The Shinobi Ninja (1981)

The Shinobi Ninja (1981) 

Starring: Tadashi Yamashita, Yasuhiro Shikamura (Luk Chuen), Karen Shepherd, Eric Lee
Director: Yasuhiro Shikamura (Luk Chuen)
Action Director: Yasuhiro Shikamura (Luk Chuen)

I was going to do a full-length write-up of this for my 'zine, but I realized that I had so little information about it that I decided just to cover it here. The IMDB lists this as a Canadian production, but given that the open credits are all in Japanese (save the gaijin actors, including a young Karen Shepherd) and the film is dubbed in English, I'm going to assume that it was just a low-budget Japanese film made to capitalize on the nascent "Ninja Craze" of the early-mid 1980s. Somehow, it found its way onto home video in the West and did not vanish into complete obscurity.

The film opens with a history of ninjitsu, set to a series of well-drawn manga images. To boot, there were two big ninja clans during the Tokugawa Shogunate: the Iga and the Koga clans. The former allied themselves with the Shogun while the latter were hunted into obscurity. Switch to modern-day Tokyo, where an American CIA agent is being chased in the streets by a bunch of men in blue jumpsuits, sneakers, and ski masks. Those will be our ninja of the movie: the "descendents" of the Iga Ninja. They kill the CIA agent and we cut to a meeting between a bunch of white guys and Japanese law enforcement establishing that several foreign agents have been murdered in Japan by masked assailants. One of the Japanese officials believes that ninja are behind the killings, but his theory is laughed away by the white guys.

He goes to see an old martial artist, who directs him to Ken Suzuki (Tadashi Yamashita, of Za Karate and The Octagon), the last remaining member of the Koga Clan. Suzuki is teaching martial arts in Los Angeles and finds himself being attacked by a bunch of random white guys. It turns out to be a test of his skills and he is hired to be part of a team of killers meant to defeat the ninja in Japan. He is initially reluctant, but decides to join when he learns that he will be able to avenge the wrongs perpetuated against his clan by the Iga. There are seven other martial artists/professional assassins joining him, including a Chinese kung fu master (Eric "The King of Kata" Lee) and a woman (Karen Shepherd, of Righting Wrongs).

Assassin Number 1 (a white guy), tries to assassinate the rogue politician who hired the Iga ninjas at his home (he has a document that has some plan to restore Japan to its former militaristic state), but is overwhelmed and killed. Assassin Number 2 (also a white guy) is seduced by a female kunoichi (giving the film some brief T&A) and stabbed to death by her in his hotel room. Four of the other assassins carry out a hit on one of the politician's contacts in a long set piece set in the snow. Two of them are killed while Eric Lee and Karen Shepherd are captured. For much of the movie, Ken Suzuki has been hanging around in the background. He finally steps up to the plate, kills most of the ninja and challenges their leader (played by the film's director) to a duel.

Although there is more than a fair amount of ninja action in this one, there is the issue of the outfits, which are very un-ninja like. Worse than that is the script, which jumps from one set piece to another with no introduction, establishing scene, etc. Just how did the first assassin know where the target was staying, let alone who exactly he was? How did the second assassin meet the kunoichi, let alone charm her (or let her charm him) into bed? Just who exactly are the other four assassins trying to kill in the snow? How did they know he would be there? There is just a lot of random things that happen with no explanation, which was honestly the same problem that Sister Street Fighter had--i.e., how did she always show up in the right place for a fight to break out? How did she know to be at that exact place at that exact time? 

The film's director is Yasuhiro Shikamura, aka Yasuyoshi Shikamura, aka Luk Chuen. Luk Chuen was a Hong Kong-born Japanese (or half-Japanese?) martial artist who was a common fixture in 1970s kung fu cinema. He found work as an action director at the same time he was acting, offering his talents to films like Bamboo House of Dolls; The Gold Connection; and even Jackie Chan's The Magnificent Bodyguards, among many others. He first tried his hand at directing in 1978 with Deadly Chase for Justice starring Michael Chan. This would have been his second directorial effort. He later went on to direct Cypress Tigers, the Hong Kong version of Tango and Cash starring Simon Yam and Conan Lee. He also choreographed the Killer's Romance, an adaptation of "Crying Freeman" starring Simon Yam and boasting a supposedly spectacular sword fight.

I'm guessing that Shikamura also staged the fight scenes for the movie. The fight choreography is quite solid, especially by 1970s/80s Japanese standards. Sometimes it looks like a proto-type for the 1980s kickboxing that Jackie and Sammo would be doing a year or two later. It also helps that the filmmakers cast real martial artists in all the roles (except for maybe the one-armed marksman). Shepherd gets two opportunities to show off her kung fu and kicking skills--she apparently studied under one of the Dacascos family members. Eric Lee gets to show off the snake style in his fights, especially during the snow sequence. He looks a lot better than he did in Weapons of Death. Tadashi Yamashita is in "Bronson Lee" mode, that is, he does a lot of Bruce Lee mannerisms in his fights. His moves look good, though his bar fight with the ninja has a jerky, start-stop quality to the execution. He does a lot better in the climax.

People looking for ninja antics should get their fill, the silly modern-day clothing notwithstanding. I want traditional robes and masks on my ninja, not ski masks, con sarn it! But you get to see ninja fighting with kunai, shuriken, katana, bows and arrows, yari (straight spear), kusari-fundo (weighted chain), and kusari-kama (sickle-and-chain). The snow sequence features ninjas on skis and ninjas on sleds. The climax has this really long and silly sequence of Tadashi Yamashita being "chased" by a ninja on a hang glider, which just lazily flies around in circles. Eric Lee and Karen Shepherd are wasted in the finale: they storm a house looking for a document, but the house is empty. No guard ninja hanging around there, so no fighting from them. Boo. The final one-on-one is a sword vs spear duel that is well choreographed (by Japanese movie standards), if too short.

On the other hand, the entire movie runs a good 10 minutes too long--there is no reason for a film with this little plot to run 104 minutes. A few edits here and there (including removing the hang glider and the "storm the empty house" sequences) could have improved the pace dramatically. That is a problem I find in a lot of Japanese movies, including the Japanese cuts of Godzilla films. They tend to meander and need a few seconds cut here and a minute snipped there to have better pacing.  All things said, The Shinobi Ninja is little more than a curio from the days of the Ninja Craze, but it at least boasts some pretty good fighting (especially if you compare it to a lot of American and Filipino films from the same time).