Ninja III - The Domination
                                                                            
Director: Sam Firstenberg
Year: 1984
Rating: 7.0
You know how they call it garbage time at the end of a basketball game when one team has a huge lead? That is how this film was for me. It was late. I didn't have the energy to watch a movie that I would have to think about. But I knew I would not be able to sleep. That is when you are happy to have this sitting around. A film I never meant to get to until I had seen Ninja I and Ninja II. But turns out they are only connected by the presence of Mr. Ninja Shô Kosugi who played ninjas a bunch of times in the 1980s. He was in a TV show called The Master with Lee Van Cleef as The Master. It isn't rated highly but I would love to see a couple episodes. Think about how far the figure of the Ninja had come in American films since The Killer Elite directed by Sam Peckinpah in 1975. In that film the ninjas who have been brought in from Japan for assassination purposes are wiped out by Burt Young, Bo Hopkins and James Caan. It made me wince but here they are ten years later and they have all the Ninja skills and tricks with them. The darts, the ability to jump into trees, smoke bombs and stealth. And are nearly impossible to kill.



The beginning of this cheesy Cannon film is rather fabulous as a Black Ninja kills a scientist on a golf course which struck me as cruel. Let him play through. Kill him after the 18th hole. Golf club vs Ninja sword? Not real fair. But in minutes about 100 cops and helicopters show up to chase him. Not a great exit plan. He kills a ton of them in many different ways and they shoot him more times than at a carnival shooting gallery. He uses a smoke bomb and while no one can see him, he digs a hole in the dirt and hides till they go away. Yup, the old dig a hole routine. I think the Road Runner used that a few times. But he is dying (sort of) and when he runs into a telephone line repair operator named Christie (Lucinda Dickey), he possesses her and passes on his sword. Her assignment is to kill all the cops that shot the Black Ninja (David Chung). It is a fine opening scene.




The film turns into a weird combination of the exorcist, martial arts and dancing in leotards and panties.  Totally whacky but kind of stupid fun. When Christie isn't killing cops, she is practicing her dance moves (Breakin' was made the same year) or banging the creepy cop who seduces her like an oil slick. He was also one of the shooters. He takes her to a Japanese exorcist (James Hong) and I was waiting for her head to rotate. But then Shô Kosugi shows up from Japan with an ornate eye-patch. He is here to kill the Black Ninja. Oh, you thought he was dead? Nope. Only a ninja can kill another ninja. A lot of ninja action and a surprisingly high kill count. I like that at the end her now cop boyfriend says it will be all right. Sure, you killed a load of people, but possession is 9/10s of the law.