Enter the Ninja

Canon’s Ninja Franchises Part Two
American Ninja

Enter the Ninja begins with a white ninja he’s not the black ninja… Then battling his way through the forest filled with red ninjas until he comes to our house. It’s an extremely Canon films sort of movie. It’s also extremely 1980s, once you see the mustache hidden behind the mask of Franco Nero’s white ninja, Cole! The while thing is training exercise of course, but a great way to plunge us right into the genre.

It’s a good thing they frontload it with ninjas by the way, because we’re not gonna be seeing them again for a while. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by decades of superhero movies, but even in the 80s, it always bothered me that the hero of all of these action movies just looked like some… Guy. Very ordinary clothes, jeans and a collared shirt, satin or jean jacket or something… That’s not what I came for. I’m here for ninjas!

Cole finds himself in a small town and aligned with a rancher who’s having problems with the local crime lord. He’s taking down various businesses and wants to take over her ranch. He’s the big industrial type, with a couple of second level stooges to do the legwork. Cole objects to all of it,  and now it’s his job to protect the ranch and take down the crime lord and all of his henchmen. We’ll be well in to the third act before we see any more ninja action… and with less than a half an hour to go. However, back to the middle of the story…

The crime lord figures out that Cole is a ninja, and decides “I want a ninja of my own!“. He sent his right hand man to Japan to recruit a suitable adversary for Cole. In the meantime, cold is getting cozy with the ranch owner and dealing with Vietnam flashbacks.

The ninja kidnaps Marianne, the ranch owner, and burns down all the outbuildings. This is enough, and Cole is ready to don the garb of the white ninja… and invade the clean white office building his enemy dwells in.

This is one of those movies that, from a modern sensibility, drags in the middle. It’s the sort of thing though, that you’re bound to have seen clips of in various compilations. The costume and visuals in that third act are quite striking, but speaking for myself, if I were to ever pull this out again, it would really only be for the last 15 minutes or so.

Still, it’s a fascinating example of what Canon films built their name on in the 80s (there’s an excellent documentary on it called Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films)… And I’m intrigued enough and I’m looking forward to seeing the next two films in the series.