Ninja III: the Domination (1984)

Quick! Who do you think of when you think Ninja films of the 80’s?

If you said Sho Kosugi, you get a gold ninja star! I would also accept Cannon Films, Golan-Globus Productions, or Sam Firstenberg.

Lost? Read on, Grass-hopper…

OK, if you didn’t follow that reference, that’s why I’m here, I’m going to educate you- because I am a giver. My doctor says I’m a carrier, but I digress.  In the 1980’s there was a tremendous surge of ninja films in the United States. Bruce Lee was gone, Chuck Norris was growing in popularity, and martial arts were not quite mainstream.  Yeah, there were karate schools in most major cities. Still, something about the martial arts was still exotic and mysterious.  Then, the Decade of Decadence suddenly exploded with far-fetched action films featuring the seemingly superhuman warrior; the ninja.

Most ninja films that were popular in America featured the Japanese actor Sho Kosugi.  He began his remarkable career in Asia, doubling for actors in many low-budget quickies and perfecting fight choreography before making his mark in the U.S. in several Cannon films.  He embraced the stereotype to the fullest, un-apologetically playing the same type of character each time: the mysterious ninja master, sometimes the good guy, sometimes the villain, but always intimidating and purely awesome.  His fight choreography is typically marked with high-energy acrobatics, flashy kicks, and exotic weaponry. We didn’t know what a ninja was, but he must have been one. Every kid I knew in the mid-80’s owned throwing stars or nunchuks because of Kosugi.

He is most notably remembered for the Ninja trilogy, produced by the Israeli cousins who ruled low-budget Hollywood flicks throughout the eighties, Menahem Golan and Yorem Globus.  Their Cannon Films group had a fool-proof business model built around a simple philosophy: any picture could be made for under $1 million with little-known actors and turn a profit.  The Ninja trilogy was Enter the Ninja, Revenge of the Ninja, and today’s entry Ninja III: The Domination.  The three films all featured Kosugi in a starring role, though they were all unrelated stories.  Each time he played a different character.

In Ninja III, Cannon tried something that hadn’t really been done.  They combined the “possession” horror-movie genre with the ninja genre, with a little bit of dance-movie genre thrown in for good measure.  It was an odd mix to be sure, but fans of each genre were sure to have something for them.  I’ll discuss the film’s specific plot points next, so if you are thinking of checking out the movie on Netflix or YouTube and don’t like spoilers, I suggest you skip the next section, and skip down to the final paragraph…

Ok, here’s your spoiler alert. Consider yourself warned.

How are they not shooting each other?

The film opens on a golf course, where a random rich white guy is attacked and subsequently killed by a mysterious ninja warrior.  Fans of ninja might roll their eyes, as we commonly associate the warriors with stealth, often hiding in the shadows, wearing black, and keeping a generally low profile.  Not this ninja.  He is bold, bad, and seems to want to be seen and feared. He blatantly kills the random yuppie dude out in the open, even slicing up his girlfriend, as well as a plethora of security guys.  He quickly draws the attention of the entire police force, and hacks up most of them, too.  All this over-the-top action takes up the opening 20 minutes of the film, and includes some amazing stunts. It is possibly the greatest movie opening ever.

Tiger regretted hiring his new caddie.

Finally, four of the cops surround the bad guy, shooting him until he throws down a smoke-bomb and mysteriously vanishes. They spread out to look for the assassin, and we discover that he was there the whole time, buried under the sand. He climbs out, and, dying, he gets away and comes across a woman who is a phone company worker, out climbing poles and checking lines.  She tries to help him, noting he is gravely injured. She can’t understand his Japanese babbling, and just before he dies, he gives her his sword.

She takes the sword home, and we later learn it has magic powers, possibly even possessed by the ninja.  Our leading lady, Christie, is played by Lucinda Dickey, who gained fame in dancing movies like Breakin’ as well as Breakin’ 2: Electric Bogaloo.  In those films, she caught the attention of director Sam Firstenberg (as well as millions of love-struck teenage boys), who also directed this film as well as many other ninja films.  Her dancing style fused ballet with hip-hop, which in the early eighties hadn't been seen before.  Not a trained martial artist, her natural athleticism made it possible for her to do most of her own stunts in Ninja III.  Back to the story.

One of the cops who question her after the cop massacre, Billy Secord, follows her around everywhere.  Were he not a good-looking guy, she’d probably say more like he stalks her everywhere.  He shows up at her other job, teaching aerobics in what can only be described as the sleaziest gym ever.  Some creepy guys form the gym follow our heroin outside after class and try to rape her. The group of people just stands idly by doing nothing, which includes officer Secord. Gee, if there were only a law enforcement guy around who could stop these bullies from trying to rape Lucinda Dickey. Oh, well.  As the guys advance on her, she suddenly explodes on them with some amazing karate moves. She makes quick work of the four guys, easily dispatching them, no thanks to creepy-stalker-cop-guy, who watches the whole thing unfold.

Soon, Secord keeps hitting on her while she constantly deflects his creepy advances.  About this time, I’m thinking, “finally-a movie with a strong female lead…something which shows girls you can be strong and sexy, but not need a man”.  Then, as Secord finally gives up, and angrily tells her to get out…she gives in to him. And thus, the women’s movement comes to a grinding halt, leading us to a scene that I guess is supposed to be romantic, but is kind of yucky. She pours V8 juice on herself, which he is supposed to lick off. I don’t know if they were going for a 9 and ½ Weeks vibe or what, but…it was a fail.  Thankfully, the scene cuts away before it devolves any further into soft-core porn.

Christie also begins to succumb to the spirit in the ninja sword, which takes over her body from time to time, sending her out on a quest to find the cops who killed the ninja in the opening.  Every time Christie sees one of the cops out-and-about, she has a flashback of the assassin being shot hundreds of times by the cops, and she quickly runs away, changes into the ninja outfit and hunts the cop down. This pattern occurs several times, and the scenes are laughable.  Lucinda Dickey handles the choreography pretty well, but it’s still difficult to accept that she has super-strength and is able to easily overpower larger men, trained to use guns, but hey-this is only a movie…I’ll suspend some disbelief. 

Finally. The movie's half over, and I "Sho" up.

About the same time in the story, Secord takes Christie to see a Japanese exorcist, played by the great James Hong, from Big Trouble in Little China, as well as about 900 billion other movies requiring an old Asian guy who doesn't mind stereotypes.  He discovers Christie is possessed by an ancient ninja spirit, and that he can’t help her, because, well, “only a ninja can stop a ninja”. Speaking of ninjas, finally Sho Kosugi (you know, the star of the movie) shows up.

He meets some monks, and promptly begins his secret mission to steal back the body of the assassin.  After bringing the body to the temple, he gets after Christie who is in full ninja-mode.  They have a battle that goes from a cemetery to an old warehouse.  The cops arrive and capture Kosugi, and I guess they assume he is the assassin they are looking for. Christie escapes, and Kosugi instructs Secord to bring Christie to the old temple, where he will meet them later. Kosugi then easily escapes the cops and meets them at the temple.  There, they begin the rites to free Christie of the spirit, send the spirit to its old body, and finally we get the showdown we've been waiting for.  The two ninja duking it out, taking the battle through the temple, around some cliffs, and down a steep hill. 

The action is typical Kosugi, fantastic and high-energy.  His acrobatics are not quite on the level of Jackie Chan, but fans of Chan will still appreciate the choreography and stunts.  The evil ninja is played by David Chung, himself an accomplished martial artist.  The fight never reaches the awesomeness that we get in Kosugi’s second entry Revenge of the Ninja, which I will be reviewing at a later time.  Still the battle is exciting, if a little shorter than I felt it should be.  There is plenty of supernatural mayhem, including smoke-bombs, mass hypnotism, and in the movies greatest what-the-crap moment, a ninja drilling into the ground to create an earthquake. You read that correctly.  That alone was worth the price of admission.

The Verdict:

Fans of ninja films will not be disappointed by this one.  There is plenty of action, chases, and stunts to keep even the shortest attention-span movie watchers engaged.  I did not care much for the love story, but will admit that at least this movie was progressive enough that the hero is the girl, and she doesn't need saving by the guy.  Compared to Twilight, this message is much better.  I get the very real sense during this movie that Christie doesn't really need Secord to fulfill her sense of self-worth.  She keeps him around simply because she wants to.  I like that.

None of the characters are really well fleshed-out. Kosugi’s character is your typical ninja good-guy, who is motivated to capture and destroy the evil ninja because he raided his village and cut his eye in a brief cliché-flashback, explaining the eye-patch. That is the extent of his development.

We know absolutely nothing about the evil ninja, other than some gibberish about how he is an ancient warrior, possibly possessed by an old evil spirit.  It is not explained if the ninja himself is just another guy with a spirit that goes from person to person, or he is the spirit.  And we never know why he killed rich white yuppie-guy in the beginning.  We only know he is evil; that is enough.

Secord is likable enough, I guess.  When he is not leering at Christie, he does manage to come off as a pretty cool guy who does care about her, though the relationship developed pretty quickly, even in “movie-time”.  He is not your typical action hero-type who saves the girl. She is pretty tough in this, and at one point in the story almost kills him while he cowers on the floor in a scene where she is being possessed and is trying to fight off the demon’s power.

Lucinda Dickey’s Christie character is tough, sometimes cynical, and strong-willed.  She is just strong enough that she doesn't come across as “butch”, holding onto just enough feminine vulnerability that she manages to walk the line and not be just an action hero, or a damsel-in-distress.  That says a lot about her as an actress who was so much more than an amazing dancer /performer.

This movie is a good, solid action movie that will take you back to B-movie exploitation films of the 70's and 80's. While it is not exactly a cinematic achievement in storytelling or special effects, it does what it does well.  I am a tremendous fan of the ninja genre, and love campy films.  While the movie did mix martial arts, horror, and action, it didn't really go very far in any of those directions.  Unfortunately, it left the film feeling a bit muddled, as though it were suffering an identity crisis.  The formula of mixing horror and martial arts wouldn't be tried again until a few years later with Chuck Norris's Silent Rage (another movie I'll have to review on this site, though I'm having trouble associating Norris with B-movies). I found the viewing experience of this awesome chop-socky 80's flick akin to eating Chinese food; it was satisfying, but an hour later I wanted more.

~Dax

Final Score: 2 out of 4

The Van Damme / Sho Kosugi Connection:

Nope, totally not looking gay

Lucinda Dickey also worked for Sam Firstenberg on Breakin', which featured an extra you might recognize: a young pre-cocaine Jean-Claude Van Damme dancing like a freak in the background.  JCVD made his mark originally in France in the dancing film Rue Barber and showcased his dancing talent before being known as a karate guy. After his rise to fame with Bloodsport he was criminally under-used when he made his only movie with Sho Kosugi called Black Eagle.

More Useless Trivia

Christie has an arcade game in her apartment called Bouncer (More info on Bouncer here). The game was quite rare, and difficult to locate. It is sort of obscure and difficult to find any information on.  In fact, the game was so rare it wasn't officially released.  It was expensive to mass-produce, and had the unfortunate timing of coming out when laser-disc games were all the rage. The game's hardware used a new tech called Real-Image Processing, ironically known as R.I.P.