Enter the Ninja

Martial Arts / Kung Fu / Karate movies were big business in the eighties, but ninjas were king. There were so many ninjas in the eighties it was crazy. You couldn't flip a throwing star without hitting some ninja. Everyone was jumping on the ninja bandwagon and those crazy ninjas rode it all the way through the eighties. Hell, there was even a motorcycle named Ninja that came out in the eighties. A quick count on IMDB shows over 50 ninja movies released in the nineties.

Michael Dudikoff was the coolest man alive!

Best titles from the eighties?
"Zombie v. Ninja" and "Never Kiss a Ninja"


I loved ninja movies back in the day (please close your mouth, I know its hard to believe). American Ninja was by far my favorite. There were five American Ninja movies, although I lost interest after Michael Dudikoff signed off. 

I stand corrected, Chris Farley was a master ninja

For some reason, ninjas didn't seem to move on into the nineties in the same way they had ruled the 80's. Yeah, there were some leftovers (Like the aforementioned American Ninja franchise) I guess they decided to own the eighties and then just faded back into the background, like a good ninja should. Well, I take that back, ninjas moved on to the 90s, just in a slapstick or kid friendly format.

And what do I do with these again?

I guess you can tell a bit about the movie I watched this week in the fact that I am four paragraphs in before I even mention the movie. In Enter the Ninja, some marketing guy had the great idea of taking a title that took the most famous Bruce Lee movie and roundhouse kicked it in the face with a little ninja.

I had never seen this movie before and there was a good reason why. This movie was really bad, but it sneaked up on you (kind of like a ninja) and sucked you in. In this one, Frank Nero plays an army vet who just completed his training at ninja school. Yes, you read that right, ninja school. Also, Frank Nero is an Italian guy with no (and I mean zip) martial arts training, let alone any ninja training. Any scene of him "ninja'ing", in fact, any scene with him doing more than walking and/or looking threatening was a bad cut-in to a stunt man. As you can see from the pic to the right, Nero comes from the Chuck Norris school of "the more hair the better" grooming.

How bad was this movie? The last frame of the movie ought to tell you all you need to know:

I look good, real good!