American Ninja is a tired martial arts potboiler from the Golan-Globus production team (a pair of Israeli profiteers who unleashed various terrible movies on the world during the 1980s). This one tries to make an action hero of the handsome but thoroughly talentless Michael Dudikoff who, prior to this film, was best remembered for playing a dumb-ass named Ryko in the comedy Bachelor Party. Virtually nothing about American Ninja works, from its appalling score to the utterly routine action sequences. The performances are generally terrible, there's nothing original or interesting in the story department, and even the requisite martial arts moves are far from dazzling. In fact, the only thing that saves this film from the dreaded 1-out-of-10 rating is Steve James's amusing turn as the hero's sidekick. It's not an example of great screen acting by a long shot, but James does manage to embrace the absurd tone of the film with his tongue-in-cheek performance.
At an American army base in the Far East there have been a number of ambushes resulting in the loss of military hardware. During a transportation of equipment, more American soldiers are attacked by a number of deadly assassins wearing ninja costumes. The ninjas try to kidnap the Colonel's daughter Patricia (Judie Aronson), who is tagging along, but an American private called Joe Armstrong (Michael Dudikoff) steps in to save her. Joe is a loner and none of the other soldiers know much about him – in fact, he doesn't know much about himself, as he has suffered from amnesia since he was quite young. He does know that he possesses incredible martial arts skills, and occasionally has flashbacks during which he recalls being trained as a boy by a mysterious Japanese mentor. Joe discovers that the army supplies are being stolen by a corrupt businessman, Victor Ortega (Don Stewart), who includes arms dealing among his list of misdemeanours. Ortega has a private army of ninjas guarding his lair and Joe has to take them on in order to put a stop to the bad guy's nefarious plans.
The movie had a relatively cheap budget of $1,000,000 and grossed about ten times that amount. It is hardly surprising that Messrs. Golan and Globus were able to carry on churning out this kind of rubbish if 80s audiences were content to keep lining their pockets in such a manner. Everything about American Ninja shows signs of shoddiness. Dudikoff seems to have difficulty delivering the most straightforward of lines, and his expression barely changes during the course of the movie. The action scenes are simply ludicrous, with staggeringly inept bad guys – on this evidence even Dolly Parton could whoop their asses in a fight. The film even attempts to incorporate a few plot twists in the latter stages – with certain "good" characters turning out to be allied with the bad guys – but these twists are both heavy-handed and unsurprising. On the whole, American Ninja is thoroughly low-grade trash with nothing to recommend it.
At an American army base in the Far East there have been a number of ambushes resulting in the loss of military hardware. During a transportation of equipment, more American soldiers are attacked by a number of deadly assassins wearing ninja costumes. The ninjas try to kidnap the Colonel's daughter Patricia (Judie Aronson), who is tagging along, but an American private called Joe Armstrong (Michael Dudikoff) steps in to save her. Joe is a loner and none of the other soldiers know much about him – in fact, he doesn't know much about himself, as he has suffered from amnesia since he was quite young. He does know that he possesses incredible martial arts skills, and occasionally has flashbacks during which he recalls being trained as a boy by a mysterious Japanese mentor. Joe discovers that the army supplies are being stolen by a corrupt businessman, Victor Ortega (Don Stewart), who includes arms dealing among his list of misdemeanours. Ortega has a private army of ninjas guarding his lair and Joe has to take them on in order to put a stop to the bad guy's nefarious plans.
The movie had a relatively cheap budget of $1,000,000 and grossed about ten times that amount. It is hardly surprising that Messrs. Golan and Globus were able to carry on churning out this kind of rubbish if 80s audiences were content to keep lining their pockets in such a manner. Everything about American Ninja shows signs of shoddiness. Dudikoff seems to have difficulty delivering the most straightforward of lines, and his expression barely changes during the course of the movie. The action scenes are simply ludicrous, with staggeringly inept bad guys – on this evidence even Dolly Parton could whoop their asses in a fight. The film even attempts to incorporate a few plot twists in the latter stages – with certain "good" characters turning out to be allied with the bad guys – but these twists are both heavy-handed and unsurprising. On the whole, American Ninja is thoroughly low-grade trash with nothing to recommend it.