I
suppose I should have been paying more attention to the movies "How Did
This Get Made" had been riffing about since the pandemic occurred.
Surely besides the recently release "Bloodshot", their producers must
have been making an extra effort to find free movies from streaming
services instead of just lousy ones.
Five minutes later...
There
was no rhyme or reason as far as I could tell. It appears they are not
in league with Shout! Factory which is kind of sad. Are the downloads
lower when they cover a Roger Corman classic or a product of the Cannon
Group? I am just saying that those films are comedy home runs while
"Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets", "Underworld: Blood Wars", and "Space Jam" tend to be horrid ideas that only The Asylum would try to knock off.
Films
with at least 10's of millions of dollars as a minimum budget have to
consider the concept of shame. If they fail, they will be remembered in
infamy. This is why "Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon
Films" was necessary. These films can be fondly remembered for solely
being escapism and not art. It is basically mental porn, a break from
your day or much needed relief.
Historians
do not like to bring up porn when there is art to discuss, so there is a
greater chance that we will lose films like "Ninja III: The Domination"
from our collective consciousness. If this film (or most Cannon flicks
not featuring Chuck Norris) had a plot that made as much sense as "Deep
Throat", perhaps the conversation would be different.
Six
bodyguards were not enough to protect a yuppie scientist as an evil
ninja makes short work of them on a fairway. This is not your
traditional Japanese assassin because stealth is quickly abandoned,
which leads to the police easily finding him on the golf course and
quickly dispatch the entire force to stop this threat, green fees be
damned. Perchance, the ninja may just be respecting the sanctity of the
course. Regardless, he seems to not only mean to take no prisoners, but
goes out of his way to maximize his kill count.
Eventually,
the police shoot him enough times that he retreats to die in seclusion.
Thanks to being discovered by phone lineswomen, Chrissy, he gets a
break. When she goes to assist, he gives her his sword, and along with
it, his spirit. Also being an aerobics instructor, she is the perfect
weapon for the ultimate killer. His ability to take over her body
assures that he will kill the remainder of the police force that is
responsible for his death because only a ninja can destroy another
ninja's spirit.
"Ninja
III: The Domination" provides the audience with everything that was
accepted as cool in the early 80's. The generally considered nonsensical
story (Maybe I am overly observant. I was the excuse a bunch of my high
school classmates used to rewatch "Donnie Darko". Russ will make sense
of it.) allows for anything to happen like possessed arcade machines and
V8 as an aphrodisiac. Every kind of ploy to keep the viewer's interest
seems to lead them being forgiving of a ninja film with no exterior
night scenes.
I
hate to say it, but there is nothing great about the production of the
film. The editing is poor, the visual effects outside of creepy laser
and doll on string effects are bad or nonexistent, we see that our
female lead's nipples have been taped down, and it seemed designed for
HBO airings. F.W. Murnau (per John Malkovich) said, "If it isn't in
frame, it doesn't exist!" Making sure to get all those TV replays,
director Sam Firstenberg crams all the action into the 3x4 perspective.
That results in shooting a ninja while forming a circle to attack more
ridiculous.
The
acting is all passable and you cannot help but enjoy "Big Trouble in
Little China's" James Hong (Lo Pan) as an exorcist. What makes the
feature work is that is so over-the-top with its premise(s) and set
pieces, you want to see how it resolves. It is like the creative forces
knew that this film could only be so bad that it's good, and they were
just careful enough for it to stay at that level. No risks were taken to
try and deliver art, so it does not insult the audience's intelligence.
When
I left "Ninja III: The Domination", my only thought was that we need a
cheesy version of this film every decade. Its charm is that captures
everything we look back shamefully on in terms of trends to ground a
ridiculous story. This is what we should have started seeing when the
parody film genre had played itself out.
"Ninja
III" is fun for fun sake. It will not turn you away with being too
violent, too sexualized, or too mean spirited. You are suppose to just
sit back and forget about your troubles. I was thinking about how I
wished it could have mixed some "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York"
elements when they had a battle in a dilapidated home. Who would not
rather do that than thing about moving to a place where the police may
have dug out a bullet from the bedroom floor? This is one of the best
Cannon Films because it is an absolute escape.
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