Ken Gampu | 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:

Martial artist Steve Hunt (James Ryan) is back!

When last we saw Steve, he was defeating a Nazi war criminal in Kill or Be Killed. In this sequel, James is recruited by Kandy Kane (Anneline Kristel) to rescue Dr. Horatio Kane (John Ramsbottom) from the evil Marduk (Michael Mayer). Marduk has forced Dr. Kane to develop a drug that allows him to control the minds of anyone who is injected with it. Marduk wants to put the drug into the world’s water supply but, for now, he is content to control the isolated town of Irontown.

Before Steve can rescue Dr. Kane, he has to put together a crew. Steve recruits four of his fellow fighters, Hot Dog (Bill Flynn), Gorilla (Ken Gampu), Gypsy Bill (Norman Robinson), and The Fly (Stan Schmidt). Along with Kandy Kane, the team infiltrates Irontown and faces off against Marduk’s champion fighter, Optimus (Edie Dorie).

If Kill or Be Killed owed a lot to Enter the Dragon, Kill and Kill Again is more of a martial arts-themed take on Mission: Impossible. Marduk, with his fake beard and his name that makes him sound like a cartoon dog, is never an intimidating villain and it turns out that it is laughably easy to defeat him. Instead, the movie’s emphasis is on Steve putting together his team and everyone playing their part to free the people of Irontown. Kill or be Killed‘s Olga is nowhere to be seen as Steve falls for Kandy Kane.

Unfortunately, the fights are pretty boring this time around and James Ryan doesn’t really have the screen presence to be a believable James Bond or Ethan Hunt-style secret agent. Especially when compared to the relatively serious Kill Or Be Killed, there is a good deal of broad comedy in Kill and Kill Again, which makes it difficult to any of Marduk’s plans seriously. The best action films convince you that only the hero has what it takes to defeat the villain but Marduk is such a weak bad guy that anyone could defeat him. Even if Steve and the crew hadn’t shown up at Iron Town, Marduk probably would have defeated himself in just a few more months.

Originally, there was supposed to be a third film about the adventures of Steve Hunt but Film Ventures, the company behind Kill and Kill Again, went bankrupt before filming could being. Steve Hunt’s adventures came to an end but the first two Kill films will live forever.