Revenge of the Ninja (1983) (DVD Review)
Directed By: Sam Firstenberg
Starring: David Womark, Menahem Golan, Yoram Globus
Rated: R/Region: 1/Widescreen/Number of disc: 1
Available from The Garr Group
The Ninja are back! Brandishing swords and fists, leaping and kicking, wielding blow darts and explosives, they know a thousand ways to kill. Martial arts legend Sho Kosugi delivers a heart-pounding display of strength, speed and lethal Ninja know-how in this action-packed thriller that ‘takes us back to the good old days of the kung fu extravaganza (Screen International). When a band of Ninja assassins slaughters the family of Cho Osaki (Kosugi), he flees to America in the hopeof building a new life. A former Ninja himself, Osaki tries to escape his deadly past but soon discovers he has become the pawn of a ruthless drug traffickeran American Ninja intent on killing anyone who crosses his path…including Osaki!
Could this be the blueprint for ninja movies? It has everything you love about the genre. We got a man who’s family is murdered and then he is double crossed seeking out vengeance and the ending result is a movie that seems to be more than half a giant karate battle. That is my kind of movie right there and this movie is a joy to watch. Over the top things are happening left and right and you are never sure if you need to laugh or not, but you won’t be able to turn away from it regardless.
So in this movie we see people being killed with darts, we have a small child in a pink shirt beating up bullies, and we also have an old lady doing flips. If that doesn’t make for a good time I am not sure what does. The movie does pack plenty of gore and I’m sure this is a cut version of the film, but there are times when we’d have been better off with even more gore. Outside of that it is an action-packed good time that everyone who loves ninja movies NEEDS to see.
– None
