Posted: 11/29/2011

Enter The Ninja

(1981)

by Joe Sanders

Available now on DVD from MGM Home Video

Chances are that Enter the Ninja is exactly what you’re expecting it to be. Terrible. So, your enjoyment of the movie really depends on how much you enjoy terrible movies. Personally, I love really bad films. I seek them out. And in my quest to find the worst movies ever made, I’ve found some very strong contenders. Enter the Ninja doesn’t even come close to the title of worst movie ever made, and that’s saying something about the kinds of garbage I’m able to sit through.

The story is about Cole (Franco Nero), a middle-aged white man who has studied to become a Ninja. After his training, he goes to visit his friend, Frank (Alex Courtney), presumably in Mexico somewhere but it’s never really established. Frank is being terrorized by a powerful and eccentric oil tycoon named Charles Venarius (Christopher George), who wants to run Frank off his land and drill for oil. Venarius sends wave after wave of hardened criminals to scare Frank off his land, but each thug is beaten down by Cole’s Ninja skills. Thus the movie goes predictably on until the final showdown between Cole and Venarius.

Convenient plot points drag the film down a lot. Probably the most ridiculous one is the forced romance between Cole and Frank’s wife, Mary-Ann (Susan George). Apparently they needed to put in a love interest for Cole, and only knew one woman who could be in there movie, so they have to go out of their way to establish that Frank is a huge jerk and not worthy of his wife; giving her permission to cheat on him and not lose the audience’s approval. There is absolutely no chemistry between Franco Nero and Susan George; as if they could feel the bored eyes of future audience members watching them as they filmed.

It’s vaguely established why Cole decides to study Ninjutsu. Something about him being in a war and after the war is done going to “look for the next battle.” It’s not the most organic character moment because we’re lead to believe that the violence and killing of the war filled him with guilt, but then he decides to study to become a much more dangerous and powerful assassin.

The movie is basically just stupid fun. Like Beverly Hills Ninja except that this film isn’t trying to be funny. It’s everything you’ve come to love about 80s action movies, assuming you’ve at some point come to love 80s action movies, and once you decide to view the film’s many many red herrings and misdirects as a metaphor for a Ninja’s ability to deceive and confuse his enemy, then you might make it through this with some small amount of enjoyment.

Special features include only a theatrical trailer for the movie.

Joe Sanders is a playwright and college instructor in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He has a Master’s degree in playwriting and a Bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Western Michigan University, where he currently teaches Thought and Writing.

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