Prepare to lurk in public restroom stalls and playgrounds, because Revenge of the Ninja is the Greatest Movie EVER!
Review in a Nutshell: The second film in the unofficial “Ninja Trilogy”, Revenge of the Ninja is a real-deal ninja movie starring real-deal ninja, Sho Kosugi. Be prepared for skullduggery and lots of dirty tricks in this slice of eighties goodness.
This movie contains:
Scary Ninja Masks.
Ninja Violence.
Ninja Grandma?
Y-M-C-A!
The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast 
Now that I’ve seen Crank 2: High Voltage in the theater and it surpassed my immensely high expectations, the only other films this year that truly matter are Black Dynamite and Ninja Assassin, which will involve Sho Kosugi. You can keep your Star Treks and Harry Potters and especially Transformers, thank you.
I showed Ninja III: The Domination to a large group of people without any real explanation of its significance to cinema, and they enjoyed it greatly from the opening scene of Sho Kosugi killing all the golfers onwards. Much like the rest of the Ninja Trilogy, it has been digitally captured and can be found ON THE INTERNET.
I finally got a good quality copy of Pray for Death since it aired as part of MGM HD’s “Ninja New Year” marathon this year. But keep your enormous cropped aspect ratio VHS box version if you’ve got it (I do not), because it was the edited version. I for one can live without a rape scene as long as all NINJANIGANS remain intact. It’s not like ninja ever do that stuff anyway, because ninja sex is so fast and silent that it can’t actually be captured on film.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — if you want to quell the anger of a ninja, kidnapping his son IS A BAD IDEA! It’s like stealing something from tony Jaa’s village.
Ninja Grandmothers huh? I still say there is no scarier force on this Earth than a really mad Cuban abuela. Although, I’m trying to picture an angry ninja abuela and my mind is telling me to stop before I end up losing sleep over the idea of one actually surfacing.
Good golly! And here I thought American Ninja was the real deal. Oh how wrong I’ve been.
Tangent alert…Tangent alert…
Just FYI, but both David Carridine and David Eddings have died.
The 72 year-old Carridine, famous for both the Kung-Fu tv series and recent Kill Bill movies, was found hanging in his hotel room in Thailand. No word yet on if it was suicide, accidental, or murder.
The 77 year-old Eddings, along with his wife Leigh, was one of the greatest fantasy writers of the late twentieth century. His novels were never in danger of winning a Nobel prize for literature, but they were some of the most fun I’ve ever had reading a fantasy novel.
Tangent over, we now return you to your scheduled ninja movie podcast.
Shek Kin, aka “Mr. Han” from Enter the Dragon, also passed away yesterday.
On the topic of karate grannies, you should also check out the Jimmy Wang Yu film knight Errant, which features a nigh indestructible midget grannie who, among other things, laughs raucously and shakes her fists as the “hero” run over her with a car then proceeds to peel out on her stomach…to no effect!
German trailer (she appears at about the 1:50 mark):
*jumps through the internet*
……You weren’t that far off: Kane Kosugi did appear in a Sentai series, specifically 1994’s NINJA SENTAI KAKURANGER as NinjaBlack/Sasuke (aka The Cool Silent Guy Who Occasionally Breaks Out Into English). He also showed up as the lead character in the tragic American re-make attempt, ULTRAMAN: THE ULTIMATE HERO. Tragic because everything else in the show was awesome except for the most important thing: the Monster of the Week fights!
But yes, you shall be spared. For now….
Since nobody else has done so, I’ll step up to the plate and list five reasons why Paul and M.O.M. should watch Xanadu:
1. It’s the film featuring the legendary Gene Kelly.
2. The soundtrack really is quite good and holds has held up surprisingly well over the last 30 years. While Olivia Newton John is by no means amazing, the tracks are catchy and ELO’s contribution is the beginning of their best era (namely when they got over themselves and turned out smart yet accessible synth tracks.)
3. The film is incredibly stylish, from the dawn of 80’s fashion to the early CG.
4. It’s a chance for M.O.M. to talk about the good (or not so good) old days.
5. It’s short. Only 93 minutes and you know five of that is lost to the end credits and another 40 is made up of music sequences.
To be fair, if Paul does inflict Xanadu on M.O.M., I do suggest following it up with a more manly movie-musical, such as the 1972 Jamaican film “The Harder They Come” which manages to fit a showbiz story in among pot smuggling, revolution, and corrupting the preacher’s daughter. The film is also credited with spreading reggae worldwide.
The thing I love most about the thugs is that everybody is fairly believable, except for the cowboy. I mean, I can take the black guy with the head phones, the big angry latin guy, the over-sized asian guy in a Japanese flag type shirt. All of them look thuggish for the 80’s, and would very well scare me today. But the cowboy is in full cowboy garb. He is wearing a damn scarf around his neck! I feel like the director said “Ok. We don’t have much of a budget for clothes, so bring your best tough gear to the set for shooting tomorrow.” Everybody else showed up like that, and then the cowboy walked on. He was all like “What? Cowboys are tough…”
I faintly remember seeing ninja movies in video stores as a kid, now I see there is a magical series of these films.
Thank you for aligning the stars and bring my life to a full circle.
Something like that.
Paul, please review Duel to the Death. I remember you talking about it for a second, quite a few episodes back, and it seems perfectly appropriate for your podcast. Giant Ninja exploding into a bunch of normal sized Ninja FTW. If you don’t acknowledge my request, I swear I will burrow all the way down to Florida, and backflip out of a sandy beach to make you do this. You have been warned….
p.s. The disembodied voice of Daryl Surat gave me nightmares. Thanks dude.
Paul, how do you decide what films you are going to watch?
– Zac
Rogue Z. has spoken. I will watch Xanadu.
BTW love your Blog from England.
I love the entire ninja genre. The crazier they get the better I say.
Love that they tried to make movie set in LA. Love the shot of the Snowcapped Rockies from the Salt Lake City downtown… Ninja Grandmas = winning