Ninja III: The Domination (1984)

Tagline:

He's the ultimate killer. She's the perfect weapon.

Movie Review:

 

About a month ago, our esteemed colleagues at the Lost Video Archive came up with the idea of holding a Week of Hong - a retrospective set of reviews from guest bloggers, all reviewing films that star in some way the excellent character actor James Hong. I discovered the Week of Hong only moments after I posted my review for Jeff Speakman's The Perfect Weapon, which had a decent role for Hong in it as the lead bad guy, and was eager to jump aboard with another Hong film review. After scanning his vast IMDB filmography and deciding against doing Missing in Action (having watched it only a couple of months prior) I settled on Ninja III: The Domination, a film that I have had on VHS for a long time and been meaning to watch, having enjoyed previous Cannon ninja films Enter the Ninja and Revenge of the Ninja.

A Ninja with a bad moustache (David Chung) emerges from a secret cave with a stash of weapons and proceeds to lay waste to a VIP playing around on a golf course and his protective guards (the reason for this is never explained, from what I could tell). It's a fantastic opening act of darts shot into gun barrels (exploding the gun), shurikens to the hand, cop cars flying into rivers and helicopters crashing into mountains. It takes ten cops to finally subdue the Ninja, who pulls a Ninja-vanish act with a smoke bomb. Wounded and trying to elude the cops, he catches the attention of Telephone repair-woman Christie (Lucinda Dickey) who he insists (in Japanese) that she take his sword. As soon as she touches it, she feels the spirit of the Ninja and has flashbacks of each of the cops that gunned down the Black Ninja.

Returning to work she becomes a person of interest to officer Billy Secord (Jordan Bennett), assigned to the case of the mysterious Ninja deaths, and a potential love interest as well. There's no boobage in the movie, but there is implied boobage. Every night, Christie is awakened by strange, supernatural goings-on in her apartment (usually involving smoke coming out of an appliance, and the magic sword gifted to her by the Ninja floating in the air) that overcome her. Dressed in Ninja clothes, Christie will dispatch cops that subdued the Black Ninja one by one, and not know what happened to her when she awakes the next morning, covered in bruises and losing track of time. She is gradually overcome entirely by the Black Ninja; who will be able to save her from its clutches?

This is what I like to refer to as a slice of fried movie gold. There is nothing I didn't enjoy about this film. On the pure entertainment level, I think Ninja III is the most fun out of the three quasi-related Ninja films - the other two being Enter the Ninja with Franco Nero, and Revenge of the Ninja with Keith Vitali - all staring Sho Kosugi as a ninja, but as a different character in each. Bless Cannon Films for their dedication to the Ninja sub-genre of trash action film. There is so much 80's nostalgia to love in this film. I think my favourite scene that epitomises this is Christie, in her aerobics lycra gear and pair of Nike trainers, playing an arcade machine - with a trackball! - and listening to the generic power-pop, synth-heavy music of the time. It's only a quick camera pan but it could easily be the poster for this film. The music is a highlight, ranging from the aforementioned synth-pop to some suitable effective scoring for the Ninja scenes.

This is the Week of Hong, so where does James fit in here? Unfortunately what we ended up with here is very little Hong indeed. I can't really classify this as a bait-and-switch as Hong doesn't have top billing. I knew from the beginning that his involvement in the film would be as a secondary character, but I didn't quite think it would be tertiary character level. Hong shows up at about the 50 minute mark as Japanese spiritualist-for-hire Miyashima (complete with Fu-Manchu moustache and beard) a character that Billy takes Christie to to find out what force has taken hold of her.

While he's not in it for very long - ten minutes at the absolute most - Miyashima has a vital role in bringing the demonic spirit of the Black Ninja to the surface through Christie for all to see. Chained to the wall, Miyashima make Christie smoke some sort of pipe before chanting and calling the spirit forth who possesses Christie's body. The power of the Black Ninja is too great and he breaks free from the chains, barking in Japanese at Miyashima who begs for forgiveness, then screaming "I am a Ninja!". The spirit is eventually calmed and a tired, emotionally wrecked Miyashima tells Billy "There is one thing... only a Ninja can defeat a Ninja." Cue: Sho Kosugi!

Sho Kosugi is awesome in this. His eyepatch is magnificent and he uses it as a storage place for poisoned darts. The film really takes a sharp turn when he shows up at the half-way mark, ominously hanging around at crime scenes left in the wake of the Black Ninja attacks, planning his retrieval of the Ninja's corpse to perform a ceremony to stuff his spirt back into the body that it belongs. He provides the best action in the film without doubt, demonstrating the excellent skills he showed in previous Cannon Ninja films. Sho kicks a cop into a bin and throws belt-mounted shurkien at some others. He's got a bit of physical comedy in him as well, convincing two morgue workers to walk up to him then clunking the heads together, knocking them out! He does it with such a dry expression to make it funny.

This really is Lucinda Dickey's film, and for the third act a great portion of Kosugi's as well. It's a shame that she didn't do much more than this film and two Breakin' films, as she could have become quite the action starlet. She's easy on the eyes and can perform some decent movie-grade martial arts. I don't think she had a stunt double for the role either. She's no Cynthia Rothrock, that is a trained martial artist doing films - she is actually a dancer from the Solid Gold TV series who was picked up for a dancing role in Breakin'. The most dancing she does in Ninja III is during her aerobics training session. Her plight and to some degree her appearance remind me a lot of Sarah Connor in the first Terminator film, and Kassandra ("with a K") from Warlock. All three films feature a typical, young American girl who get's caught up in someone else's mess and has to grow as a person to survive it.

The final act is a sensational climax of cheesy Ninja action, with the now un-possessed Christie as an observer to a glorious battle between Sho Kosugi and the Black Ninja back in his original bullet-ridden body. There's plenty of reverse-jumps, backflips, sword clashes, Ninja-vanish smoke bombs and some early computer-graphic flying spirits and fireballs during the fight in a derelict building and into the desert. Kosugi, near defeat, loses his sword but Christie comes to the rescue and impales the Black Ninja with his own magic sword, who deals with his imminent death by spinning into the ground like a drill! Hilarious stuff.

Very little Hong, but a very good example of 80's Cannon action that embodies everything we love here at Explosive Action. Desperately needs a remastered DVD release so that it can join it's two prequels in Ninja Glory. They only way you will find this is VHS or grey market DVD, but I suggest VHS for that authentic 80's Ninja ambience. The US tape is the only uncut edition I think, with the UK (and probably Australian) tapes having some of the Ninja-ness censored.

Week of Hong Contributors:

Illogical Contraption - Bloodsport II and Bloodsport III

Fist of B-List - The Dynamite Brothers
From the Depths of DVD Hell - Big Trouble In Little China and Balls of Fury

Direct to Video Connoisseur - South Beach Academy and Caged Fury

She Blogged By Night - Seventh Sin

Booksteve's Library - Two China Girls

Lines That Make Things - The A Team (TV episode)
Temple of Schlock - Hot Connections
Explosive Action - Ninja III: The Domination
Thrilling Days of Yesteryear - Classic TV with James Hong

Lost Video Archive - Teen Lust, Gladiator Cop, Cyber Bandits and Blade in Hong Kong

The Video:

The VHS I have is pretty wobbly and the print isn't the best. I don't think there is a really decent print of the film in circulation. Like I mentioned in the review, Ninja III badly needs a remastered DVD release. Runtime 94 minutes.

Sourced From:

Used VHS from eBay.

Trailer:

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The Perfect Weapon (1991)

Tagline:

No Gun. No Knife. No Equal.

Movie Review:

Until recently, The Perfect Weapon was only available on VHS or a bootleg Australian DVD (mastered from VHS) that had made it's way worldwide due to the demand for this film. Finally in February, Olive Films in the US gave this one it's first DVD and Blu-ray release. It's always been renowned as one of, if not the, best film that Jeff Speakman was involved in so it's about time it got some loving, digital attention.

Jeff Sanders (Jeff Speakman) receives a distressed phone call from his long time friend and Korean shop owner, Kim (Mako). During his long drive back home to rescue Kim, Jeff reminisces about his past, which gives us the opportunity to see how he learned the martial art-form Kenpo at age 10, and how at age 17 is disowned by his father for being a bad influence on his younger brother. When he arrives at Kim's shop he sees Kim being threatened by local Korean mafia, whom he dispatches with a blinding array of punches, kicks and stick smashing.

Of course, the Korean mafia won't take this kind of insult calmly, and by the next day Kim has been killed by an unknown assailant (though we as the audience know who it is). When Jeff finds out what has happened, via his younger brother Adam (John Dye, Best of the Best) who is now a cop, he plans to take the law into his own hands, and after a routine 'weapons at the ready' montage, take down the heads of the Korean mafia.

"The Tiger is strong and fearless. The Dragon is full of wisdom."

This was absolutely amazing. Talk about a hidden treasure! Jeff Speakman's The Perfect Weapon is right up there with early Steven Seagal films. If you enjoy Marked for Death or Out for Justice, there's simply no question at all that you will like this one. The 80's period set-pieces (even though this came out in 1991, I'm calling it an 80's film) are fantastic. We get beat up brown undercover cop cars, flashing neon sign nightclubs, underground Asian mafia, a multitude of mullets and training montages. The movie starts AND finishes to the tune of Snap's "I've Got the Power". If that doesn't convince you then this is the wrong blog for you.

Speakman brings the Kenpo action fluently, which is no surprise as its the part of the film he doesn't have to act - Jeff is a 8th degree rank in American Kenpo Karate. His arts film very similar to early Seagal (who holds a 7th degree rank in Aikido) with a lot of hand-to-hand fighting. Seagal had his slap-fu, Speakman has this trick where he hits you around the face so fast you don't know what's going on. He only breaks it out once or twice in a movie (we saw it in Deadly Outbreak) but it's fantastic. He is also skilful with Kenpo Sticks, unleashing rabid wooden fury on a few occasions throughout the film, including a great one-against-three fight at a dojo and an even better one-against-four back alley fight. He's really at the top of his game here, and his prowess isn't watered-down by any romantic sub-plot either.

This film has the best secondary Asian character actors from the vintage 80's action period. First of is Mako from Crying Freeman, Sworn to Justice, Midnight Man and Fatal Mission with Peter Fonda. We also get James Hong (Missing in Action, Ninja III: Domination, Big Trouble in Little China) as the red herring bad Mafia boss, playing a suitably evil role as Yung. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Mortal Kombat) who we recently saw in Tekken is Yung's Lieutenant, Kai, and while he doesn't get much to do, he has a pretty great fight with Speakman at the end.

There's a supremely awesome and recurring appearance of Professor Toru Tanaka (The Running Man, Martial Law, Hard Justice) - as Tanaka - playing Yung's hitman who sparked Speakman's initial revenge. This is probably the most I've seen of the Professor in a film and he's just amazing. He doesn't say anything except mumbling to himself manically in Korean. He takes two successive taser shots to the chest, after lifting car off his head. Totally awesome stuff. Tanaka can also take claim in this film to being the highlight of one of the best finale wharf explosions in cinema.

The prize appearance for me was the uncredited, blink-and-you'll-miss it scene in the nightlcub fight. Amongst all the bodies throwing themselves at Speakman was Al Leong! The same Al Leong from Die Hard, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Action Jackson, Big Trouble in Little China, Cage, Dark Angel, Steele Justice.. everything amazing from the 80's. He says nothing, hell he doesn't really do anything, but I still teared up when I saw him. I had to rewind to double check that it was him, but it's him. Fantastic.

There's a little bit of comedy in the film. I especially enjoyed a little throwaway scene showing Jeff's brother Adam trying to get information out of a restaurant chef, asking about Kim, receiving a "Yes!" and a box of Kim Gee. Adam tries again and receives another "Yes!" and another box of food. Giving up he says goodbye, to which the the chef replies in fluent English "Have a nice day." Champagne comedy!

I loved Speakman's Deadly Outbreak but this is the kind of action film I really get down with. I like to call them "catalyst revenge" films. All it takes is the death of your respective martial arts Master and it's on like Donkey Kong. It's completely obvious how it will all play out and that allows you to sit back and enjoy the martial arts and haircuts. We aren't very far into Speakman's career here at Explosive Action but I hope that some of his other films (off the top of my head with have The Expert and Street Knight to look forward to) have similar urban settings with gritty street-fights.

Mark DiSalle directed this. He was responsible for directing JCVD's Kickboxer, and was the producer on Death Warrant, Street Knight and Bloodsport. That's a pretty solid heritage to ensure you are getting a quality American martial arts film. He also played the football coach that tends to the oaf that young-Speakman knocks out cold with his kicks. Props must go to DiSalle for getting a live crocodile to appear in a tank at the movies' nightclub, The Croc Bar.

The Perfect Weapon is essential viewing for 80's and early 90's action fans. The DVD and Blu-ray put out by Paramount and Olive Films is the first time the film has been released legitimately since the days of VHS. Olive should be applauded for delving into Paramount's back catalogue and bringing this one to a new audience. If you read my old About page you'll see I harp on about how I missed out on obvious action films when I was growing up. Perfect Weapon is definitely one of those films. Buy it now!

The Video:

As mentioned above, we finally have a DVD and Blu-ray release courtesy of Paramount and Olive Films in the US. I can't speak for the DVD but the Blu-ray is All Region ABC and played perfectly on my Region B locked player. The film is presented in 1.78:1 widescreen and sports a healthy, natural grain that places the picture as vintage 80's action. Sound is a solid if unremarkable DTS Master stereo track. No extras, just a menu and chapter points, but who cares - this is Perfect Weapon on disc for the first time! Runtime 85 minutes.

Sourced From:

Amazon.com: Buy the DVD or Blu-ray.

Trailer:

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