Fight Clip Club: American Ninja

Think you’re some kind of a badass, karate boy?

Let’s take a trip together again, back in time and taste to the mid-1980s. Where ninjas were cool, ballads were earnest, and we hadn’t yet sunk into the morass of ‘90s irony and postmodern ennui. Enter American Ninja.

As far as martial arts films go, the 1950s and ‘60s were very much about karate; the ‘70s saw a huge boom in kung fu, both from Bruce Lee and Blaxploitation alike; but then in the ‘80s for some reason, we all fell in love with ninjas.

I’m no cinematic historian, but the extent of my humanities and martial arts knowledge makes me think that Stephen K. Hayes likely had a lot to do with this ninja surge, as did the explosion in popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Any of you who are actual historians, toss yer two cents’ worth into the comments for me on that, if you like. (Kurosawa being artsy-popular and the original Shogun, too, probably, yeah?)

For what it’s worth, I can’t recommend you watch American Ninja – it’s in that grey area of: is it really bad, or so bad it’s good? If you are a martial arts movie aficionado, you could have a fun time with a festive beverage or snack and a lot of MST3K-ing it. But it’s not good. Velveeta cheese at best. And this clip is terrible quality, too, so I apologize for that, but it’s the only complete clip of this scene I could find. Let’s check it out and talk it through together, shall we?

Fight Clip Club is the only Zuko’s Musings series that is paywalled. If you’d like to join the club but can’t do the fee, drop me a line and I’ll lift the velvet rope for you.