Sho Kosugi's Cannon Ninja trilogy

Edit: this article sucks, all the order of the images are not in the way that i intended and i am too lazy for fix it....fucking blogger.



The Cannon group (well kown for "Delta Froce" and the American Ninja movies) produced three ninja movies with the great Sho Kosugi: Enter the ninja, Revenge of the ninja and Ninja III: The Domination.

Enter the Ninja (1981)
Franco Nero (best known for his roles in many italian western movies) stars in this Ninja adventure, Nero got doubled by Mike Stone (who is also the coreographer and writer of the movie) in the "ninja" scenes.
We have Kosugi as one of the villains, Hasegawa (which he says the memorable quote "He is no ninja !").


The coreography is great, so as the action, the first action scene is just great: a battle/chase scene in a forrest full of ninjas, even the non-ninja action scenes are great to watch.
The action has a few bits of bloody violence, but nothing too realistic or shocking.

This is one of the greatest ninja movies of the 80's, it's worth a viewing for Ninja movie fans and especially fans of the fantastic action movies produced by Cannon !


This is the only movie in the trilogy directed by Menhaem Golan (the owner of the Cannon Group), while the other two movies are directed by Sam Firstenberg.

Revenge of the Ninja (1983)
Sho is back and this time his son Kane shares the action (i have to admit that Kane is the most kickass and less annoying kid that i ever saw in a movie) !


















Kane playing with some nuncucks.... ...Then he knocks-off a bad guy, good work kid !


This has NOTHING to do with Enter the Ninja, it can be considered as a "sequel" just because this is produced by Cannon.
This time, Sho doesn't play the villain, but the main hero, now we can see Sho's kicking assess for the entire movie !
Just like Enter the Ninja, the coreography and the action are great and again, just like Enter the Ninja, we are treated to some bits of bloody violence (bloodier than Enter the Ninja).










"Need a hand ?"

The action scenes are spectacular and my favorite fight scenes from this movie are:
1 Cho (Sho Kosugi) Vs the thieves
















2 Dave (Keith Vitali) and Cho Vs a bunch of ex-cons in a playground.













































3 the Final fight on a rooftop













This is the only movie in the trilogy that has some sex and nudity, remember parents, it's okay if your son watches the wanton slaughter of an innocent family, but if he see's a female butt in a fight scene......it's bad !






The soundtrack is memorable, listen to it !


Bottom line: this is the best movie of the trilogy, even better than Enter the ninja (at least in my opinion), a must see for ninja fans and it will please the martial arts aficionado, because Keith Vitali has some pretty good fight scenes.



Ninja III: The Domination (1984)
This is the craziest ninja movie made in USA, it's like a cross between the Exorcist and a ninja film.
The plot involves some evil ninja spirit that posesses Christie (played by Lucinda Dickey, the star of Breakin'2: Electric Bogaloo !), Yamada (Sho Kosugi) goes to the USA in order to stop this evil spirit !
Again, this has NOTHING to do with Enter the Ninja and Revenge of the Ninja.
Unfortunately, there is no blood.
The first action sequence that takes place in a Golf Camp is pretty awesome and spectacular.

















I feel that this is the "worst" movie from the trilogy, you can't say a lot about it, just watch it in all it's badness.
Only for fans of cheesy ninja movies.

Manhunt Executions

Thanks to my buddies: Alexandre and Allef for showing me the video.

Triple Slash: Intruder, Nikos, Laid to Rest

Intruder (1989)
Scott Spiegel gives us this pretty good and gory slasher.
The story is about some killer entering in a supermarket at night and he starts killing everybody.
I highly reccomend you to avoid the spoilers, because there is a great final twist.
Don't expect gore every minute, but when the gore shows up, it's worth the wait:

Highly reccomended to slasher fans, oh, don't get fooled by marketing strategies, the awesome Bruce Campbell is NOT the main star of the movie, you only see Bruce in the end, you don't even get a close up of his face !


Nikos the Impaler (2003)
Andreas Schnaas (well known for the Violent Shit Trilogy, Zombie'90), delivers this entertaining gore-fest.
The plot involves a barbarian killer who resurrects in New York and he starts a killing spree !






The concept of a slasher movie taking place in a big city (like New York) is interesting, the movie Friday the 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan tried to execute this concept, but it failed.

With a lower budget, Schnaas did a good job in executing this conecpt, with loads of gore, some humour and more !
Unfortunately, the movie has some awful use of CGI, very cheesy.
Reccomended if you want a mindless gore-fest.
The ending is unbelievable, again, avoid the spoilers.


Laid to Rest (2009)
The best horror movie of the decade, 2 thums up to Robert Hall.
The gore is good and the story is interesting: a girl wakes up in a coffin and a masked killer (Chromeskull, in my opinion, the coolest masked killer ever !) wants to kill her.....
Every kill of the movie has a good dose of gore to show.







This is one of the few slasher movies where it's good in both gore and story department.
I don't have more to say, you must check this out by yourself, reccomended to EVERY slasher and horror fans.

Top 10 Bloodiest Action movies

The 10 bloodiest action movies ever made (at least in my opinion), featuring: knife piercings, bloody bullet wounds, blood spraying and more !


10) Hard Boiled (1992)
Before going to america and making shitty movies like Face-off (in my opinion, his only decent american movie is Hard Target), John Woo gave us this awesome action movie, with a great cast (Chow Yun-fat, Anthony Wong, Tony Leung and Philip Kwok), awesome stylized action and many bloody bullet wounds, exit wounds and blood spraying.
This movie is also my all time favorite movie ever.

9) Contraband (1980)
Italian director Lucio Fulci is well known for his gory horror movies (Zombi 2, The Beyond, New York Ripper, A Cat in the brain), i wasn't thinking that this was going to be gory like his "horror" movies.


8) Hitman (2007)
After many shitty videogame adaptations, finally, something goods comes out of a studio.
After the shooting, Fox executives asked to director Xavier Gens for re-shot the movie, because they felt that it was "too violent" and trying to make it more kid-friendly, Gens didn't agreed with re-shooting the movie and thank god that we got what he made, the movie has many bloody bullet wounds and blood spraying and cool action scenes that reminds me of the good old days when John Woo was REALLY AWESOME !


7) Icarus (2010, AKA: Dolph Lundgren is the killing machine)
Starring and directed by Dolph Lundgren.
A very good action movie, with a good soundtrack (it introduced me the band Fall of envy) and good action (with lots of bloody bullet impacts).

6) Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009)
The rematch of a bloody and violent clash: Jean Claude Van Damme Vs Dolp Lundgren, this time more bloody and violent !


5) Robocop (1987)
Before Robocop became a kids TV-series and a cartoon, Robocop was a violent and bloody action movie that it was too much for the censors of the time.

4) Shogun Assassin (1980)
The American "adaptation" of the Lone Wolf and Cub Saga, with many Bloody sword slashings, good soundtrack and badass main character.

3) Versus (2000)
Good action movie, with a mixture of horror, action, gore and zombies.


2) Rambo (the fourth one, 2008)
John Rambo is back, brutal than ever !


1) Ninja Assassin (2009)
Goriest Non-horror movie ever made, with decapitations, head explosions, people getting teared apart and hand severings, but there is only one problem with this movie.....CGI GORE !
Get a taste of the bloodbath: