Ninja III: The Domination (1984) dir. Sam Firstenberg, the Cannon Group
So we end our look back at the ninja films for 2022. Why not end with the best?
The ninja Hanjuro (David Chung) is an assassin. He's just doing his job, taking down his target at a golf course, but for some reason the police take offense at this. He kills quite a few cops and security guards but after half a dozen bullets even a ninja can slow down.
He drops dead before Christie (Lucinda Dickey), part time linewoman and part time aerobics instructor. She goes to check on the bloody dying man and Hanjuro manages to remove his soul and place it in Christie before his mortal body finally shuts down.
Taking over, Hanjuro figures he needs revenge first so in his new form he tracks down the surviving cops that shot him and murders them. Christie's new beau, Billy (Jordan Bennett), also a cop, figures that something is wrong.
Taking her to exorcist Miyshima (James Hong), they discover that only a ninja can kill a ninja. Thankfully Goro Yamada (Sho Kosugi) enters the picture. He's a ninja and he's looking to kill Hanjuro. Can the three of them put Hanjuro down for good?
Utterly brilliant and so 80's it hurts. At this point Cannon realized that Kosugi could handle a film on his own and he does a stellar job, even if he isn't on screen that much. Dickey does an admirable job too; but seriously I think this might be the single most 80's film ever made. Ever strand of hair is coated in hair spray, most surfaces are chrome or near neon lights, Christie's apartment even has an arcade game (the rarely seen Bouncer at that) and to say nothing about the ninjas. Honestly this is the kind of madness that Cannon excelled at, take one genre and toss in as many others but whatever is trending at the moment.
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