and everybody runs outexcept the girl. But she's why she's
apparently holding the door shut again.I just I think somebody for this woke
Ninja organization should approach and be like, listen, in our group, you

(01:28:04):
are equal opportunity. You're an equalmember of the team. We've seen how
they talk to you, We've seenhow they treat you. We don't think
that's fair. Yeah, join usand you'll get a sick ass red mask.
Yeah. Fuck, I'm interested.Let's talk and here we go.
Here here's my favorite line, whereto Mecca. But isn't there There's got

(01:28:34):
to be an extradition free dy inMecca, right, I mean we haven't
had the first goal far yet,so I don't know what the relationship with
the Middle East is right now.Well, clearly the Middle East is the
bad guys because they got a guyin a Chica Holt fit talking about Mecca.
So that's true. The xenophobia isrich in this. Here's my question.

(01:28:57):
Is this before or after the ironcheek? Oh? It's way after,
was it? Okay? Yeah?I mean he was already Yeah,
I mean he's already a bad guywho hates America. Yeah, so I'm
just wondering like this would have becausehe had a big issue. He had
a big role to play in America'shatred for Middle East, right, Yeah,
Like it's stupid to say that thata wrestling character shaped the culture like

(01:29:18):
that, but it did. Mhm. You know, it's like that's
how that's how media works, right, you present something you tell us were
supposed to hate something. Well,that's that isn't not the question. I
mean that was already the prevalent mindsetand he was able to play off of
that to create a character that riledpeople up. And so it's like,
is it the cause or the reflectionof that in society. It's it's it's

(01:29:42):
hard to really nail it down,but it's indicative that there was something going
on there. Yeah, he definitelyheightened it. I think I think he
profiteered off of it, which,like you can always tell where a culture's
enemies are based on that generation's art. Yes, you know, like we
don't really have Russian bad guys anymoresometimes, but like we don't come out

(01:30:03):
and say Russia anymore. And youcan watch you can watch from from you
know, a movie like Commando allthe way through the current age, like
it changes. It went from Russiaand then it really became about the Middle
East, and then all of asudden, North Korea starts popping up as
a bad guys in a lot offilms. And then again China is now
like the bad guys like and we'reprobably going to see more of that.

(01:30:25):
Yeah, it's hard to not bereflexive to where the culture is at.
Oh shit, Fireball, I knowright, like, what are they doing
here? They go like fingertip tofingertip, like what and then it just
cuts away. We don't get tosee the rest of that little ritual.

(01:30:45):
Now they're in fists. I thinkit's the start of the American ninja musical.
Yep, that song is going tobe in it, just so you
know. It's I don't care whatthe royalties are. Oh, it can't
be that much. Now it's likea forty year old son. When does
it go into public domain? Ithink it's seventy years. Okay, we'll

(01:31:06):
make it in thirty years. Sarah, what did we just talking about cutting
corners? Yeah, just are justour costumes department is going to be so
expensive. We don't have any moneywith royalties. Well, we could always

(01:31:33):
just steal it. We are ninja's. You're only a ninja if you have
the costume. Without the costume department, there are no ninja. So,
for example, Joe right now isjust a weirdo in a yellow suit.
That's right. He has no fight. The guy he's fighting is a ninja,

(01:31:56):
is he though? Like most ofhis face is uncoverased, Like everything's
covered except his true and his mostdistinctive feature is his one eye, and
he's actually drawing an attention to that. He's probably the worst ninja, that's
true. I would say it wouldbe a cool twist if Sarah, who

(01:32:18):
I think just died, popped upand started, you know, slicing throats
and throwing ninja stars. If shewas the ultimate ninja all along and she
was just playing the long game.What if she pulled her face off and
was actually Joe Armstrong underneath, andthe other Joe Armstrong who was working for
the bad guy was a clone.That would be a fun twist. I

(01:32:42):
feel it's my turn to say,like, that doesn't make sense. We've
already we've already gone down this road. There's no coming back down. The
more he punches that guy. Themore he looks like Tim Conway to me,
it's so funny. Yeah, Ijust I don't see this sixty something

(01:33:02):
year old man being much of athreat for our thirty five year old American
ninja. Yeah. I just feellike this is an unfair fight. I
kick oh crap. And he justwalked coolly walks away from the explosion and
they didn't even get the right shotof that. Joe was supposed to be

(01:33:27):
like, he's going back to thePeace Corps after this, right, Yeah,
he says, that's his last line, as I'll be at the school.
How do you sleep after you justdid that to a man? That's
what ninjitsu is all about, man, That's what he's just spent all those
years in Japan learning how to buryhis demons. I guess. So I
just imagine tomorrow he's like, Okay, guys in viral meant that's a friend

(01:33:49):
of mine. He's not really afriend of yours. I mean, like,
I'm still trying to figure out howyou even know each other. Wait,
did he have his jeens on underneaththat uniform? He had to you
know what I mean, like orhe had to go all the way back
to the tunnel where if he lefthis duffel bag and change and then come
back out. Oh, it's true. You can have the yellow ninja suit.

(01:34:14):
You don't want the black one.There's a lot of blood. I'll
see you, Pango. I forgotyou were in the bread crumbs. And
yeah, has he said a wordin the last ten minutes? I didn't
think. So he doesn't talk.They're trying to go for like a Clint

(01:34:36):
Eastwood man without a with no namekind of thing. I think so,
I think it. You can't dothat with this kind of character. Though,
if Joe Armstrong is your history teacher, he's got to be swaying in
a lot more to And Ninja's actuallycaused the American Revolution. Pongo not pango,

(01:34:58):
hnggo pango whatever. And that's it, folks. American Ninja four the
annihilation, It certainly annihilated something.Yeah, I just think there was a
lot less ninja ing in this filmthan there was in the previous one.

(01:35:18):
See. I thought this was amuch more fun to watch than the last
one. The last one was justa complete rehash of American Ninja two and
kind of a weird origin story,and this one was at least like,
Okay, we're going to do somethingwith these characters. We want to bring

(01:35:41):
these two legends together. It's aninteresting way to do it. Again,
I would have preferred to see thestory from one perspective or the other instead
of kind of the first half secondhalf the way that they did it.
But again, they didn't ask mebefore they made the film. They just
went ahead and made it. Theydidn't think about the repercussion of their action.
They spent so much time wondering ifthey could, they didn't stop to

(01:36:03):
think whether they should. I thinkit's pretty clear they probably shouldn't have,
yeah, because then we might havea decent American Ninja five. But we
have that to look forward to.I'm looking up American Ninja five right now.

(01:36:23):
It doesn't seem at all related toanything in this franchise. I'm pretty
sure it's not. I do knowthat it has mister Miagi in it,
though it has Pat Morita. Thefirst thing I saw on Wikipedia is the
film was not originally intended to bepart of the American Ninja franchise. Cannon

(01:36:44):
Pictures made it under the title AmericanDragons, but the title was changed to
American Ninja five. Before release.So that tells you how good like how
they felt about the script, likecould it stand on its own or should
we try to tie it to adying franchise? Now here's have you seen
American Ninja five? Okay? Cool? So then here's this is gonna be

(01:37:09):
fun for us. This explains whystar David Bradley plays Joe Castle, different
character than Sean Davidson, who heplayed in American Just three and four.
So we have Sean again, butno longer as Sean. Yep, he's
a different person who just happens tolook the same and whose name is Joe
now yep. Everybody that was ourpodcast for this week. Be sure to

(01:37:34):
subscribe, give us a five starreview, drop a comment, share with
your friends, and send us apicture in your favorite ninja outfit. Yeah
sure, but we will laugh atit, Yes we will. And if
you if you know anything about costumedesign or how to make fabric, we
probably need to talk to you becausewe've got a long term project. We're

(01:37:57):
looking seven years. Don't the whywe got to make sure we ask I
talk to you about. We're gonnawe're gonna set this up like an MLM,
like you get in. Now,all your shares will be big.
You just recruit two more people,we're gonna st a see. That's it.
That's that's where the ranks come in. So you're gonna start off as
a blue level and once you getto black level, for every person you

(01:38:19):
get to move up a rank.Eventually you can move up to yellow,
even red. You get up towhite level, you're making some real money
now. Okay. Also, beforewe go, I just want you guys
to know, Joe and I keptour ninja masks on the entire the entire
time. I'm gonna wear it therest of the day. Yeah, So
if you're true ninja, keep yourmask on. He sends me a tax

(01:38:43):
Do you have a ninja mask?I'm like, duh, A stupid question. H