#YOUTUBE ENTER THE NINJA MOVIE#

Venarius comes to the logical conclusion that the only way to kill a ninja is with another ninja. Luckily, Cole happens to be around to kick the shit out of literally dozens of these guys. Venarius wants FrankвЂ™s farmland, and he sends thugs to terrorize the impoverished villagers who live on it. ColeвЂ™s ninja training turns out to be a lucky coincidence, as FrankвЂ™s run afoul of an evil businessman named Venarius (Christopher George.) Venarius seems to have studied every page of the Bond villain handbook: he lives in a fancy tower keeps a swimming pool and half a dozen bathing beauties in his office buys matching white suits for his private army of goons and whose most trusty henchman has a hook for a hand.

(Remember this: it becomes important later!) Cole packs up his ninja suit and associated arsenal and heads to the Philippines to visit his old war buddy, Frank, and meet his new wife, Mary-Ann (Susan George). After successfully dispatching all of his classmates in an extremely dangerous-looking jungle warfare simulation, we see him declared a master of ninjutsu this sparks an odd beef with classmate Hasegawa (Sho Kosugi), who has a problem with the idea of a non-Japanese ninja. WeвЂ™re introduced to middle-aged badass Cole (Nero) at his graduation from Ninja School. His crazy choice to hire 40-year-old spaghetti Western star Franco Nero to play the filmвЂ™s (literal) вЂњwhite ninjaвЂќ may seem suspect, but the odd casting is just where the delightful nuttiness of Enter the Ninja begins. The film was directed by b-movie king Menahem Golan, one half of the team behind The Cannon Group, the legendary production company that produced such VHS-era gems as Delta Force, Masters of the Universe, BreakinвЂ™ and Cobra. (Just look at that shameless, knockoff title!) Practically by accident, however, it was a major international hit, and started the ninja mania of the 1980s: a pop cultural obsession that spread across movies, cartoons, comic books, and video games of the era.

#YOUTUBE ENTER THE NINJA MOVIE#

The pre-release hype and bios of Kosugi and Stone are well worth the read.Enter the Ninja was likely intended as nothing more than a slapdash cash-in on the 1970sвЂ™ martial arts movie craze. IвЂ™ve scanned the entire press kit, read it at this link. The decision to take ninja from villains and henchmen to centerpiece heroes was a damn good one. Considering Eric Van LustbaderвЂ™s novel The NinjaВ had been tearing up bookshelves since April of the same year, and The Octagon had been released about six weeks earlier than the said вЂњlate FallвЂќ green light, GolanвЂ™s timing could not have been better. Mike Stone is widely credited throughout the document, and other contemporary press, with originating this film, so that must have been one successful lunch meeting. He assumed that everything had been done before in Martial Arts films, but after he was told about the unique art of Ninjutsu, he immediately began preparations on вЂњENTER THE NINJA.вЂќ Golan was a bit difficult to convince at first. Having never produced a Martial Arts film, Mr. In the late Fall of 1980, the concept for вЂњENTER THE NINJAвЂќ was brought to producer/director Manahem Golan. It will set the trend in Martial Arts films for the 80вЂ™s, making them the decade of the NinjaвЂ¦ДЄnother detail I found intriguing was this: вЂ¦the first Western film to deal solely with the mysterious and elusive art of Ninjutsu. CannonвЂ™s 1981 press kit for Enter the Ninja featured newspaper-ready B&W ad mats and a 30-page document heralding, and I quote:

Youtube enter the ninja