Now they say that they used to film better, both ours (under the USSR) and the Americans, and in action films the scenes were filmed without fuss, and the women in the films were more beautiful, and the scenes were bloodier, and the heroes were more pleasant, and the villains were more villainous, and all kinds of grey. -there were many times fewer brown-crimson moralities in genres that were not intended for such concepts, and in action films there were action scenes, rather than tedious dialogues lasting half an hour.
And for some reason I have to agree with this. Yes, now the era is not the same, it’s not an action era, smart screenwriters have disappeared somewhere, there are fewer actors in the genre, and cameramen are generally peek-a-boo, and are forced to take the rap for everyone Donnie Yen, Scott Adkins, Jackie Chan, Yes Jason Statham, - may the Gods give health to these guys. However, sometimes, I turn on old stuff that was once popular - and for some reason, not all of it seems so cool now, so it’s time to test the old films with time. Today we have the Golan-Ferstenberg trilogy about “ninjas”, united by one iconic actor - Sho (Sho) Kosugi. Each movie in order!
Enter the Ninja (dir. Menahem Golan, 1981)
Yes, “Revenge of the Ninja” was only part of this conventional trilogy, and this film is where it all began. In fact, this is just another ripoff “Path of the Dragon” with Bruce Lee, since the plots are almost identical: the main character, a former American military man, after a long stay in Japan, comes to visit his fellow soldier. He lives well: his own cool, rich plantation, a beautiful wife, honor and respect, but only the local mafia wants to take away his territory. The hero intervenes, defeats evil one after another, and then the desperate mafiosi hire “the same” to kill him. The hero will push himself for the first time in the entire film - and win.
No, Kosugi is not the main character here, but the main villain, and this is his first serious role in a movie. A master of various types of martial arts and an expert in ninjutsu (the main director of the action and, apparently, the main consultant on this topic), Kosugi played so well that starting from the next part he is made the main character. The protagonist is played by a somewhat boring macho man Franco Nero, looking pale against Kosugi’s background; It’s not always that a European/American hero looks “in tune”; sometimes there are problems with this, especially, I repeat, if the boss overplays his hand in everything - this was the case in “Enter the Dragon”, where such a macho man was fed Bolo Jena (and the viewer was so looking forward to his fight with Bruce Lee!), so it will be in another film by Firstenberg, - “American Samurai”, where boring (although good in action) David Bradley loses at everything Mark Dacascos, but he butchers him like a kitten in the final battle. I will assume that there was a double in the white ninja costume. Nevertheless, Nero will appeal to the female audience, and somehow he tried. Well, they took a beautiful girl, that’s also a plus.
The action in the film is good, there will be a fair amount of fights, but mostly the white ninja fights, Sho Kosugi appears at the very beginning, where he blends in like a sucker, and at the end he is allowed to indulge in brutality and briefly fight with the main character. There are ninja tricks, finger pointing of the Steps of Power, there are magic tricks, there are ninja weapons, there are thriller scenes (where the victim is afraid of the ninja), there is stealth.
The problems with the film lie in the following things:
1) Kosugi's fans will not approve of the quantity and quality of his character on screen. Yes, he is cool, but he is not enough, and he is a loser compared to the hero. Only the stealth on the plantation and the fighting game at the end justify his presence.
2) There are a lot of bad cliches when heroes and villains are stupid according to the script. For example, what is this strange school at the very beginning where students are killed during an exam? Why can't others see the WHITE ninja in the forest?
3) I’m extremely sorry for the main character’s friend. First, his lady, leviathan-style, crawled into the “rescuer’s” bed, then the mafia didn’t let him live, and they killed him humiliatingly and cruelly in the end, but the guy turned out to be not bad.
This film has passed the test of time, but with great difficulty: yes, the action at the end makes up for all the negatives, but it’s better to watch it again "The path of Dragon", and leave this one only for the fans Sho Kosugi и Franco Nero (if the latter still has them).
Revenge of the Ninja (dir. Sam Firstenberg, 1983)
The main film of the trilogy and the most famous ninja film of that time, before the advent of "Mortal Kombat" (1995), it is recommended for watching classic ninja action. The hero sharply throws shuriken or spiky balls, they instantly stick into the face, eyes or forehead of the enemy, who sharply and piercingly shouts “Aaaaaay!” and twitches as picturesquely and sharply as possible, dying - that’s why we love these films, and “Revenge of the Ninja” gives us this in full.
In the story, Ninja Master Chou lives with his clan in Japan, but the clan is attacked by enemies and almost everyone is killed. The hero's friend, American Braden, also a martial arts master, invites him to move to the USA, where Chow and his son will not be pursued by enemies and there he can start a life without battles. Reluctantly, Chow agrees, but in the USA he finds himself in the center of a showdown between two warring factions, as a result he has to use force, and later even wear a ninja suit.
The main reason to watch it is the ABUNDANCE of action, it makes up more than 70% of the film, and it starts from the very first minutes. There will be everything: a lot of blood, hand-to-hand LONG fights, both one against the crowd and two against the crowd; in each such crowd there will be colorful bosses, just like in beat-up games, there will be chases, shootouts, and the obligatory and detailed ninja stealth. There are just a ton of tricks, from self-substitution to fire tricks. Shurikens are thrown at the foreheads and eyes, the enemies are waiting for varied and cruel tricks that will make them scream, delighting the ears of the viewer. Almost ALL the characters in the film take part in fights. For example, Sho’s son will fight a lot - Kane Kosugi, then still a little boy, and there will be no disappointment even here. The icing on the cake is, dare I say it, the OH****Y and long fighting between the ninjas at the end.
The main antagonist turned out very well, and he was played by three people: an experienced Steve Roberts played by his maskless incarnation, a stuntman Steve Lambert hides in the Silver Demon costume, and when Lambert could not do some tricks himself, he stepped in Sho Kosugi. It turned out so cool that for some the main character overshadowed the main character, but this is wrong - in the end Chow will also give his enemies a cruel shit. In addition to the above, there is a karate master Keith Vitali, unfortunately, a failed action movie star who was in no way inferior JCVD and in many films he showed beautiful hurricane fights. He has little time here, but he also showed his class. The models also gave a fight Ashley Ferrare, who heavily embellished the film with semi-erotic scenes with her participation.
The film has few downsides: it watches in one go, but to be honest, the villain “spared” the hero many times at the end (as well as vice versa) when he managed to deceive him with tricks and tricks. Also, the biggest drawback is the cutting out of a bunch of scenes from the film due to distribution rules - the murders of mafiosos, a lot of action at the beginning and a number of unnecessarily bloody scenes were cut out.
Conclusion? If you haven’t watched this movie yet, correct that mistake soon!
Ninja 3: Domination (dir. Sam Furstenberg, 1984)
On the wave of success of the second part, we need to create a sequel before people cool down. But the spirit of “Revenge” needs to be fully preserved and conveyed. Did you have a ride? Well...
Here tricks recede into the background and magic and spirits come into play - the most real ones. For some reason, a very angry ninja kills some poor man along with his wife and guards (as they later said, it was some kind of scientist). The police get involved and, having lost many units of personnel, the cops still miraculously manage to calm down the reptile. He, however, as a true ninja, decided to cheat death and inhabits the body of the local personification of Gadget from “Chip and Dale” – athletes and electrician Christie. In her body, the ghost ninja decides to finish off the remaining policemen, but a good ninja comes from Japan to finally resolve the issue with him.
Despite the harsh and decent action at the very beginning, the beautiful main character and the presence Sho Kosugi, the film is very weak. In order:
1) Kosugi is not wearing a mask, but with an eye patch. Not really anymore. It was not he who killed Glavgad either. Twice is not very good.
2) The action has become much less, some cool characters like the boy Kane too.
3) Glavgad performed David Chun tried, but still inferior to the Silver Demon. It was a very good idea to make him a dead ninja at the end, but in the end this idea was mediocrely wasted, simply forgetting to put on his makeup and not coming up with any tricks other than burying him in the ground and hypnosis.
4) An abundance of stupid cliches and blunders such as an “adequate” heroine who jumps into bed with the first person she meets and much more.
5) Tricks have given way to magic, magic is poorly woven into the plot. Better watch “Trouble in Little China” or “Mortal Kombat”, – it looks more appropriate there.
The only positives are that there are a lot of ero elements (in fact, I only remember the film from the scene in the sauna) and the thriller component. First Sho Kosugi, being the central character, did not drag me along. This is a weak film and you have nothing to lose by skipping it.
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In the end I would like to ask the question: why? “Revenge of the Ninja” not to repeat or not to do something similar now? Yes, I have “Ninja Assassin” (2009) with the same Kosugi playing the role of the main villain and some other worthy films, and there are few of them, but in fact the trilogy was made on a minimal budget “from matches and acorns,” and now, when there are multimillion-dollar budgets, they cannot repeat it. This is especially true for Russian film studios, both major and amateur - and this is in the presence of very worthy directors and stunt teams like Sergei Morin, Dmitry Fedorov и Yuri Sysoeva.
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Tags: Enter the ninja, Ninja III: The Domination, Revenge of the Ninja, Kane Kosugi, Keith Vitali, Sho Kosugi, Sam Firstenberg, Franco Nero
Tags: Enter the ninja, Ninja III: The Domination, Revenge of the Ninja, Kane Kosugi, Keith Vitali, Sho Kosugi, Sam Firstenberg, Franco Nero
Complete crap, not a movie. The previous two are much better.
Damn, that looks pretty good. I'll have to take note. Thanks.
I don't know why they do this... Even in their younger years, films like this were perceived...
Shannon Lanier. The answer to Nevsky was thoughtfully added at the end of the text.)