Cavalcade of Awesome

Okay, Sunday was Ninja Day, and I’m extending that into Ninja Week here on the blog. On Monday I discussed in detail the reality rendering awesomeness that is 1983’s Revenge of the Ninja starring Sho Kosugi. Today, I want to discuss that movie’s followup, Ninja III: The Domination.

I want to say I saw this in the theater, but there’s no way my father would have let me see the R rated Ninja III when I was 10 years old. I must have rented it a few years later when I was renting Revenge of the Ninja over and over again from the local video store.  How could I not?  It was a ninja movie with Sho Kosugi and that hot chick from Breakin’ and Breakin’ 2.  Also, this movie’s director, Sam Firstenberg, also directed Revenge of the Ninja.  As a matter of fact, from 1983 to 1985 Firstenberg directed Revenge of the Ninja, Ninja III:  The Domination, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo and American Ninja.  I don’t know about you but that alone deserves some kind of lifetime achievement award or something.  I have to ask why this guy isn’t a household name.  Well, he followed up his Hall of Fame line up of 80s action movies with American Ninja 2:  The Confrontation and Delta Force 3:  The Killing Game which probably ended his career as quickly as a katana to the neck.  But no one can take way those 4 awesome 80s movies.  No one.

Anyway, this movie is completely fun, weird and absurd.  So let’s take a look.  I’m going to delve into the best aspects of this movie like I did Revenge of the Ninja because this movie deserves it.  There’s a lot of zany 80s awesomeness going on in this movie.  And I’ll be sure to point out all the gratuitous shots of Lucinda Dickey in skimpy clothes while sweatily dancing (happens more often than you think).  So grab a seat and let’s do this.

And so the awesome begins. The opening sequence is the best. A Japanese dude walks into this hidden cave, dons a ninja suit and heads to a nearby golf course to wreck complete havok. It’s never explained why he attacked the golf course. He just does it. And it’s awesome.

Here’s the ninja stopping a golf cart by lifting the back wheels off the ground. He couldn’t let the attractive couple get away because he really needed to kill them.

A group of bodyguards show up because I guess one of the golfers is famous (no explanation). One of the bodyguards pulls a gun, but before he can fire, the ninja whips out a blowgun and shoots a dart directly into the gun barrel causing the gun to explode awesomely in the bodyguards face.  This movie is so ninja.

The ninja then outruns a cop car.

The ninja is caught by like 5 cops and they open fire riddling him with bullets. In the midst of the gunfire the ninja ignites a smoke bomb and disappears. The cops have no idea where he went so they all just decide to leave. Then the ninja pops up out of the dirt. He had dug himself under the ground like a mole proving once again that, yes, he is a badass ninja.

While filled with bullet holes, the ninja crawls away and finds Lucinda Dickey as Christie, the hottest telephone repair person EVER. The ninja grabs her and does some ninja voodoo to put his spirit inside her (he wants to be IN her).

Oh, and Christie is also an aerobics instructor. So, here are some gratuitous shots of her in aerobics gear.

After her aerobics class she bumps into some thugs in the back alley. Of course, they attempt to rape her.  Notice the amount of people in the above screen shot.  There were only like 4 rapists.  Apparently everyone else in the gym came outside to see Christie get raped.  Not one person in the crowd tried to help.  But Christie, now with a little bit ‘o ninja in her, kicks all of their asses without help from the crowd.

This cheesy cop Billy creepily hits on Christie, she gives him tons of attitude, Billy has to give this ridiculous speech about loving being a cop and then we get Christie inviting him up to her apartment.  And then some more gratuitous skin shots.

This is a pretty famous scene for people who have seen this movie. Christie pours V8 all over her chest and pulls Billy on top of her.  You can surely imagine the awesome sex scene because they don’t show it to you.  At all.

And…WOH!…Billy is one hairy mofo!  Yikes, dude, you might want to take that sweater off before making sweet love to Christie.

About an hour in and Sho Kosugi finally shows up. He has an eyepatch! Sweet.

And here’s Christie sweatily dancing for no reason.

This video game I’ve never heard of before, Bouncer, lights up and projects lights onto Christie’s face. I guess the ninja spirit is talking to her through the game?  Whatever.  The ninja sword floats out of the closet and Christie has now become the ninja. And her mission is to seek out the 5 cops that shot down the ninja and kill them.

Christie tracks down the first cop in his home. He tries to hit her with a pool ball, she catches it and crushes it in her palm. She then throws him through the window which, I guess, was enough to kill him even though it was only a one story home.

Christie seeks out another of the cops that killed the ninja. An older, unattractive man who apparently is popular with the ladies. He manages to get two chicks much younger than him into a hot tub at some private club. It must be the mustache.

Christie shows up looking all hot (I thought this place was a private club) and pushes the other two girls out of the threesome.  The other two girls actually get mad that another chick joins them.  I mean, they were all prepared to go two on one with this older unattractive cop with a mustache but as soon as Christie joins the party, they get all high and mighty.  One of the girls actually says, “Let’s get out of here” and the other replies in an angry voice, “No, I want to watch this”.  Yeah, lady, that’ll show them.  And what dude would bust up a threesome into a twosome when you could turn it into a foursome?  Madness.  Oh, Christie kills all of them.  Firstenberg must hate hot tubs because there are at least three scenes of hot tubs in Revenge of the Ninja which also involve death and dismemberment.

And more of Christie dancing sweatily in her underwear. You are welcome.

Christie goes to a cop funeral to kill the rest of the cops who shot the ninja.  She waits for the 21 gun salute and starts flinging arrows into the crowd.  Ninjas must love bright white bows and arrows with huge white tail feathers. The ninjas that attacked Sho Kosugi’s family in the beginning of Revenge of the Ninja also used them.

Sho Kosugi with an eyepatch shows up to stop the ninja and pulls off the mask to reveal it’s Christie underneath. The look on his face was like, “How did a woman nearly kick my ass?”

Sho tells Christie’s hairy ass boyfriend Billy to bring Christie and meet him at “the temple on the hill”. So, apparently there’s a Shaolin temple just outside Los Angeles.

Sho removes the spirit from Christie’s body and puts it back in the original ninja body. So, yes, Sho Kosugi with an eye patch must now fight zombie ninja! And zombie ninja can throw flames from his hands?! Wha-?!

Now Christie is rid of the ninja’s spirit and gives Billy a celebratory and very situation inappropriate kiss. Get a room guys.

Sho Kosugi continues to chase the zombie ninja. Where do you think zombie ninja is hiding here?  If you guessed the one human sized crack in the ground in the middle of the screen, you guessed correctly, sir.

While Sho fights the incredibly powerful zombie ninja, Christie runs up and stabs him in the stomach with his own sword. Boo-ya, zombie ninja just got punked. However, zombie ninja is, well, a f’n ZOMBIE so he not surprisingly doesn’t die. Sho has to stab his ass in the head to kill him.  And then he disappears like Obi-Wan Kenobi.

With zombie ninja dead Christie and Billy engage in another situation inappropriate kiss. Billy looks like he’s trying to eat her head. WTF?!

Then, END CREDITS.

How great is that movie?  While not as epically ninja as Revenge of the Ninja, this one definitely amps up the cheese and is pretty epic in and of itself.  While it is disappointing that Lucinda Dickey did not get nude, she gets pretty close and there are a lot of scenes with her in nothing but her undewear, so it’s almost a wash.  Almost.

FYI, if you want to see Ninja III for yourself, it’s pretty tough to find.  As far as I know it was never released on DVD.  But you can find it on VHS or Amazon On-Demand.  Or, like Revenge of the Ninja, you can watch the movie in its entirety on YouTube in 10 parts.  However you do it, I suggest you watch this movie.

Hope you are enjoying ninja week as much as I am.  Stay tuned for one more ninja movie review on Friday.  It may or may not be as detailed as these last two.  I just love these two movies so much.

This entry was posted on December 8, 2010 at 10:30 am and is filed under 80s, movies, ninjas, pop culture, reviews with tags movies, Ninja Day, ninjas, pop culture, reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.