American Ninja contains what may be the single greatest dialogue exchange in movie history:

“Have you ever heard of Ninjitsu, sir?”

“What?”

“The secret art of assassination?”

“Yeah, of course I have.”

“Well, according to witnesses’ testimony and evidence, this massacre was the work of ninjas.”

There are just some sentences you can never hear enough.

During the Ninja Craze of the 1980s, Israeli producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus had produced several ninja films before they decided that your traditional, Japanese ninjas were all well and good, but what American audiences really wanted was an American ninja.  So they concocted a project called American Ninja for Chuck Norris.  But Chuck wouldn’t do it, as it apparently failed to meet his high artistic standards.  So, enter Michael Dudikoff, a male model with no martial arts experience or acting ability.  Thus, this classic was born.

Dudikoff plays Joe Armstrong, a brooding American G.I. in the Philippines who suffers from amnesia, but who possesses incredible fighting skills.  Or rather, he possesses the ability to change into a stunt double with incredible fighting skills.  Joe’s convoy, carrying arms and the colonel‘s daughter, is ambushed by a bunch of Filipino guerillas.  The soldiers are told not to resist, because apparently stealing weapons from the U.S. Army is no big deal.  Joe’s not having any of that crap, however, and proceeds to start killing Filipinos with one punch, and using various tools as missile weapons, including a crowbar, setting up the least brutal shot of a man getting hit with a crowbar in movie history.  Joe and the other soldiers make short work of the Filipinos, but are then attacked by a horde of ninjas.  So Joe grabs the colonel’s daughter and makes off into the jungle while the ninjas slaughter the other soldiers.

We later discover all this is the work of an arms dealer named Romero, who sounds French.  He has his own private army of ninjas, headed by the dreaded Black Star Ninja.  Romero and Black Star decide that since Joe possess ninja skills, he’s too great a threat and must be eliminated.  Will Joe survive the ninja attempts on his life?  Will he find happiness with the colonel’s daughter?  Will he discover the secret of his past?  Will he defeat the Black Star Ninja without disturbing his perfectly blow-dried hair?

Yes.  Yes he will.  Along the way you also have motorcycles jumping walls, a Raiders of the Lost Ark-style chase scene with a big truck, ninjas dropping from the ceiling, ninjas popping out of barrels, ninjas fighting with swords, ninjas throwing pointy bits of metal, ninjas disappearing in clouds of smoke, and ninjas disappearing without the benefit of a smoke cloud.  Also, the Black Star Ninja has the ability to shoot fire and lasers from his bare hands.

If you like ninjas, this is the movie for you, as there hundreds of evil ninjas all over the place, although they’re no more effective than any other 80s action villains.  They exist solely to be killed by Dudikoff with one punch, or to be blown up by the U.S. Army in the explosion filled climax.  Recommended for fans of ninja, silly fight scenes, and things exploding.

Fun fact:  When I was a kid, I learned the word eviscerate while watching this movie.  See, at one point, our hero guts one of his enemies with his sword in non-graphic fashion, and my brother and I were all “whoa!” probably because we were about 5 and 7, respectively.  My dad was walking by and asked us what was going on, and we explained what had just happened.  “He eviscerated him, then.  That’s what that’s called.”  So, ninja movies:  fun and educational.