The Films (ENTER 3. REVENGE 3.5/ 5)

Cannon films were one of the top dogs of independent cinema of the 1980’s. Making bigger than usual budget films for B or C level cinema. Known for milking or creating any wild trend, Cannon was the peak of wild and fun B movies. Whether they were good, bad, or just plain ugly. Umbrella entertainment has pulled together two of their more popular films, ENTER THE NINJA (1981) and REVENGE OF THE NINJA (1983), in one action packed Blu-ray disc. Let’s witness the birth of ninja boom.

ENTER THE NINJA tells the story of Cole (Franco Nero), a Texan war veteran who has recently completed his training as a ninja warrior. With this out of the way, he decides to visit an old war buddy who is now living in the Philippines. Once there he discovers that his friend Frank (Alex Courtney) and his wife Mary (Susan George) have been terrorized by a local criminal named Venarius (Christopher George) to sale their farm. Cole chooses to stay and protect their farm, but things start to look grim when Cole’s former rival Ninja Hasegawa (Sho Kosugi) is hired to kill him.

ENTER THE NINJA was one of the first US based movies to westernize Ninjas. While first being introduced in the James Bond movie YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967), ENTER morphed the image of the ninja to suit the needs of the American public. Instead of stealthy assassins in the night, The Cannon group turned Ninjas into color coded stunt masters, usually the fairest away from being secretive or useful. Added to this was the level of absurd and sometimes cheesy ninja powers such as disappearing and reappearing anywhere in the room.

While this may sound bad, the movie delivers mostly on its goals of an exciting action fest for Franco Nero to star. There are some low points. Director Menahem Golan (DELTA FORCE, THE APPLE), who is one of the head owners of Cannon, has a tough time keeping a tone. The movie slides from serious action, to comedy, and finally into tone deaf. The biggest issues the film had are: one dubbing Franco Nero with another actor, and two the wildly uneven soundtrack. For Franco, he is robbed of his usually charismatic voice, and replaced by a seriously disinterested “Texian”. As for the music, a good chunk of the film has energetic and booming action music, but at other times starts to place zany comic music in the worst possible spots.

While taking Nero seriously as a white ninja is one of the goofier elements of the movie, He does a great job keeping face and making the movie fun. Susan George (STRAW DOGS) does a decent job as the bored wife, and her more over the top yelling fits are a blast to watch. As the lead villain Christopher George (GRIZZLY, CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD) is having the time of his life as the slimy and charming badie. He pushes himself to 11 and his temper tantrums are the stuff of legend. One of the highlights is of course Sho Kosugi, who struggles with his lines, but delivers on his action scenes. More of him in REVENGE.

REVENGE OF THE NINJA tells the story of Cho (Sho Kosugi), a former ninja now living in America after the massacre of his family in Tokyo. Only his son Kane (Kane Kosugi) survived. Cho now owns a gallery that displays a series of rare dolls. Little does he know that his business partner Braden (Arthur Roberts) is secretly a evil ninja sailing heroin through the gallery. Once Braden is doubled crossed by the local mafia and head boss Califano (Mario Gallo), he swears revenge and starts to murder all the gangsters.  Trouble worsens when Cho becomes stunk in the mix when his mother is killed in the cross fire. Now Cho must settle the score.

REVENGE is not really a sequel to ENTER THE NINJA, it’s more of a standalone vehicle for Kosugi to shine. And that is where this silly movie improves over the previous film. REVENGE is at once a good movie and a goofy one. The good parts relate to how intense and focused Kosugi is. But sadly, most of the film’s run time is spend on Arthur Roberts and his evil ninja. It’s just not believable for him to be this master warrior. So, for the first 45 or so minutes, Kosugi is a side character in his own movie. On a more positive side, Kosugi owns every scene he is in. The van chases in the middle of the film is standard for 80’s action cinema but what makes it stand out are all the furious close ups of Kosugi as he is beaten and is kicking ass.

This time around the film is directed by Sam Firstenberg (AMERICAN NINJA), and he does a fine job balancing the action scenes. Unlike ENTER, there is not as much as a tonal shift from action to comedy. Aside from a few bad moments, REVENGE is also a decently made action movie. The various car chases, fist fights, shootouts, and ninja stunts are excellently handled. Firstenberg would move on to making the even more popular AMERICAN NINJA movies, and REVENGE can also be seen as the true birth of the over the top Ninja craze. The movie also serves as the blue print for the many cut and paste ninja movies of Godfrey Ho, IFD, and Filmark.

Audio/Video (4/5)

Umbrella does a fine job upgrading these two Ninja classics to Blu-ray. Each film comes with a 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio track. The sound mixes are well balanced, with ENTER suffering some from its wildly off centered sound effects and music ques.  REVENGE has the better of the two tracks, with some excellent action effects, such as ninja stars throwing sounds and gun fire. English subtitles are not included.

The 1080p HD transfers are a wonder to behold, with a few minor issues. ENTER has a few moments of bad motion blur and REVENGE is overly bright during the action climax. The picture is sharply focused with well-defined black levels.

Extras (1/5)

Trailers for each film.

Overall (4/5)

The good folks at Umbrella entertainment have packed two of the more enjoyable Cannon films together on one affordable disc. While it would’ve been great to see some extras on these discs, The low price and transfers make this a perfect introduction to the wild and sometimes hilarious world of Cannon films. Recommended.