American Ninja

The Bottom Line

A basic action movie from the '80s but it doesn't hold up.

Plot

An American soldier with special skills gets posted to an island base where someone keeps hijacking military convoys. When his convoy gets hit, he's cooperating right up until someone hits the Colonel's daughter, and then he intervenes. His memory of his childhood is mostly gone from an explosion on an island, but he has obviously had training. When the hijackers send Ninjas after him, it becomes obvious though that his skills are way more than just simple techniques.

What I Liked

Some of the basic fight scenes are fine, particularly between Joe and the Black Star Ninja. And the opening sequence is really well done. There's a scene where they shoo...

The acting is terrible, the scripts and dialogue are terrible, the plot is [extremely] shallow. But, I love this movie... from the 1st time a watched it (a straight to VHS video tape). The fighting sequences are actually pretty well done, and believable.

You'll get many laughs out of the non-sensical dialogue and some good entertainment out of the action and fighting scenes.

A diamond in the rough, that's for sure.