American Ninja transcript
Season 2 · Episode 27. Generated automatically, so expect the odd misheard word.
The whole premise of this movie is like there are no Americans that are ninjas and they have found the first American ninja. Ninjas don't exist. Not really. Um did they ever? This is where my knowledge of ninjas start to break down. They they did exist. Uh people still obviously practice martial arts, but like there's no need for this person that's an assassin that like jumps from rooftops and I mean I disagree.
I watched an hour and a half of the American Army needing a ninja. Yeah, uh, that's true.
Hello, and welcome to the Worst Movie Podcast. I'm Ade.
I'm Aaron. Uh this week we're talking about American Ninja from 1985.
What is an office ninja's most deadly weapon? I don't know. The element of supplies. I hate that. All right, I have another one for you. Okay. A ninja, a priest, and a rabbi walk into a bar. The bartender says, Good to see the two of you. I like that one a lot more. All right. So what have you been watching lately?
Actually, I watched a movie that has an actor in it that's in the movie we're talking about this week. I didn't realize. I watched Pearl Harbor this week. Uh terrible, terrible movie. Uh but it has um the actor who played Shinyuki in this movie, the like sensei.
Okay.
He's in he's in that as a uh a Japanese soldier. I also watched a few good men this week. And I uh miss a good Jack Nicholson. What prompted you to watch both those movies? Probably the movie we're watching this uh week. I was just kind of watching like army movies.
I almost pulled up a few good men. It got recommended to me on the HBO title screen.
I don't know if it just popped on the platform or it's it's like knows that we are related and you watched it, so it might just be pushing it hard this week for some reason, and uh we both got the got the message. It was good. Uh I I miss the good old days of of uh Tom Cruise and and Jack Nicholson's peaks. Although that was past Nicholson's peak, but Yeah. Uh yeah, right right there in Tom Cruise's uh height.
Oh I actually think it's because I ended up watching The Departed in the last week or so, and so I think maybe that's why it recommended it to me. What's your favorite Jack Nicholson movie? Oh, that's too hard of a question off the top of my head. Um maybe The Departed or The Shining? I don't know. Um Yeah. I'd have to look at a design DB. That feels like too tough a question.
Chinatown. It's one of my favorite movies of all time.
It's good. I really enjoyed it. I've only seen it once though.
So Oh really? Yeah.
Yeah, I love that movie. What did you hate the most about Pearl Harbor? Should we cover it on the podcast?
I don't know if it's bad enough. I don't know if it got bad enough reviews. I know that I mean it did really well, I think. Um really? I thought it bumped. I thought money-wise, it did well. Could be wrong. 24% on Rotten Tomatoes. It could uh it could make it. It made $449 million at the box office. That's a nice chunk of change. Yeah. It was just like sentimental crap. It was so long. And they were trying to tell like 10 million different stories, uh, and all of them were love stories, and I was like, I don't care. I don't want any of this. Yeah, I know. And like it's from what I understand, it's not historically accurate at all. And and it's just like patriotic romantic junk. Yeah. With an incredible cast. How do you really feel? I think that that about sums it up for me.
Yeah.
Very 2000 cast. Oh, yeah, Cuba Gooding. Yeah, Ben Athlang, John uh Josh Hartnett, yeah, John Voigt. John Voigt's gonna come up again in this uh episode, by the way.
Okay.
Little teaser for you.
Little checkouts, John Voigt. I watched the new Street Fighter, the that was just just released. I was very disappointed. The trailer looked awesome. I was really looking forward to it. And it did. It seemed like they had the right tone and balance and all that from the trailer and super excited, but nope. Um it was I got very mixed reviews, and I don't know how it'll do at the box office yet, but I felt like it fell victim to a lot of the movies we've talked about lately where it's like too much plot, just like we're there to see the characters fight, and like that was the best part of this. Um, they actually show showed a lot more in in this uh Street Fighter than the 1994 version that we covered on the podcast, and like the matchups were cool, but it just wasn't enough of it, and they like tried to add so much story around it. Why do they do that? I don't know. I don't understand why. Um and the tone was kind of all over the place. Like there were it was like they tried to inject it with a lot of like cheeky humor wink at the camera stuff that like could have worked, but I think most of the actors just didn't have I don't know if it it was it was that like they didn't have enough charm to kind of carry it. Uh, because it was a lot of unknown or unknown to me actors like not weren't a lot of big names uh from at least like the film world, but there were a bunch of like WWE and MMA fighters in it, okay, which helps like the physicality of it for like cer some of the characters, right? Um Jason Momoa was in it uh as Blanca, the uh green electric guy. Uh I didn't recognize him at all. Like it wasn't until I looked at the cast list afterwards that I was like. It was just like CGI, yeah, CG character. Looking at the pictures, compared, I'm like, uh I can kind of see it and squint, but I you can't even I don't know. If you had showed it to me and said who who is this? Uh I probably wouldn't have guessed him in the first three guesses. But interesting. Um but yeah, he he actually his character or like him as an actor, he has the charisma, I think, to carry off that tone. And like that character probably like that was one of the fun scenes. Uh, but otherwise a lot of like the jokes kind of fell flat. And then there there were other actors like the main ones that just like or yeah, some of the main ones, Chun Li and Ryu, were like very played it super serious and like straight and all that. And I don't know. I I don't understand the plotting. Yeah, it was just mixed, it was at least for me. Um and I don't understand the plot thing because I actually like looked it up later. Like, why like it had the same plot line of Chun Li's father was killed by bison and so it was this revenge thing, and she worked for the CIA but was pretending. It was like it was like they used the same storyline from the 1994 movie. And I'm like, first of all, it it didn't seem like that came from the video game. And then uh and then it's like even if it did, who cares? Just I know fucking rewrite it. Like I don't like fighting. Yeah, why are you worried about offending the like I don't know, 10% of viewers who are gonna be like, well, but actually in Street Fighter 3, the video game, you introduce this cutscene that it's like just make it a good movie.
Fan bases have ruined like intellectual property. Like you can't a new Star Wars movie without 200 million people crying and screaming about how it broke the lore from some extended universe thing, or you can't have a Street Fighter game because it's not uh it got the lore wrong. Right.
Yeah, I don't understand. Um uh the most interesting thing about the movie is I've been pronouncing Ryu's character name wrong this whole time. No, it's Ryu, not Ryu. I've been saying Ryu my whole life, and I didn't even catch that in the last movie. Yeah. Do you say Ryu or Ryu? I think I say Ryu. Yeah. It's definitely Ryu.
Well, dang. Well, you don't know. Apologies to all the Ryus out there. You can impress your friends next time you play Street Fighter. Yeah. Well, speaking of too much or too little plot.
Yeah. I was gonna say speaking of ninjas, isn't Ryu a ninja? What makes a ninja? Uh that's that's a big question that I had watching this movie.
Is there an order that you become a part of? A certificate program?
You're asking the right person. Um because I browse the Wikipedia page for about 30 seconds. Oh, good. Uh because yeah, about ready for your expert opinion. 15 minutes into this movie, I was like, do ninjas still exist? Uh because in this movie, which by the way is American Ninja from 1985, uh they act like ninjas are a real thing that still exists in the modern age, or at least and that everybody just knows about them. Yeah. Uh and the whole premise of this movie is like there are no Americans that are ninjas, and they have found the first American ninja. Um yeah, the ninjas don't exist. Um, not really. Um did they ever? This is where my knowledge of ninjas start to break down. They they did exist. Uh people still obviously practice martial arts, but like there's no need for this like person that's an assassin that like jumps from rooftops and I mean I disagree.
I watched an hour and a half of the American Army needing a ninja.
Yeah, uh that's true. Uh I guess we'll get into that. Um so anyway, this this movie uh do we need to like mention the director and writer? Uh it's not like a well-known cast um or uh or crew, so I'll kind of skip that. But zero percent on Rotten Tomatoes, um million-dollar budget, but made 10 million at the box but box office. Uh this is another Canon films production. So uh I think this is like during peak Canon Films, where if you can make 10 mil off of a million dollar budget, then great success, great business model, and then that doesn't even count like DVD sales. So um I think this was a very successful movie uh for them, and ended up spawning several sequels in the franchise. So yeah. Um my my favorite uh piece of background about this movie is that Michael Dudakoff, the star of this, got the part with no martial arts training whatsoever. Yeah. And the choreographer was like, he'll get it. That's fine. Uh yeah. Give him a couple months.
Yeah. Uh it's like the scene in uh Moneyball when they're trying to get uh Chris Pratt to play first base and he's never played it. Yeah. And he and uh Brad Pitt's like, it's easy, you can learn it. And the other guy's like, it's incredibly hard.
I think it's funny that you think he had a few months to learn this, uh given a million-dollar budget. Like I'm guessing it was like days. Yeah. Here's here's uh here's a book, read it tonight.
Well, they originally wanted um Chuck Morris to play the lead role, which knows all the martial arts.
Yeah.
They went to a guy that knows none of them. Um did you see why he turned it down? Yeah, he he didn't want to cover his face with a ninja mask.
Which is funny because watching the movie, he only covers his face for about like five minutes of the movie.
Briefly, yeah.
Which I did have a note on that scene of like why does he need the mask? It was like the end climax. Like every all the villains know who he is, and uh yeah, he puts on the mask. Um for the last time.
I thought that he was putting on the mask in the last scene so that he he could blend in and like kind of secretly no, he stood on the trunk. Yeah, but he just like puts the mask on and then stands out in front of everybody and shoots arrows at him, and it's like, okay, well, that's the bad guy. Yeah. The mask is unnecessary.
Yeah. Um, had you heard of this movie before? Like, what's your relationship to this movie?
I've never heard of this.
Have you? Same. No idea. I mean, it's such a I it if I had heard of this movie, uh, it's completely plausible that it would have escaped my memory completely. Like it's the title is kind of forgettable and the cover and all that stuff. So if I like passed it in the in a blockbuster at some point, you know, 40 years ago, 30 years ago, um, yeah, I I wouldn't remember it.
Well, it was originally going to be called American Warrior, and it released, I think, in the UK under that name, and then they changed it to American Ninja, and it's so close to American Ninja Warrior that if I'd seen it before, I've probably uh related it to American Ninja Warrior in my head. Yeah. Uh yeah, but it's it's uh it's very forgettable, but it was it was a fun movie, I thought. Yeah, as far as bad movies go.
Right. I it did feel like the perfect if if I saw this movie when I was eight years old, I would have like tore it up. I would have watched it on repeat. Um, I'm kind of a little bit upset that I didn't discover this as a child.
I know.
I was into the ninja, like I loved Three Ninjas and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a kid. I would have been all about this movie. Yeah.
Um well you want to give a quick synopsis?
It is very quick, and I wrote it down because it made me uh laugh. This was straight off of uh IMDB's page. Yeah. Uh it just says American soldier, obviously very skilled in martial arts, single-handedly takes on mercenaries in the Philippines. That's it. Yeah. Uh it doesn't even say his name, which is Joe Armstrong. G I Joe. Oh, I didn't, I didn't I didn't make that connection.
Yeah.
Uh the plot doesn't matter, really.
Well, the the plot doesn't make sense the more the more I thought about it, um, the the worse the plot became. Uh yeah, maybe can we spend a little bit of time on the premise and then we'll talk about what happened on the movie itself. So, yeah, the premise is uh Joe was a baby in the Philippines. By the way, in the movie, did they talk about this being set in the Philippines at all?
No, I don't think so. Um and they showed a military base, but it's a fake base that like isn't it didn't exist. So it was hard for me to figure out where they were. Yeah. I thought they were maybe in Japan, but um they may they said something um about um the the the sensei or the master character living in the woods not knowing that the war was over, like World War II. So I kind of thought, oh, maybe this is the Philippines, because I think that something like that happened in real life. Yeah. Uh in the Philippines.
Yeah, I think that is a true story. But yeah, I I wrote down, I have no idea where this took place and what time period. Like I didn't know what was there a war going on, or uh I assumed it was after World War II because of that that little like call-out. Um and then there's something else too where they talk about the the big bad ninja, the black star ninja being the best ninja outside of Japan. So it was just like there's somewhere in the world outside of Japan, tropical Yeah, looked very much like Japan. Yeah. Yeah. Um but anyway, the premise is that Joe was a baby in the woods raised by the sensei uh in the arts of in the ninja arts, and then he gets discovered by some Americans, then somehow he ends right back in the same woods. Uh so anyway.
There's an explosion, and he loses his memory. Right? Uh oh. Let's get to your question. Let's get to your question.
My question is, is is this is Joe actually American? He grew up in these woods. So he's not an American ninja. He's just ninja.
Yeah. He's just ninja. He's white ninja. I should have called this movie white ninja. Yeah. Would have been more appropriate, I think. Yeah. Um, I don't know what because his backstory is a mystery for most of the movie because he has amnesia from this explosion in his childhood. He doesn't know how he knows Ninja Craft. Uh, he doesn't know his own name. Uh, he just has is kind of a an unknown. But yeah, I don't I don't know how he got there. I don't think it's important. It's not important. Uh I mean I have a huge uh section in my notes that are just plot holes I can't figure out.
Yeah, I'm I'm still on the premise. Uh so we we could talk about some of some of the plot. The basic outline of the plot is that there's this bad guy on this, let's just call it the island. I don't know. It it's hard to tell what um who is uh taking weapons. The military is secretly giving weapons to this bad guy who's selling it to terrorists or something. I don't know. And then there are rebels that work for the bad guy, and they're also ninja this ninja army that works for the bad guy.
Uh bad guy's name is Ortega. Yes. Who has uh the worst French accent I've ever heard for some reason. Is he is he French? I mean with a name like Ortega, I'm guessing no. Uh well, the actor's name is Don Stewart. Yeah, and he's from like Nebraska, and I'm guessing it's just a terrible accent.
Fair enough. Um yeah, uh you can understand how I wasn't able to place where this happened.
I was noticing that when he's in scenes with other people, sometimes they start affecting his French accent. And I'm like I don't think anybody was a professional actor on the set.
No, I do I do have a uh a shout-out for worst worst actor award uh later, but we'll get to that. So um yeah, I I guess I don't understand. We could start with the first scene where like the military gets attacked by the rebels slash ninjas, and then by the end, like the the reveal that the military is working with Ortega. I'm just like, I don't understand anything that happened in this movie in the context of that reveal. Like, why was there conflict? Like, there didn't need to be any uh like all you had to do was not try to kill Joe America and just leave him alone. And there would have been no no story, no problem at all. I don't understand who the rebels were rebelling against in and just uh yeah, it just didn't seem like there should have been any conflict whatsoever. So I think that leads to like all the plot holes.
Yeah. Uh I I mean the opening of the movie, their convoy gets attacked, uh the ninjas steal, successfully steal the weapons, right? They get away with everything, don't they? Yeah, maybe. The only snafu is that the current Colonel's daughter gets away with Joe into the woods, and Joe brings her back, and that's it. Like that that should be the end of the movie. Instead, they decide to like persecute Joe for some reason. It doesn't make sense. Everybody hates him.
Yeah. Yeah. The army hates him and the bad guys hate him. The bad guys seem to hate him because they're just like, well, uh the in the first uh scene, you know, he he gets attacked and he starts fighting against the ninjas, and the the main uh ninja bad guy is like he possesses great skills, which is laughable. I I guess I should just say now, I don't know. We've already established that the lead actor didn't have any martial arts training. Did anybody in this movie become I wrote the same thing?
I wrote, I don't think they had a military advisor or anyone who knew martial arts on set.
There were so many fighting scenes that looked like if you and I were just like, all right, let's let's shoot today. Let's just start fighting. It's it does feel like eight-year-olds on a playground uh pretending to be ninjas.
Some of the worst stunt choreography I've ever seen. It's like kicks that miss by a mile and weird physics that don't make sense, and like uh bad guys that wait their turn. I hate that in movies. Yeah, yeah. Uh yeah. And like it's so slow. The action is so slow. The the fighting. Yeah. Uh that it's like it's just plotting along, but it's so fun.
There are more somersaults in this movie than I've seen in any movie at all. Um, that seems to be a huge part of the ninja training. Yeah. That's how it you show that you're a ninja and a good ninja is how much you're somersaulting. There are a few flips, but it's mostly somersaults.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we get to see the training ground where they're where they're practicing their ninja skills, and it's like a like a Taliban recruiting video for from 2003. Uh it's like monkey bars and and jumping over logs and stuff.
It was so funny. If if there's one I well, yeah, I mean, we can kind of go through this, but I I do have that like nominated for if there's one scene somebody has to watch, uh, which scene would it be? But it is so funny. They have, like you said, all like the playground stuff. They have the stepping stumps, you know, the like the stumps that are different sizes, and people just doing somersaults on them. And it's just like, what is this for?
Uh it's like a floor routine in gymnastics. They're like running parallel and doing somersaults at the same time. And they all have like different colored, like there's yellow ninjas and like green ninjas. Yeah, I don't think I'd want the very colorful. It was like Google had a ninja campus.
Yeah. I don't think I'd want the yellow costume. I don't think I that's that's gonna help sneaking and and assassinating anybody. No, unless it's on a school bus, maybe. Yeah. Uh so in that scene, we see that scene because Black Star Ninja is trying to show the clients, I guess, of Ortega's clients. Um, he's you know, trying to impress them. And he just kills a guy in front of them for the exhibition. Uh is that is that right?
Like yeah, and and Ortega's like that that man is proud to be killed by someone as you know onerous as Blackstar Ninja. Deeply honored.
Uh that just seems insane. Uh how many ninjas can you spare? Yeah, would you keep working there as a ninja? If you're like, wait, you're just you're just gonna kill one of us? You just kill one of the things. As a demonstration of what? Like this guy's just trying to buy some weapons from you. Like, he doesn't need to see like he doesn't need the ninjas. Yeah, yeah. Ninjas have nothing to do with this. He just wants that rocket launcher.
Yeah. Which was a hilariously bad prop, by the way, the rocket launcher. We get a hero like close-up shot of it at the end, and I paused it and read all of the writing that it had on the side. It's gibberish, it doesn't make any sense.
Yeah. I mean that that is that is beautiful. I also didn't understand why Ortega had all the armed guards and all the ninjas, and yeah, it just it and the rebels, I guess.
Uh somehow was still taken down by a single man by an American ninja. Yeah, white ninja.
We go back to the convoy attack, or I guess like the after I have a few notes around there. I guess mostly just to talk about the female lead, Patricia. I've got to nominate her for the worst female character in any movie. Uh their convoy gets attacked, and she's just I don't know if this is improv dialogue or like what direction she was given, but it was just terrible. It was like the worst trope or character of a woman possible. She's just like, I can take care of myself. Right after ninjas, armed rebels take out, like kill half a dozen soldiers, and she's just like, Why are you trying to help me?
Yeah, I hated her character. It made me so mad. I wrote, I don't like how this movie wrote its only lady character in the movie. Yeah. It doesn't seem like there I like I looked through the the cast list and stuff. It didn't look like there were any women involved in this movie until you get down to like costuming and makeup, and you can tell by the way they wrote her, she's completely useless and hysterical. Uh for the first 20 minutes at least, and then she just turns. Into the love interest, right? Which is all flirty, yeah. Uh, but like she says things that don't make any sense. Like, she's in the middle of an armed carjacking, and she was like, Who do you think you are? You don't have any right to hit him. It's like they have the right because they're robbing you. That's that's how it works. Yeah. And it was just stuff like that constantly. She's screaming about her high heels and her hair and her earrings. It was like so stereotypical, useless woman.
Yeah, it was it was so poorly written. Um, he Joe leads her into the jungle to escape, and she's like, What do you think I am? A jungle baby or something?
Yeah, I had to look that up. I was like, is that a slur? I don't know what that means. Is it a slur? I don't think it is, but uh I didn't I mean I didn't see anything that said it was, but maybe it is. Um weird the whole time that it does seem like she didn't have uh scripted lines, she was just like, resist, be hysterical. Yeah, exactly. He's clearly trying to save her life and she drags her feet the whole time.
Yeah, the uh most of the characters aren't written very well. I I had some some quotes about I think this is a scene shortly after where we're back at the base and we meet uh Jackson, one of the um I don't know, yeah, army guys.
And the sergeant star of the movie, honestly.
Yeah, let's talk about him in a second. Um, but he's talking to the sergeant who this is after the convoy attack. They don't know where the colonel's daughter is, and Jackson says, Have you heard of ninjutsu, sir? And the sergeant says, What's that? And Jackson says, The secret art of assassination, and the sergeant yells, Well, of course I have.
You just ask, What is that? I hated that entire I wrote that whole uh exchange down. Yeah. Well, according to witness testimony and evidence, this massacre was the work of ninjas. Of course it was. They're all coming back and being like ninjas attacked us. Like what yeah, I examined the wounds. Yeah, that was a that was a throwing star for sure. Like there were people that lived and made it back that were right. They can say what happened. You don't have to look at the wounds. It was just so dumb.
How do you how do you how do you examine a throwing star wound? Do you just look at the throwing star that's still in the person in the corpse?
Yeah. I I didn't like it. Yeah.
Um yeah, can we talk about Jackson? Yeah. Uh yeah, my hot take is he should have been the star with this movie. He he had charisma, he had the physique. Uh, I don't know what his martial arts you know background was either, but uh certainly seemed better than Michael and uh Joe. Uh and yeah, he I mean he should have been he should have had his own franchise. He should have been Action Jackson.
Yeah, I mean he was clearly the actor in the that was added to help carry Dudakoff through each scene. Right. Because I mean, we get 15 minutes into the movie before Dudakoff even says his first line. It's all just like standing around looking moody. Yeah. Uh like he was a a model and a surfer and had done some acting before this movie, but he was not an actor really. Like um, he wasn't he didn't have any talent in this.
Yeah, I mean, we've we've all got to start somewhere, I guess.
Yeah, this was uh this was uh I mean he was okay for somebody who's never acted, but like they clearly were shaping the film around his inability to deliver lines convincingly. Yeah, I guess. And they were they were letting uh Curtis Jackson do all the heavy lifting when it when there needed to be some emotion or exposition or anything that needed to happen, it was Jackson that drove it. Yeah, I I thought he was the best part of the movie for sure. Maybe second best behind the portrait of John Wayne in in Hickok's house.
That's so funny uh that you mentioned that because I really laughed at that and I jotted that down, and then I was like, I don't know if that's so obscure of a notice to even mention it. He's wearing his that bolo tie in his house. I I tried to look for the John Wayne painting because I was like, there's gotta be some backstory here. Like who who uh well can you describe it's like one of those, it's like an oil painting.
Yeah, or like a velvet painting uh of I guess I don't know enough about art, but John Wayne in a cowboy hat from some movie like The Searchers or something.
But he's like, you know, it's the it's his bust like floating above a landscape scenery with like horses and mountains and stuff.
Um it's hilarious. It's so out of place in this movie. But I don't know if you uh noticed, but the colonel is William Hickok. He's he's the one who's like wild Bill Hickcock. He's the uh he's the one wearing the bolo tie and the as a job. So he's clearly got like a cowboy thing going on. Yeah. Uh they don't really address it. It's kind of just in the background. They don't even really mention that he's named Bill Hickcock. No, it's just written on his door.
Yeah, I didn't I didn't really think about it. Uh I guess I'll just say this now. I I think he was the worst actor in the movie, the colonel. Just that whole scene where he's standing in front of the painting and he's yelling, I give the orders here, Victor, not you. And yeah, uh, it's just and then there's this like weird, he turns around and there's this weird butt shot of him. Yeah. I don't know if I don't know if you noticed that.
I and he had a huge wedgie and I couldn't look away. Say I couldn't look away.
It's such a weird scene. Yeah. It's like the the choices he was making as a quote unquote actor. Um yeah, it was uh it was priceless. Let's talk about I have a bunch of notes about that final fight scene, I guess. Um uh I mean we kind of we don't need to go like plot by plot. I the uh real quick, there there's a scene where Joe is in prison and then Black Star Ninja goes to assassinate him and then I guess accidentally breaks him out of prison. But just the there's a shot where Black Star Ninja, again, the best ninja outside of Japan in the world, is going through this prison stealthily, and he's like tiptoeing like a cartoon character tiptoeing across the hall. And it's just like uh just the I don't know the the the visuals of the ninja uh exploits, I guess, in this is just so funny.
Yeah. Um I will just say this. Uh now I love B movies, and this uh is a perfect example of a great bad B movie. Uh I had so much fun watching this movie, I would recommend it to people. If you like uh 80s action movies, this one is bad, but it's fun. How do you compare this to Invasion USA? I think I like this one a little better. Uh to me, it feels a little easier to follow, even though the plot is crazy. Like the things people do don't make sense, but I understand the plot. Yeah. Like whereas Invasion USA, it was like I was confused like where we were at times. It was Florida and then it was Atlanta, and uh, I didn't know like who was the bad guy and who was the good guy. It was just like I know Chuck Norris is good, and that's about it. Uh so yeah, I think that this was like easier to follow, funnier to me, I think for the most part. There was a few funny parts in Invasion USA, but this movie I think was more unintentionally funny.
Yeah, there were a lot of unintentionally funny spots.
Yeah, I I loved Invasion USA, but like I in I just feel like I enjoyed this movie more.
Yeah, I I think I probably leaned towards Invasion USA just because of how crazy it was, both Chuck Norris and the villains. Um this did have some lulls. Like I felt like the the first part was really strong once we see all the you know the ninja stuff that Joe's doing.
And then the middle part, like they try to drift into the love story with him and Patricia and um the story with him and Jackson becoming friends and yeah, which yeah.
Uh yeah, I feel like it kind of meanders a little bit. I I feel like this is closer to Action Jackson, where it's like there's a third of this that's kind of meh, and then there's a third that's so bad it's good.
Um so this might be controversial. I had more fun watching Dudakoff in this than I had watching Chuck Norris and Invasion USA. Like, because he wasn't an actor, it was so like interesting to watch watch him in this movie because sometimes he was okay. Yeah, and then other times it was so bad that you're just like, oh my god, that's that's one of the worst line deliveries I've ever heard.
Yeah, well, well, that takes us to uh kind of the final scene. Um, one of the worst line deliveries was when he's like slowly coming remembering, uh and and you know, basically imagine your best like Keanu voice. There's so much I remember, but there's also so much I don't remember.
Yeah. Uh that was a strange scene. He he broke back onto Ortega's compound to confront them. He ran into his old sensei there, who had tea with him and tried to like refresh his memory about telling him where he came from and stuff, and then like gives him this final ninja lesson on the weapons of the ninja, like the throwing star and the but he's already been using those weapons the whole movie. Like he didn't learn anything there.
And we get this flashback for when he's like six years old, and the kid in the flashback is way older than six, like twelve or thirteen. But how how insane is that to find a baby and then just teach that baby only ninja shit? Like isn't you don't try to get it into a real school. Yeah, like I couldn't help but think when we were watching the flashback, like, yeah, this is really demented. Um to just let me murder people.
I'm gonna make him into the world's greatest ninja.
Yeah, I mean, because we're clearly saying when we say ninja, that's papering over assassin. Like you're basically like, let me teach you how to murder people. That is uh from from as early an age as possible. Um anyway. Uh but yeah, he breaks back into the compound, and then we have the greatest group of somersaulters ever. Um giant ninja fight, where Joe and his um sensei uh take on I don't know, a hundred people.
Yeah. It was a strange fight scene though. The army shows up because they realize that Ortega has captured Hickok's daughter and taken her to the compound and that they're uh they're kind of betraying Hickok. And so he shows up with the army, and like his army guys fight all of the armed henchmen guards, but Shinyuki and Joe and um Jackson fight like the ninjas and Ortega. Yeah. And it's like very segmented, like they they never overlap their battles, they don't like affect the other one's battle. Yeah. It's just happening happening simultaneously.
I I love that scene because it's so fun watching all the extras die in the movie. Um we haven't mentioned this by the way, but for being a R-rated, very violent movie, there's hardly any blood. Because I don't think that I don't think they could affect afford the special effects for the blood. So there's a scene where like dozens of people are dying, like just shooting each other up with machine guns, and the extras are just like, you know, doing the the pretend death in the background with no no squibs, not like you don't see any bullet holes or blood. They're just like shaking and falling to the ground. Uh-huh. And yeah, it's it's hilarious. Like, I I mean, there's there's no better scene that you could ask for in a B B movie.
Oh yeah. I mean, like this there are so many things in this movie that are good because they're bad, like they're cheaply done. Uh there was a stunt in the the convoy scene at the beginning where uh a ninja stabs a guy through the stomach with his sword, and it's a really quick shot. And when I looked at it the first time, I was like, oh, that was actually a pretty good stunt because you can see the sword come out of his back at the same time. I'm like, I wonder how they did that. Like, did they have you know some cord, some sort of thing pop up or something? But I I slowed it down and I went back and looked at the stunt, and he stabs him in the the front with the sword, and he's got his arm like around his back, so he's clearly holding the other end of the thing, and he flips it up, but it's an arrow. It's not it's not the sword. Yeah, he had like the wrong prop in his hand or something. And you don't like catch it unless you go back and and slow it down and look at it, but it's just like shit like that happens all the time. That's just like the stunts are kind of cool, and this is what I love about B movies is that they they make me feel like I could make a movie. I could star in a movie, I could write a movie for sure. Uh so seeing all these stunts and the way that they like practically solved the stunt problems is super fun. Like that's what I love about B movies.
It's so funny that you said that because I literally wrote down as one of my hot takes that I think you could have been a ninja in this movie.
Yeah. Uh I mean that's uh that's a running joke in our family, is my uh overestimating my own abilities. Uh your overconfidence. Yeah. But I do think I could have been a ninja in this world.
And trust me, I I'm the first person to cut you down when when you you get a ahead of your skis, but yeah, you you could have easily Been a ninja.
I could have at least jumped those like stepping logs.
Let's go out to the playground right now and see. Yeah. Um, it's also worth mentioning that uh final fight scene, this is like five minutes before the movie ends, Black Star Ninja just starts shooting lasers.
Yeah.
I was like, is that ninja technology? I don't I've never seen that before.
I've never seen a ninja shoot lasers before either.
And just out of his like out of the back of his hand. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what that device was.
It was just ninja power.
Uh I guess so. That's the secret ninjutsu. Yeah, it wasn't very successful, but uh it happened. You only used it once and it missed. Also, I had a beef in this uh movie. They they kept talking about ninjutsu, but they kept calling it ninjutsu, uh, which is a minor nitpick, but what's the difference? Is that just the right su versus jutsu? I I don't think jutsu is uh I mean I I I don't think that's uh I mean I've been pronouncing Ryu.
Ryu wrong. Ryu wrong this whole time, so don't ask me how to pronounce ninjutsu. Yeah. This is a little bit off tangent, but in that final scene, I just loved how Ortega the bad guy, like there's you know, as we've described, ninjas fighting each other, RV people fighting each other, and he's there with his clients that are trying to buy these weapons. And he just kept saying, keeps saying, it's all right, believe me, as like his ninjas are dying left and right. Uh yeah.
It was not going well. It's clearly not going well.
Not going well. Um, but you know, there was a money exchange, and like anytime money's there, like uh I've got to like put my day hat on. Um, he gets this briefcase that's supposed to be like four million dollars, and he just like rifles through one one pack uh of uh a stack of like ten thousand dollars and is like nods and it's like it's good. Um and so I had to look up like okay, how can you actually fit four million dollars in a briefcase that big? Like it's just like a standard-looking briefcase. Um and uh four million dollars would weigh in a hundred dollar bills would weigh about eighty-eight pounds. And like a standard briefcase stuffed with a hundred dollar bills would end up being about two million dollars. So uh he definitely got got scammed. Um plus like several times he's like talking about how he needs his four million. And I know this is 1985, so I don't know how that translates to today's money, but I was just thinking, like, he's gotta pay for a lot of ninjas in a lot of regards. Like four million isn't gonna take him that far. So yeah, kind of bothered me.
My favorite movie like cash briefcase scene is in Dodgeball. Do you remember it? Yeah, yeah. When he's he's bribing him with ten thousand dollars and he opens the briefcase, it's just a single small stack of bills. He's like, I thought it'd be more impressive. Yeah.
This is like the opposite of that. I know. Anything else about that final scene or any any other like scene notes?
Well, in the in the final battle, Ortega takes Patricia, the daughter, up onto a helicopter to try to fly away. Uh kills Hickok, her dad, and uh Joe gets on the helicopter and like starts fighting from the flying helicopter, and it's this big action scene. And Jackson pulls out the rocket launcher uh and is waiting for for Joe to get off. And Joe saves the girl, they jump off the helicopter, and Jackson shoots it with this horrible prop of a rocket launcher. Yeah, and it is the next shot, is the worst helicopter prop I've ever seen. Uh did you see that? I yeah, I know what you're talking about. I went back and looked at it, and I'm like, this is just a cardboard, it's not even a good one. And I was doing research on this, I saw other people talking about how bad that prop was, and I'm like, okay, it wasn't just me. Uh there were there were a lot of bad props in this movie, but I love them. Yeah, I mean, it was stuff like that where you you can see like behind the curtain and how they're making the movie. I just like stuff like that.
Yeah, I mean, you could argue that this movie was only enjoyable because they didn't have a bigger budget. If yeah if they if they had a bigger budget, it yeah, I mean it it it would just be a dumb movie that didn't make any sense.
Yeah.
Yeah. Do you think uh that action heroes need to have personality or charisma? Yes.
Uh you do. I mean, uh I guess I don't want to make a broad statement, like we need some examples, but um Would you say that the Terminator has personality and charisma? Uh yes, even Arnold. I mean, if you think about like the most quotable lines from that, like I'll be back and stuff, like it's it is like that's that's person that's some personality and it's charisma, even though it's like would you know delivered in a robot way. Um so yeah, I think you you do you do need some uh yes. Why would you not?
Okay. Yeah. I just saw a um an interview with Arnold actually where he was talking about Terminator. Uh he originally was auditioning to play Reese, the like love interest character. Because he was like, I looked at the script and I was like, it has the Terminator has 27 lines, and I want to talk a lot. So he was uh trying to get the Reese role. And he was like, But I couldn't stop thinking about the Terminator character. And I was like going to James Cameron constantly, and I'm like, you know, he should make sure that I'm sure you've already got hired OJ for this, but you should like make sure he knows like he should be scanning and you know, he was like giving him all these tips and you know, trying to he was like thinking about the character way more than he was thinking about Reese. And it was like all of those things I think are the personality and the charisma that make a character that's so monotone and like lifeless essentially into a like viable real character that you care about and stuff. So yeah, I agree with you. I think that a I think that an action hero does need to to have and it was just a trick question. I'm sorry. That's fine.
I accept your apology.
This this this action hero did not have charisma. No.
Uh yeah, Steve James, the guy that played Jackson. Um, if he if he would have been an American ninja, it'd have been so much better.
Yeah. We needed black ninja, not white ninja. Yeah. Yeah. Um maybe that's another movie. Where do we find modern B movies these days?
Straight to streaming. There's some crazy movies on-demand rental.
Like I I don't even know. I know we kind of talked about this with uh the Pooh uh the Poohiverse, but there's some like there's a horror B movie market. I don't know if there's an action movie like a big one.
Probably start with all the uh all the movies that like uh Nicolas Cage has been doing and like the like latter era Bruce Willis and stuff like that. Yeah. Go straight to on demand.
I started watching Tears of the Sun this week too, the Bruce Willis movie where he's a Navy SEAL. It was not good. Really?
Watching the Army movie. I'm punishing myself this this week. Yeah. Uh well, what uh do you have an alt pick for American Ninja?
I have been saving this alt pick all month. It's hands down, my favorite Canon Films movie. Do you know what I'm gonna say? I have no idea. Runaway Train. 1985, same year that this movie came out. Uh stars John Voigt, Eric Roberts, Rebecca De Mornay. Okay. Uh the premise is John Voigt and Eric Roberts are escaped prisoners in Alaska, and they hop onto this like freight train that's running through like frozen Alaskan wilderness, and they get on there, and as like as soon as it takes off, the conductor has a heart attack and dies, and they're like alone with just um Rebecca DeMornay's character, she's like the driver, and they're like, it's it's kind of like uh, you know, it could be like a play or something because it's basically a single setting, it takes place on the train, but it's this like really great disaster um thriller uh nominated for three Academy Awards from Canon Films for best uh best actor, best supporting, and best editing. Uh I love that movie. Worth a watch. That was the movie that I was like, oh my god, John Voigt can act. I like I grew up in the era where he was just uh Angelina Jolie's dad and was doing like rom-coms and stuff.
Uh I'll just check it out. Uh I've never seen this movie. Um I feel like I've heard of it, but I can tell you anything about it.
It's based on a script uh that Kurosawa wrote uh and was gonna direct and couldn't get it to to work in Japan in the 60s, and they reworked it in the 80s with John Wayne.
Do you know how Canon Films got hold of it? It seems like not in their sweet spot.
I know. I don't know. I mean it it was low budget, um, because it was you know just took place on a train. Uh so yeah, but I don't know. Kurosawa basically couldn't get the project off the ground and and gave it up and went and did Tora Tora Tora instead, which worked out for him. Yep. Yeah. Cool. Well, good pick.
I didn't really have a pick. Uh god. I was gonna say Electra just to try why. Because she's kind of a ninja. She's an American ninja. And and now I feel bad for uh commenting on all the the bad action in that. And like, okay, all right.
This is actually what it looks like. Yeah, this is um this is what American ninjas can do. This is the limit. Yeah.
All right.
So Electro, that's your answer. Oh I didn't have a pick.
I felt so good about my answer. I know you had a you you had a great pick. Sorry, I I just yeah, I just brought it down, brought the energy down a notch. Um yeah, no, I think uh I think if you like bad movies, you should you should watch this. Um actually watch it. You can like watch the first 20 minutes and then just fast forward to the last 20 minutes.
Um it's not a movie that you have to like pay really close attention to. The plot doesn't matter. It's just action scenes.
Yeah, just have it on in the background. Um but it's fun. Yeah, it is fun. And it's it's streaming on a bunch of places, so you can just watch it for free. So yeah, it's free on YouTube. That's where I watch it. Yeah, yeah. Um cool. Well, I think that's about all I have. Yep. You're uh if you have any questions, comments, thoughts, hit us up at the worst movie podcast at gmail.com. I'm Ade.
I'm Aaron. Thanks for listening to the Worst Movie Podcast.