Cedric Sundstrom | Through the Shattered Lens

The new American Ninja, Sean Davidson (David Bradley), travels to a remote island nation and gets captured while investigating a corrupt British ninja named Colonel Mulgrew (James Booth), who is trying to help an evil sheikh (Ron Smerczac) purchase a suitcase nuke. With Sean and his associates being held hostage in an old British fort, the original American Ninja, Joe Armstrong (Michael Dudikoff), is called in to rescue Sean and thwart the terrorist’s plot. Joe has retired from the Ninja game and is now work as a member of the Peace Corps but he’s persuaded to battle evil one last time. In typical Cannon Films fashion, he has an army of rebels backing him up as he attacks Mulgrew’s compound.

The fourth American Ninja film teams up Michael Dudikoff with the David Bradley, who took over the American Ninja franchise with the third film. The idea was probably to use the presence of Dudikoff to give Bradley the credibility that he lacked in his previous American Ninja outing but the film actually sabotages David Bradley further by having Bradley spend nearly the entire film tied up while Dudikoff gets to fight the bad guys. Dudikoff and Bradley barely even interact in the film, with Bradley mostly being present for the slowly-paced opening while Dudikoff shows up for the more exciting, fight-filled finale. It’s almost as if the film was set up as an elaborate prank to make Sean look even less worthy as a replacement as Joe. While it’s true that Sean does get to fight Mulgrew at the end of the movie, Joe gets to fights the Super Ninja (Kely McClung). Fighting a Super Ninja is always going to be more impressive than fighting a British guy.

American Ninja 4 is a Cannon film but it was definitely not made during Cannon’s heyday and it is never as memorable as any of the previous American Ninja films. The poster features Dudikoff and Bradley both ready to battle, much like those old issues of Marvel Team-Up that would feature both Spider-Man and the Human Torch working together to battle Doctor Doom, Doctor Octopus, or any of the other evil comic book doctors. (Marvel had a lot of them.) Bringing the two American Ninjas together would seem to promise double the action but instead, it’s just an underwhelming team-up. Cannon would have been better served by adapting the issue of Marvel Team-Up where Spider-Man and John Belushi battled the Silver Samurai. That was an exciting story!

The American Ninja Saga:

Is an American Ninja film still an American Ninja film if it doesn’t feature the American Ninja?

That is the question posed by American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt. Michael Dudikoff, who played Joe Armstrong in the first two films, is nowhere to be found. Instead, he has been replaced by Doug Bradley. Fortunately, the movie does not try to pass Bradley off as being Joe Armstrong. Instead, he is a new character, CIA agent Sean Davidson. Sean’s father was a martial arts champion who was killed by gangster while Sean watched. Sean later went to Japan where he was trained in the ways of the ninja. Sean is an American ninja, even if he’s not the American Ninja.

He also happens to be best friends with Jackson (Steve James), who previously appeared in the first two films and who never comments on the coincidence of having two best friends who both happen to be American ninjas. Jackson, along with sidekick Dexter (Evan J. Klisser) and lady ninja Chan Lee (Michele B. Chan), team up with Sean after Sean’s sensei is kidnapped by a terrorist known as The Cobra (Marjoe Gortner). The Cobra, who has a team of his own ninjas, has developed a poison that he wants to test on Sean.

The plot makes as much sense as the previous two American Ninja films and, somehow, everyone forgets about finding the sensei before the movie ends. As an actor, Doug Bradley is no Michael Dudikoff (which is saying something) but he’s good in the fight scenes and that is the only thing that really matters. The whole film is nearly worth it just to see former child evangelist Marjoe Gortner in the role of The Cobra. Dudikoff is missed but at least his absence meant that Steve James got to do more in American Ninja 3 than he did in the first two films. Sadly, just three years after this film’s release, James died as the result of pancreatic cancer. He was 41 years old.