Ninja 3: The Domination (1984)

This chunk of 80's cheese has recently been given a Blu-Ray release, so I thought it was time to catch up on this Golan Globus masterpiece.

Ninja 3: The Domination doesn't disappoint. Starting with its famous Ninja versus golf-course scene, we learn that for a ninja (Sho Kosugi), stealth isn't that important when you can kill indiscriminately with throwing stars, and are impervious to bullets. After outrunning a police car, taking out a helicopter, two motorbikes, and countless cops, he is eventually cornered, and shot more times that Peter Weller in Robocop. Although this does slow him down a bit, he still manages to escapes.

Lucinda Dickey (Breakin', and everyone's favourite sequel title, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo) stars as Christie, a telecoms repairer by day, Gym instructor by night. When she spots our injured ninja rolling about in the wilderness, she naturally goes to help, only to be attacked by him. She escapes, but instead of calling the police, or getting on with her Glen Campbell day-job, she goes back one more time. After mumbling Japanese and brandishes his sword at her, she start seeing the Ninja's memories.  Its about this time our ninja friend finally croaks, and now Christie seems to occasionally become possessed, and is able to command his ninja skills.
Every night when she is alone in her ultra eighties pad, the room fills with smoke and the lights short out. Arcade machines come to life, and the samurai sword which she kept as a souvenir floats about. In these weird Exorcist/Poltergeist moments, Christie feels the need to go on a cop killing spree for vengeance.

There are plenty of WTF moments in this, and its impossible to write about this movie without mentioning the sleazy gender politics. Jordan Bennett plays Officer Billy, a man who doesn't take no for an answer and even more creepily, uses his police powers to harass Christie into dating him. In fact, I have a alternative reading of this movie that Christie is a feminist vigilante, who uses the ninja skills to take out the sleaze-bags who make up the police department. There's a jaw-dropping scene where one of the girls in Christie's gym class is attacked and harassed by a bunch of scum-bags. Christie is the only one who steps in to help her, even though there are plenty of people around, including Officer Billy. When the gang pick on her instead, Christie's newly found ninja skills kick in and she wipes the floor with them. But at no point does Officer Billy help out. In fact its at this point he arrests her! No wonder Christie's alter-ego is pissed.

Ninja Facts:

Don't worry if you haven't watched the first two movies, they apparently have nothing in common with this film, apart from them starring Sho Kosugi who also choreographed the fight scenes.

V8 juice is not sexy, even on Lucinda Dickey.

"Only a ninja, can destroy a ninja"

Death Wish 3 (1985)

Charles Bronson's acting reaches new heights of somnambulism in this demented flick by the late, great Michael Winner.

In the first two revenge flicks, Winner had killed off everyone remotely close to our anti-hero Paul Kersey. So in Death Wish 3, he takes the franchise to its next logical step. Bronson is now a guardian-angel drifter, who returns to New York to meet an old friend whose being terrorized by a local street gang. 

With the same bad luck as all his other acquaintances, Bronson's pal is beaten to death before he can say 'no dice', and is immediately framed for the murder. The chief of police, played by seasoned-pro Ed Lauter (Longest Yard), recognizes him as the vigilante from the first film, and lets him return on condition he takes out the street scum which is turning the neighbourhood to hell. 

the streets of this unnamed suburb looks more like a post-apocalyptic war zone than 80's NYC. This might be because it was actually shot in London!

The main slime-ball spends a lot of the movie eyeballing Bronson and vice-versa. So its a bit odd that Bronson doesn't target him first. Instead he seem to arbitrary take out car thieves and bag-snatchers, rather than the main perps who are murdering the neighbours one by one. They're quite easy to spot due to the ludicrous gang paint/hairstyle combo.

Some of the funniest bits occur in the tacked on romance with his young beautiful court appointed lawyer who,  for some reason, has a thing for mysterious monosyllabic elderly  murder suspects. She literally begs him for a date, which Bronson begrudgingly  accepts. The date has some hilarious bad dialogue and their relationship ends as badly as you'd expect.

As Bronson's rep grow within the community, the big bad leader calls up dial-a-gang, and a biker group ride into town to spice things up. The movie conclude with a neighbourhood free for all, as everyone grabs a gun and all hell breaks loose.

Bronson barely raises a sweat or his pulse in this movie, which is probably only sensible as he was 64 at the time. The only emotion he portrays is a sad stoicism, and it's not too surprising that this is his last collaboration with Winner. Even though the stupidness makes this film a lot easier to take than the first two, it still contain some ugly scenes.

Things to look out for:

Alex Winters (of Bill and Ted fame) plays a street punk

Marina Sirtis (Dana Troy from Star Trek Next Generation) plays a small role

Street Thug: " They killed the Giggler!"

Kathryn: " I hope you like chicken, it's the only thing I know how to make."

Kersey: " Chickens good. I like chicken"

 Fraker: "Truth is, I hate creeps too. But there's nothing I can do about them. I'm a cop."

This Movie is presently available on YouTube