Watching American Ninja in 2025 and other such trash

Monday is about movies and sometimes TV. I watched American Ninja again, and got all nostalgic for such trash. But then I always do. That’s today’s newsletter from the highbrow/unibrow film office.

American Ninja was released 40 years ago. It’s a steaming pile of garbage of course, but I love(d) this movie.

I probably first saw it in 1990 or 1991, I do remember I was in Hamilton, which would seem about right. And no, it wasn’t on at the local Film Society, but I understand why you guessed as much.

Michael Dudikoff is Private Joe Armstrong. Instead of going to jail, they conscript him to the army, his mystery ninja skills come in handy when, stationed in the Phillipines, he runs into an army of ninja, and basically wastes them, saves a woman — who just happens to be the kidnapped daughter of his general — and then they go on the run in a form of hiding. Private Joe will need to waste the leftover ninja before the movie can end. So we get a bunch of fight scenes, yo.

We would watch these sorts of films — trashy/cheesy action flicks — on sports trips, billeted with strangers, and wanting to bond in some way, but preferably without speaking. We’d watch Terence Hill and Bud Spencer movies. We’d watch Arnold and Sly. We’d watch Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme. Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee and Jet Li too. Chuck Norris of course. But, actually, you didn’t want the martial arts too sophisticated in this sort of situation; it was all about the lowest common denominator action/martial arts movies. Big dumb movies that were easy to follow, and harmless to watch — they didn’t fill our mind with strange motives or toxic ideals. Yes, they were sexist, and macho and bullshit, but it was all laughable and easy to look right through and look immediately past. You watched, rewound, watched again a few key scenes, and then forgot all about it until it was time to try to one-up a mate in class, or at lunch or after school, regaling them with all the films you had seen.

I actually saw American Ninja 3 first. Go figure. It’s not even the same lead actor. Michael Dudikoff plays the “ninja” for the first two films only. But volume three, it’s David Bradley — who stayed on for American Ninjas four and five also, and such classic fare as Cyborg Cop, and even Cyborg Cop II. I would have watched the third film first because it would have been the one that was available. That’s how you got into a franchise back then. Tore into it and reached straight for the middle. Just like a bag of popcorn. I haven’t seen volumes four and five but I watched the two Dudikoff films, American Ninja, and American Ninja 2: The Confrontation a bunch. In high school, this was classic after school and weekend fare. Find a cheap VHS copy and buy it, or certainly by first and second year of uni, the VHS collection bursting with leftovers and cheap ex-rental sale items.

DALL-E

What was so compelling about this? It was the movie you watched when you did not want to concentrate, but wanted to pass time. They were so easy to follow — all Rambo-types, men alone with incredible skills and anti-social attitudes, they were either put in ‘bring them back home’ roles where they were bad but being used for good, or they were on the run from society as a whole because they were completely misunderstood, and some ‘good’ guy who acted bad (an unwavering cop or army figure) was tasked with tracking them down. Rutger Hauer is another to succeed in such roles. His Blind Fury is one of my absolute jams.

These movies were all largely the same, and that includes whether they were horror, science fiction, martial arts, or action. If you got lucky you could have the lot or close enough to it (Doll Man, They Live) sometimes you could even get a ‘good’ film out of it — Near Dark — or a bad film that was just so, so, so good! (The Toxic Avenger).

These movies were fun. That was the thing. Watch them with friends, watch them alone. Introduce a new person to them, play them as initiation, play them a bunch of times over a few weeks, and then never again.

CHAT-GPT

I watched American Ninja yesterday, on the Amazon Prime streamer. And god, it’s horrific. And of course it was absolutely fantastic. Rainy day, locked in, bored, putting off doing any serious writing, what to do? Couldn’t feel good about watching a movie, better make it something trash! I know: American Ninja.

It has a zero-rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and sits at about 20% or lower on IMDB. That sort of thing is like hearing a film has five stars and critical acclaim to me. I want to see that movie!

To watch these sorts of films now — gosh this one is literally 40 years old — is to step back in time in so many ways. There’s so much about these sorts of films that wouldn’t fly, the non-sequiturs, the lazy scripts, the racism and misogyny, the toxic boasting, the hammy acting. There’s so much about them that is just weirdly wonderful, and it’s largely nostalgia’s honeyed lens of course. But it’s something more than that. Well, maybe it’s not. Maybe that’s all it is. This is absolutely not a recommendation — but I’m sure glad I hit play on American Ninja for (most likely) one final time.

You see, I’m still finding films like this from this era which I’ve never seen before. And I’m still rewatching the Friday the 13th series and so on. It’s comfort-film in cinema-form. It’s utterly stupid, and absolutely mesmerising in some sense.

What are the trash/cult films of this era that you hold dear? I could never get away with a serious dissection of American Ninja and would not ever try. It’s not made for that.

But there was something so warm and ‘wow’ about it as soon as I pressed play. Those pianos and synths that drive the soundtrack. The anger in the eyes of the protagonist, like he’s cross at how many words they are making him say, dammit!

Something so warm. Something so ‘wow’.

I felt like I was home.

Worse than that, I felt like I was in Hamilton.