Sho Kosugi returns in the second Cannon Ninja
film, but this time as the good guy! He had such an impact in the first film,
Enter the Ninja, as the bad Ninja that Cannon felt it was necessary to make
him the star of this film. Putting an Asian as your lead actor in 1983 was
still a chancy thing for a movie studio. Kosugi of course was the real deal.
He was an All Japan Karate Champion and well-versed in other forms of martial
arts. He came to the USA to study at California State University which may
explain why his film career took place in America rather than Japan. He would
have fit in nicely with Chiba's crew of martial arts actors.
This is good fun with a few solid action
scenes but taking it out of Japan after the first set-piece and moving it
to America deflates it and moves it into the tired B territory of the moronic
Mafia and drugs. The action in the first set-up in Japan is so good that
I wish it had just stayed there and brought in more Ninjas. I understand
that Cannon felt it had to set it in America and cast a bunch of lame American
actors for box office appeal, but I wanted more Ninjas. I expected that would
be the revenge in the title.
In the opening scene I refer to, a group
of Ninjas wipes out an entire Japanese family. A young boy with a star to
his head, the wife with an arrow to the heart, the grandfather with a slash
of the sword. But not before the wife hides the new born son. Sho and his
American friend Braden return in time to kill a bunch of Ninjas and to rescue
the baby. The grandmother returns as well. Feisty old lady as we find out
later. Braden convinces Sho to come live in America and set up a gallery.
Grandma says, I don't trust the white devil or words to that effect. Always
listen to your grandmother. We never learn what that Ninja attack was about
and they never reappear.
The film jumps ahead six years with Sho,
son and grandmother living in California. It makes no sense other than giving
the baby a chance to grow up to be Kane Kosugi in his film debut at 8 years
old. He beats up a bunch of bigger bullies with grandma cheering him on.
Kane was to go on to appear in three more films with his father before moving
on to his own career in martial arts films. Both him and grandma get involved
in the action. Turns out his friend Braden is a drug smuggler in a deal with
the Mafia. He is also a secret . . . Ninja! Two other really fine action
pieces - Sho on and in a moving van after a group of Mafia punks steal from
him - some great stunts - and then the finale between Sho and Braden's double
(stunt coordinator Steven Lambert) on a rooftop. Braden conveniently wears
a mask, but it is a good Ninja vs Ninja battle with all the Ninja tricks
and weapons on display. Sho's other friend is played by Keith Vitali, a legit
karate master who later appeared as a henchman in Wheels on Meals. Good film
that could have been better.
