War on Terr’r Update: Michael Dudikoff an Ally in the War on Terr’r

I figured it’s been too long since I changed my header image. The old one didn’t really go with the colors of the War on Terr’r banner, plus I wanted something a bit more patriotic, and what’s more patriotic than the American Ninja film franchise? If you’ve yet to see American Ninja or American Ninja 2: The Confrontation, then I guess you know what you ought to be doing tonight. They may just be the two funniest movies ever made (but I’d avoid American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt like herpes).

The story in both movies is that two US Army guys with questionable backgrounds (one played by Michael Dudikoff, the other by the late, great Steve James) are, for some inexplicable reason, martial arts wizards to put any actual Japanese ninja to shame. They’re sent (in both films) to vaguely tropical islands inhabited by Latinos and Asians of different stripes, who the viewer is meant to believe are all of the same ethnicity. They’re there in both cases to help the US government shut down the operations of sinister metrosexual Franco-Spanish (it’s impossible to tell which they’re supposed to be) rich dudes who are using their own private ninja armies to wreak havoc on the islands. In both films, it’s their martial arts prowess that allows them to escape even the most dangerous and seemingly hopeless of situations unscathed, and that ends up being the deciding factor in their all-American triumphs over the forces of evil. The story and production in both are so schizophrenic and nonsensical that it comes close to blowing the mind, and the macho Army/ninja business is so exaggerated that it almost (but not quite) seems like the Cannon Group intended for it to be funny. I couldn’t give these movies a stronger recommendation.