P.O.W.: THE ESCAPE (US - 1986) Directed by Gideon Amir. Written by Jeremy Lipp, James Bruner, Malcolm Barbour and John Langley. Cast: David Carradine, Mako, Charles R. Floyd, Steve James, Phil Brock, Daniel Demorest, Tony Pierce, Steve Freedman, James Acheson, Rudy Daniels, Ken Metcalfe, Kenneth Weaver, Jim Gaines, Eric Hahn, Henry Strzlkowski. (R, 89 mins) "He's got one rule that's never been broken: everybody goes home!" Released by Cannon in the spring of 1986, the Namsploitation outing P.O.W.: THE ESCAPE isn't a MISSING IN ACTION sequel but it might as well be. It shares one MISSING IN ACTION co-writer and its plot has quite a few surface similarities with MISSING IN ACTION 2: THE BEGINNING, but instead of Chuck Norris as Col. James Braddock, we get David Carradine as Col. Jim Cooper, a military legend and Pentagon strategist who volunteers for One Last Mission. It's 1973 Vietnam, five days before the cease fire, and the US is launching a last hurrah raid on a known POW camp out of concern that the men will be forgotten after the cease fire and declared MIA. Cooper's rule is "Everybody goes home!" but that's not the case when the small unit accompanying him is wiped out in a chopper explosion waiting for Cooper, who went back to save the injured young Teague (Kenneth Weaver), whose fate was sealed the moment he kissed a cross on his necklace and declared "I got my own insurance right here." Instead of freeing the men, Cooper ends up captured with them in a camp run by the ruthless Capt. Vinh (THE SAND PEBBLES Oscar-nominee Mako). Vinh is informed that Cooper is now the highest-ranking American in captivity and his commanders want him taken to Hanoi for a sham trial before being executed, but Vinh has another idea: he wants Cooper to take him to Saigon, where Vinh will renounce his allegiance to North Vietnam and defect to the US to join relatives in Miami.
Of course, Vinh has ulterior motives, mostly involving an ever-growing stash of gold and jewelry he's confiscated from American POWs over the years that he intends to cash in once he's in America, but for the time being Cooper agrees to the plan, with one caveat: the POWs go with them, because everybody goes home. Complicating matters is loose cannon POW Sparks (Charles R. Floyd), who attempts one failed escape before constantly putting everyone in jeopardy looking out for #1, basically functioning as this film's "Waingro from HEAT" before the filmmakers grant him an unlikely redemption in the end. Just out on Blu-ray from Scorpion (because physical media is dead), P.O.W.: THE ESCAPE was the directing debut of Gideon Amir, who logged some time in the trenches for Cannon, doing first AD and second unit work on films like THE AMBASSADOR and MISSING IN ACTION, and co-writing AMERICAN NINJA before Menahem Golan gave him a shot at making his own movie. Amir does a serviceable job and keeps the film moving, but there's a couple of hiccups, namely a bizarre moment when a nighttime Jeep chase just abruptly ends and cuts to the next morning. Amir has only directed one other movie to date--1989's ACCIDENTS--but remains active in cable and streaming TV shows, most recently as a producer on Amazon Prime's CARNIVAL ROW and DC Universe's DOOM PATROL.
Shot mostly in the Philippines (as evidenced by the presence of Cirio H. Santiago regulars like Ken Metcalfe, Jim Gaines, Eric Hahn, and Henry Strzalkowski in bit parts), with some obvious reshoots in L.A. (the scenery's different and Carradine's hair is longer in some shots), P.O.W. utilized much of AMERICAN NINJA's crew and, most notably, co-star Steve James, again relegated to sidekick duty as Jonston, a POW who becomes Cooper's closest confidant en route to Saigon. It's always great to see James, a terrific actor with top-notch action skills who succumbed to pancreatic cancer in 1994 at just 41, and one who was always cited as a genuinely great guy by everyone who worked with him. Cannon gave James a lot of work, but they never used him to his full potential. Even when he finally secured top billing in 1989's Michael Dudikoff-less AMERICAN NINJA 3: BLOOD HUNT, he was still saddled playing second fiddle to new American Ninja David Bradley, when simply handing the franchise over to James would've been a much smarter decision. P.O.W. seems more interested in making a star of "Charles R. Floyd," who had appeared on the last few years of the long-running daytime soap THE EDGE OF NIGHT under the name "Charles Grant," and who, according to Amir in a newly-shot interview on the Blu-ray, was seen by Golan as "a new James Dean." Not quite. Not helping Floyd/Grant--either an aspiring actor or the least cooperative person in witness protection--was the fact that he acted in three different Cannon films under three different names. He's "Charles R. Floyd" here, he was "Charles Floye" in THE DELTA FORCE, and he was credited in RAPPIN' as "Charles Flohe." Following P.O.W., he found consistent work on more daytime soaps like ANOTHER WORLD, SANTA BARBARA, and THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, reverting back to his "Charles Grant" name.
P.O.W.: THE ESCAPE would be one of the last times Carradine headlined a relatively wide theatrical release, even though he never stopped working until his death in 2009, and he was so prolific that he still turned up in over a dozen movies you've never heard of that were trickling out as late as 2013. He was still getting high-profile TV gigs like the miniseries NORTH AND SOUTH and NORTH AND SOUTH BOOK II around the time of P.O.W., but he would soon embark on a long stretch of mostly crummy B-movies and D-list straight-to-video titles. A supporting role as the villain in the 1990 Mel Gibson/Goldie Hawn comedy BIRD ON A WIRE was his only dalliance with the A-list until Quentin Tarantino gave him a brief respite with the KILL BILL films in 2003 and 2004. That got him some better TV guest spots in the short term, but the resurgence that everyone was expecting never happened, and he was soon back to garbage movies, and that includes his supporting turn as "Poon Dong" in 2009's unwatchable CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE. He's a solid hero in P.O.W.: THE ESCAPE, and definitely brings more of a loose screen presence to the proceedings than the more stoical Norris did to the MISSING IN ACTION films. He even goes one step further with the blatant "America! Fuck yeah!" jingoism by spending most of the climactic battle literally draped in the American flag as he blows away VC commies before one of the guys leads them all in a "Proud Mary" sing-along. Suck on that, Chuck!
P.O.W.: THE ESCAPE opening in Toledo, OH on 4/4/1986
Written and directed by James Glickenhaus. Cast: Ken Wahl, Alberta Watson, Klaus Kinski, William Prince, Jeremiah Sullivan, Joaquim de Almeida, Peter Hooten, Steve James, Alexander Spencer, Jeffrey Jones, Zeljko Ivanek, Ron Harper, Ned Eisenberg, David Lipman, Tom Wright, George Strait. (R, 88 mins) Ken Wahl was poised to be a Next Big Thing on more than one occasion, but fate and some really bad luck repeatedly intervened to prevent it from happening. Born in either 1954, 1956, or 1957 depending on the source, Wahl debuted to much acclaim in Philip Kaufman's THE WANDERERS (1979) and was soon co-starring with Paul Newman in the gritty time capsule FORT APACHE, THE BRONX (1981). The 1981 adventure RACE FOR THE YANKEE ZEPHYR was an Australian/New Zealand co-production that only made it into a handful of US theaters in 1984 under the title TREASURE OF THE YANKEE ZEPHYR. 1982 saw Wahl clashing with Bette Midler on the set of the troubled box-office bomb JINXED, a doomed project that almost ruined the careers of everyone involved and ended up being the great Don Siegel's final film as a director. The same year, he starred in the international espionage thriller THE SOLDIER, writer/director James Glickenhaus' follow-up to his 1980 surprise hit THE EXTERMINATOR. THE SOLDIER didn't do much business in theaters, but like TREASURE OF THE YANKEE ZEPHYR, it found a home in its seemingly daily airings on HBO throughout the '80s. It's a convoluted Reagan-era spy/terrorism thriller with KGB agents embedded in the US by Soviet spymaster Ivan (Jeremiah Sullivan) hijacking a plutonium shipment and taking it to an oil field in Saudi Arabia, where they threaten to detonate it and destroy 50% of the world's oil supply unless Israel withdraws from the West Bank. Believing Islamic extremists are behind the plutonium hijacking, the US President (William Prince) is prepared to attack Israel if it means saving the oil, but the CIA chief (Ron Harper) proposes another solution: "The Soldier." A nameless covert ops agent who officially doesn't exist, The Soldier (Wahl) and his team (including Peter Hooten, Joaquim de Almeida, and future Cannon regular Steve James) go to work. The Soldier teams with Mossad agent Susan Goodman (Alberta Watson), and eventually figures out that the Soviets are behind the heist, which becomes obvious after an attempt is made on The Soldier's life by duplicitous KGB agent Dracha, played by legendary cinematic and real-life madman Klaus Kinski, putting in a day's work at an Austrian ski resort.
THE SOLDIER is best-known for one sequence, but it's one for the ages: where Dracha traps The Soldier in a ski lift and has one of his guys try to take him out with a rocket launcher, only to have The Soldier jump out and lead Dracha's guys on a truly incredible ski chase with the stunt guys doing some pretty death-defying stuff. There's also a memorable scene in a shitkicker bar where Steve James beats the shit out of some racist, redneck urban cowboys while a just-breaking-out George Strait and his band play. There's also some fantastic bloody squib work throughout, but otherwise, THE SOLDIER is a strange and oddly-paced film. It runs a brief 88 minutes but still seems padded with tons of filler, and Wahl is absent for several stretches throughout while we see his team do their thing, infiltrating a missile silo in Kansas to aim a nuke at Moscow if the Soviets don't withdraw from Saudi Arabia. There's a long meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister and his cabinet, a long meeting with the President and his national security adviser (Jeffrey Jones), and a long interrogation of a terror suspect by Susan, and other than an opening sequence where The Soldier cleans up any trace of a CIA hit in Philadelphia, Wahl doesn't really join the main plot until 25 minutes in. It's also marred by a weak conclusion that looks like the crew just stopped and called it a wrap, almost like a climactic action sequence that should be there is missing. While it's admirable that Glickenhaus demonstrated some ambition and tried to make something a little more substantive in terms of its political storyline, it too often feels like a 42nd Street grindhouse version of a John Le Carre novel, and that's a mix that just doesn't work well together. After THE SOLDIER and JINXED, Wahl appeared in 1984's barely-released PURPLE HEARTS with Cheryl Ladd before his career faced its first setback when he was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident on his way to meet with Diane Keaton about co-starring in MRS. SOFFEL (Mel Gibson eventually got the part). Wahl was out of commission for a year and upon his recovery, found his movie career was stalled and he shifted to TV, where he eventually landed his career role in 1987, starring as undercover FBI agent Vinnie Terranova, infiltrating the mob on the CBS series WISEGUY.
THE SOLDIER opening in Toledo, OH on October 1, 1982
THE TAKING OF BEVERLY HILLS (US - 1991) Directed by Sidney J. Furie. Written by Rick Natkin, David Fuller and David J. Burke. Cast: Ken Wahl, Matt Frewer, Harley Jane Kozak, Robert Davi, Lee Ving, Branscombe Richmond, Lyman Ward, Michael Bowen, William Prince, George Wyner, Tony Ganios, Ken Swofford, Raymond Singer, Bob Golic. (R, 96 mins) Ken Wahl found more success with WISEGUY than he ever had on the big screen. He was nominated for an Emmy and won a Golden Globe in 1990, the same year he abruptly left the series at the end of its third season over "creative differences" with the network. They decided to carry on without him, bringing in Steven Bauer (SCARFACE) to play a new character investigating Vinnie Terranova's disappearance, possibly at the hands of South American drug cartels. Nobody was really happy with the retooling, and CBS cancelled WISEGUY nine episodes into its fourth season. Freed from his commitment to the show, Wahl was given another shot at movie stardom with the DIE HARD ripoff THE TAKING OF BEVERLY HILLS, directed by his PURPLE HEARTS helmer Sidney J. Furie (THE IPCRESS FILE, LADY SINGS THE BLUES, IRON EAGLE, SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE), a career journeyman going back to the late 1950s who's still directing today, well into his 80s. A casualty of the bankruptcy of Orion Pictures, THE TAKING OF BEVERLY HILLS only made it to about 500 theaters and grossed just $940,000 when it was eventually released by Columbia in the fall of 1991. It's a spectacularly dumb movie, but it's endlessly enjoyable, and a perfect snapshot of 1990-91, from Wahl's amazing mullet to a burglary montage set to EMF's "Unbelievable" and cop cars crashing and Wahl taking out bad guys with ninja stars to the tune of Faith No More's "Epic."
Wahl is Boomer Hayes, an aging pro quarterback who ends up in the middle of an elaborate Beverly Hills heist being pulled off by a crew of renegade, disgraced ex-cops. The plan? A hoax chemical spill that forces the evacuation of the city, sending the residents to a ritzy hotel out of the quarantine area while they raid all the empty mansions of their owners' valuables and assorted priceless possessions. Boomer missed the evacuation warning, since he was in his hot tub waiting to score with Laura Sage (Harley Jane Kozak), his former flame and current girlfriend of Robert "Bat" Masterson (Robert Davi), a wealthy Beverly Hills businessman and the owner of Boomer's team. Unaware that Boomer is a person (they assumed Laura was talking about a dog when she kept yelling "What about Boomer?" as she was herded onto a departing bus), the criminals go about their business while Boomer throws on his jersey, shoots his bum knee with cortisone and plays through the pain, teaming up with doofus cop Ed Kelvin (MAX HEADROOM's Matt Frewer), who went along with the heist because he was told no one would be hurt, but who comes to regret his decision and helps Boomer when the body count starts escalating. Mismatched buddy duo Boomer and Ed join forces to take back the town and expose the heist's mastermind (gee, could it be asshole "Bat" Masterson?)...if they don't kill each other first!
THE TAKING OF BEVERLY HILLS is no classic, but it's a shame it didn't get much of a chance. It's pretty much DIPSHIT DIE HARD, but it's a lot of fun and Wahl was never more loose or funny than he was here, moving from street to street through Beverly Hills (this was actually shot in Mexico) while uttering ludicrous dialogue like "I am a master at moving downfield and they don't even know I'm in the game!" and "I'm through playing defense!" and, of course, "Touchdown, asshole!" while throwing ninja stars and literal Hail Mary bombs and Molotov cocktails that blow up Masterson's chief henchman Varney (Fear frontman Lee Ving as Alexander Godunov to Davi's Alan Rickman). The film is so beholden to the DIE HARD formula that at one point Masterson even derisively calls Boomer "Hopalong" as opposed to "Mr. Cowboy." THE TAKING OF BEVERLY HILLS gives you all that plus Branscombe Richmond as another Masterson flunky who commandeers a tank and actually gets set on fire at one point in an example of the kind of practical stunt work that's become extinct in the era of CGI. Around the same time he shot this film, Wahl (with almost the same mullet) co-starred with Kozak in the romantic comedy THE FAVOR, which featured Elizabeth McGovern and a young Brad Pitt. THE FAVOR was also an Orion release that ended up being shelved until 1994, by which point Wahl's career was essentially over.
Wahl at the height of his WISEGUY fame
In 1992, Wahl broke his neck in what he initially claimed was another motorcycle accident. Years later, he revealed that he fell down the stairs at the home of Rodney Dangerfield's girlfriend and future wife, who was also seeing Wahl at the same time, and concocted the motorcycle story to respect her privacy. Wahl underwent multiple surgeries and was unable to walk for over two years. His limited movement caused a significant weight gain and he lived in constant, debilitating pain and developed a serious drinking problem. He managed to shed some pounds but was noticeably heftier and stiff as he struggled to get through the one-off 1996 WISEGUY reunion movie for CBS, but following that, Wahl effectively withdrew from public life and, to date, hasn't acted since. He hasn't given a print interview since 2004, instead finding his new calling as an activist for US military veterans, organizing a "Pets for Vets" charity that offers animal adoption services to provide pet therapy and companionship for disabled and/or emotionally troubled vets. He was also a frequent call-in guest on NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch's now-defunct radio show. Wahl is a conservative who's active on Twitter (though not in a crazy way like, say, James Woods) and has been married to Shane Barbi--half of the modeling duo the Barbi Twins--since 1997. He stays busy with his activist concerns, but he's largely reclusive, does what he does from home, and he adamantly refuses to be photographed on a rare occasion when he is spotted or recognized in public. Both THE SOLDIER and THE TAKING OF BEVERLY HILLS have recently been released on Blu-ray and to no one's surprise, the Howard Hughes-esque Ken Wahl is MIA on the bonus features for both.
Wahl in the promising early days of his career, with Paul Newman
on the set of 1981's FORT APACHE THE BRONX.
AMERICAN NINJA (US - 1985) Directed by Sam Firstenberg. Written by Paul De Mielche. Cast: Michael Dudikoff, Steve James, Judie Aronson, Guich Koock, Tadashi Yamashita, John Fujioka, Don Stewart, John LaMotta, Phil Brock, Berto Spoor, Nick Nicholson, Eric Hahn. (R, 96 mins) A surprise hit for Cannon at the end of summer and into early fall 1985, AMERICAN NINJA was originally conceived as a vehicle for Chuck Norris, who allegedly turned it down because he didn't want his face covered by a ninja mask. The title role ended up going to 31-year-old Michael Dudikoff, an actor who had been schlepping for gigs since the late '70s, whether it was small guest spots on DALLAS and HAPPY DAYS or bit parts in TRON and UNCOMMON VALOR. In 1982, he co-starred as Brian Dennehy's son in the short-lived ABC sitcom STAR OF THE FAMILY, and just prior to AMERICAN NINJA, he scored his biggest role to date as one of Tom Hanks' buddies in 1984's BACHELOR PARTY. Dudikoff was developing a persona as a second-string Willie Aames until Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus gave him his career-defining role as American ninja Joe Armstrong. Armstrong begins the first film as a loner misfit and troubled youth who was given a choice to enlist in the Army or go to jail. He chose the Army and while stationed in the Philippines, he ends up running afoul of a black market weapons smuggling operation run by the powerful Victor Ortega (Don Stewart). Ortega's got a ninja army--headed by the nefarious Black Star Ninja (Tadashi Yamashita)--to do his dirty work, plus military personnel on his payroll, including the reluctant base commander Col. Hickock (Guich Koock), whose daughter Patricia (Judie Aronson) is rescued during a ninja ambush of a supply convoy. Little does anyone know that orphaned, amnesia-stricken Armstrong was raised by Shinyuki (John Fujioka) and trained in the ways of the ninja.
The film was shot in the Philippines as AMERICAN WARRIOR, with the initial trailer going out under that title until it was changed to AMERICAN NINJA at the last minute. Armstrong wouldn't be the first American ninja in the Cannon universe, as we had the unlikely Franco Nero's Cole in 1981's ENTER THE NINJA, but in the Reagan era of patriotic ass-kickers draping themselves in the American flag (RED DAWN; Stallone in RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II and ROCKY IV; Chuck Norris in the MISSING IN ACTION films and INVASION U.S.A.), AMERICAN NINJA fit right in with the jingoistic trend. The boyish-looking Dudikoff isn't the most commanding actor, but he's likable enough and you can see him developing a rapport with his nemesis-turned-sidekick Curtis Jackson, played by Steve James. Dudikoff and James (who first gained notice as Robert Ginty's doomed best friend in 1980's THE EXTERMINATOR) would make three films together and the offscreen friendship that developed was apparent in their natural camaraderie onscreen. James' Jackson is sidelined for much of AMERICAN NINJA until it's he who gets to take out Ortega with a rocket launcher. Written by Paul De Mielche (STUNT ROCK) and directed by Cannon's go-to ninja and breakdancing stalwart Sam Firstenberg (REVENGE OF THE NINJA, NINJA III: THE DOMINATION, and BREAKIN' 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO), AMERICAN NINJA is as formulaic as 1980s action gets, but it's still entertaining and a fine representation of the Cannon heyday.
Michael Dudikoff and director Sam Firstenberg
during a break in filming AMERICAN NINJA.
AMERICAN NINJA 2: THE CONFRONTATION (US - 1987) Directed by Sam Firstenberg. Written by Gary Conway and James Booth. Cast: Michael Dudikoff, Steve James, Larry Poindexter, Gary Conway, Jeff Weston, Michelle Botes, Mike Stone, Len Sparrowhawk, Jonathan Pienaar, Bill Curry, Ralph Draper, Elmo Fillis, John Fujioka. (R, 90 mins) After the success of AMERICAN NINJA, Cannon had Dudikoff, James, and Firstenberg reunite for 1986's AVENGING FORCE, originally intended for Chuck Norris as a sequel to INVASION U.S.A. Dudikoff played Norris' Matt Hunter role, but there's nothing else specifically linking it to INVASION U.S.A. It functions as a standalone film and it's also one of Cannon's crowning achievements, possibly the best serious action movie they released. The core trio of Dudikoff, James, and Firstenberg reconvened once again for 1987's deliriously entertaining AMERICAN NINJA 2: THE CONFRONTATION. Where AVENGING FORCE was a straight-faced actioner with a surprising-for-the-time left-wing slant, likely the reason Norris rejected the script (let's just say its chief villain would be a huge Trump supporter), AMERICAN NINJA 2 proudly stands alongside the likes of REVENGE OF THE NINJA and DEATH WISH 3 as the Cannon ethos represented at its most ridiculous. Here, Armstrong (Dudikoff) and Jackson (James) are US Army Rangers sent to a US military base in the Caribbean to investigate the disappearances of several Marines. They've been abducted by flunkies of The Lion (Gary Conway), a megalomaniacal drug lord plotting to create a race of super ninjas. On his Blackbeard Island stronghold, The Lion forces kidnapped Professor Sanborn (Ralph Draper), one of the world's leading cancer researchers, to alter the DNA of the kidnapped Marines to transform them into unkillable warriors in his quest to dominate the global heroin market.
Filmed, like many Cannon projects from this period, in South Africa when working there was strongly discouraged (and Cannon spent a lot of time denying they had a branch in Johannesburg), AMERICAN NINJA 2 marked the franchise's turn toward a Roger Moore-era 007 mentality, as the insane plots of megalomaniacal madmen would be the norm from here on out. There's some pretty daring stuntwork throughout, and now that the characters are established, Firstenberg can concentrate on some elaborate throwdowns every few minutes. James also gets much more to do, and even Dudikoff seems a lot more loose and comfortable as the star than he did in AMERICAN NINJA just two years earlier. Despite not doing nearly as well as its predecessor, AMERICAN NINJA 2 is the pinnacle of the franchise. This is due in large part to Conway, a TV and B-movie vet who had the title role in 1958's I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN and 1977's THE FARMER. Conway also dabbled in screenwriting, and he co-wrote AMERICAN NINJA 2 with British actor/screenwriter James Booth (ZULU, RAGE OF HONOR). Booth would go on to play the villain in 1991's AMERICAN NINJA 4: THE ANNIHILATION, but both and he and Conway seemed to get the goofy potential of the AMERICAN NINJA films better than anyone at Cannon. Conway the writer gives Conway the actor all the best lines ("American ninja, I presume?") and he has a blast with it. Everyone just seems to be having a fun time in AMERICAN NINJA 2, whether it's Conway's scenery chewing ("Kiss my ass!"); a comedic bar brawl straight out of an old-time western, with Armstrong, Jackson, and new sidekick Charlie (Larry Poindexter) taking on a bunch of roughnecks; Armstrong and Sanborn's headstrong, stubborn daughter Alicia (Michelle Botes) infiltrating The Lion's operation in full ninja garb, blending in and going completely undetected when they tag along on a tour of The Lion's top secret lab; and an infamous moment where Firstenberg did a bad job of hiding that Dudikoff was doubled in a quick shot of Armstrong exiting an office (the star was ill that day and went back to his hotel room after finishing his close-ups). Among Cannon's iconic ninja films, AMERICAN NINJA 2: THE CONFRONTATION is second only to the immortal REVENGE OF THE NINJA, and a DEATH WISH 3-style cult revival is long overdue. It also features an appearance by the pre-Appetite for Destruction Guns N' Roses song "Move to the City,"during that brief window in time when the band was just about to explode and were still within the Golan-Globus price range.
The infamous "Dudikoff double."
AMERICAN NINJA 3: BLOOD HUNT (US - 1989) Written and directed by Cedric Sundstrom. Cast: Steve James, David Bradley, Marjoe Gortner, Michele Chan, Calvin Jung, Yehuda Efroni, Evan J. Klisser, Adrienne Pearce, Grant Preston, Mike Huff. (R, 90 mins) After a series of costly failures, slashed budgets, and too many dubious deals scrawled on cocktail napkins, Cannon's fortunes were waning by the time AMERICAN NINJA 3: BLOOD HUNT bowed on less than 150 screens in February 1989. Though the film was released by Cannon, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus farmed the production of this third entry in the series out to veteran dealmaker Harry Alan Towers. Towers, who produced the Christopher Lee FU MANCHU movies in the '60s and bankrolled the most commercial years of Jess Franco's career, was set up in apartheid-era South Africa during this period. Working in South Africa looked bad in the late '80s, but working actors went were the work was, so jobbing journeymen like Oliver Reed (GOR), Donald Pleasence (TEN LITTLE INDIANS), Herbert Lom (MASTER OF DRAGONARD HILL), Robert Vaughn (RIVER OF DEATH), Jack Palance (OUTLAW OF GOR), Dom DeLuise (GOING BANANAS), Peter Fonda (MERCENARY FIGHTERS), and others acted in a variety of Johannesburg-shot Cannon productions for both Golan-Globus and Towers. Michael Dudikoff decided to move on--it's said he didn't feel right working in South Africa, but he did AMERICAN NINJA 2, PLATOON LEADER and RIVER OF DEATH there for Cannon and.or Towers around this same time--prompting the search for a new American Ninja. 36-year-old David Bradley was hired to play a new character, martial arts champ Sean Davidson, who's teamed up with Joe Armstrong's BFF Curtis Jackson (a returning Steve James) in the post-BLOODSPORT "Karate World Championship," which looks as if it's being held in a gym in the ruins of a condemned high school. Yes, AMERICAN NINJA 3: BLOOD HUNT is working with a significantly lower budget that its predecessors, right down to recycling some of AMERICAN NINJA 2's plot. Again, we have a megalomaniacal madman, this time called The Cobra (Marjoe Gortner), and his plan to abduct Sean to turn him into a genetically altered super ninja, which is somehow vital to his big picture goal of germ warfare.
Steve James (1952-1993)
The film borrows so much from AMERICAN NINJA 2 that Gary Conway actually has a story credit, a consolation prize after South African director Cedric Sundstrom rewrote his screenplay. There's also a female kung-fu warrior (Michele Chan) who's a master of disguise, a new sidekick for the bromancing Sean and Jackson in Dex (Evan J. Klisser), and the matter being personal for Sean, as The Cobra's chief lackey General Andreas (badly-dubbed Cannon regular Yehuda Efroni) killed his father when Sean was a child. Sundstrom's direction is undistinguished, and he doesn't bring the kind of flair and enthusiasm that Sam Firstenberg brought to the two previous films and his other NINJA assignments. Dudikoff isn't the world's most gifted actor, but he's Daniel Day-Lewis next to the boring, charisma-deficient Bradley. The biggest mistake the filmmakers made with AMERICAN NINJA 3 was not handing the franchise over to Steve James, an immensely likable actor who should've been the next huge Hollywood action star. Instead, Cannon--and other producers--opted to continue relegating him to perpetual sidekick duty (THE DELTA FORCE, P.O.W.: THE ESCAPE, HERO AND THE TERROR), which was doled out to him once again with AMERICAN NINJA 3 despite his top billing. James, who died far too young in 1993 at just 41, shortly after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, was a rarity: a martial arts expert who was also a trained, schooled actor. A jobbing journeyman since the late '70s, picking up supporting roles and stunt gigs to keep busy (he can be spotted as a gang member in THE WARRIORS), James was a favorite of exploitation director James Glickenhaus (THE EXTERMINATOR, THE SOLDIER, MCBAIN) and also caught the attention of the legendary William Friedkin, who used him in TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. and his two C.A.T. SQUAD made-for-TV movies. He also got to display his comedic chops as Kung Fu Joe in Keenan Ivory Wayans' blaxploitation spoof I'M GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA. James finally got a couple of leads with two non-Cannon action projects (1989's RIVERBEND and 1990's STREET HUNTER), but he died before he ever had a chance to generate any momentum as a headliner. He gets a lot to do in AMERICAN NINJA 3, howling and shrieking as he kicks asses and snaps necks, but how much better would this thing have been if it was James who became the new face of the franchise instead of the bland Bradley? Between the enjoyable presence of James and the hammy overacting of Gortner, there's some positives to be found with AMERICAN NINJA 3: BLOOD HUNT (you'll dig the closing credits tune "The Cobra Strikes"), but it's missing the engaging rapport of the Dudikoff-James duo and it's a big step down from the glorious triumphs of AMERICAN NINJA 2: THE CONFRONTATION.
"Special appearance by Marjoe Gortner as 'The Cobra'"
AMERICAN NINJA 4: THE ANNIHILATION (US - 1991) Directed by Cedric Sundstrom. Written by David Geeves (James Booth). Cast: Michael Dudikoff, David Bradley, James Booth, Dwayne Alexandre, Ken Gampu, Robin Stille, Franz Dobrowsky, Ron Smerczak, Kely McClung, Jody Abrahams, Ted Le Plat. (R, 100 mins) Cannon's best days were behind them by 1989. The latest releases by the likes of Charles Bronson (MESSENGER OF DEATH, KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS) and Chuck Norris (BRADDOCK: MISSING IN ACTION III, HERO AND THE TERROR) tanked, and breakout action star Jean-Claude Van Damme was almost single-handedly keeping the company alive with 1988's BLOODSPORT and 1989's CYBORG being their only recent hits. 1990 saw the release of the global punchline LAMBADA, and by 1991, the company was on life support. Menahem Golan acrimoniously departed in 1989 to form the short-lived 21st Century, where his top priority appeared to bum-rushing the competing lambada film THE FORBIDDEN DANCE through production so it could be released to universal apathy on the same day as LAMBADA. Yoram Globus briefly ran things before the sinking operation was handed over to Italian schlock king Ovidio G. Assonitis (BEYOND THE DOOR, TENTACLES, THE VISITOR), who saw Cannon through its final, gasping breaths. The rechristened Cannon Pictures was still getting a few movies into theaters in 1991, with the Chuck Norris vehicle THE HITMAN being a minor hit in a slew of barely-released duds and straight-to-video obscurities. Despite the tepid response to AMERICAN NINJA 3, Globus and partner Christopher Pearce deemed another sequel necessary, so AMERICAN NINJA 4: THE ANNIHILATION happened. AMERICAN NINJA 3 star David Bradley and director Cedric Sundstrom were once again onboard, but the draw was the return of Michael Dudikoff as Joe Armstrong (perhaps to appease Dudikoff's wish to no longer work in South Africa, shooting took place in Lesotho, a sovereign nation within South Africa), the film pairing both titular American ninjas. Out of the equation was Steve James, much to the disappointment of Dudikoff and, as it turned out, the fans. While it's nice to have Dudikoff back, he doesn't even appear until 45 minutes into the movie, and that's only after Bradley's Sean Davidson has been kidnapped. In other words, they don't really work together and aren't really paired up. Each American Ninja gets about half the movie to themselves before they finally cross paths with ten minutes to go. A lot of this was due to Dudikoff and Bradley reportedly not getting along, but for those expecting an AMERICAN NINJA summit, the film is a letdown not unlike those 1940s Universal monster rallies where Glenn Strange's Frankenstein monster doesn't even get off the operating table until the last two minutes of the movie, where his only function is to stumble around and cause an explosion...The End.
Davidson and pal Carl Brackston (Dwayne Alexandre, a terrible actor) are CIA agents sent to rescue a kidnapped Delta Force unit that's being held for a $50 million ransom. The villains: embittered British military man-turned-terrorist Scoff Mulgrew (AMERICAN NINJA 2 screenwriter James Booth, who wrote this under the name "David Geeves"), who's in cahoots with Arab terrorist Sheik Ali Maksood (Ron Smerczak), who's hellbent on a detonating a nuclear device in NYC. Getting some help from Peace Corps volunteer Sarah (THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE's Robin Stille), Davidson and Brackston attempt to thwart Scoff Mulgrew (at one point, Alexandre, in what's likely a gaffe, refers to him as "Stark Mulgrew," and honestly, either name is just is awesome), but they're all taken hostage. The CIA reaches out to Armstrong, now a teacher in a tiny African village, to go in and save his old buddy Sean. Is this film even following its franchise's own internal backstory? When were these two ever friends? When did they even meet? While it does prefigure THE EXPENDABLES 3 in the way that the new characters are kidnapped and the old one is recruited to save the day, that concept of "saving his old buddy Sean" would've made more sense had they given the franchise to James, and his Jackson had to be rescued by Armstrong. While it's nice to see Dudikoff back in his signature role, the biggest takeaway from AMERICAN NINJA 4 is that Steve James was the heart and soul of this franchise and his inexplicable absence is felt much more here than Dudikoff's was in the previous film, especially considering that the abysmal Alexandre is a pitiful substitution. The longest entry in the series at 100 minutes, AMERICAN NINJA 4 is sluggishly paced, and Bradley still can't act. There's some odd touches that are interesting, like the appearance of a marauding band of desert bikers straight out of THE ROAD WARRIOR, and the fact that an overacting Booth is having a lot more fun with this than either Bradley or Dudikoff. Like Gary Conway in AMERICAN NINJA 2, Booth writes himself a completely ridiculous character and gives himself the best lines ("Mecca is that way," he sneers at a praying Sheik Maksood). AMERICAN NINJA 4: THE ANNIHILATION opened on 170 screens in March of 1991 before making a quick turnaround to video stores. All four films have just been released on Blu-ray by Olive Films. There's bonus features on each title, the chief selling point being commentaries by Sam Firstenberg on the first two films.
Cannon's death rattle continued into the first week of 1994, when the Joe Lara-starring AMERICAN CYBORG: STEEL WARRIOR earned the distinction of being the last Cannon production to get a theatrical release. The company had ceased production on any films by that point, with long-shelved stragglers--including the Chuck Norris vs. Satan horror film HELLBOUND, which prefigured Arnold Schwarzenegger's similar END OF DAYS by several years--going straight-to-video beginning in 1994. The penultimate Cannon release was the Ovidio G. Assonitis-produced AMERICAN NINJA 5, shot as AMERICAN DRAGONS in 1992 and unreleased until it appeared on video store shelves in November 1995. It's a PG-13 affair aimed at younger audiences, with overtones of THE KARATE KID, right down to an appearance by Pat Morita. David Bradley has the lead, which obviously prompted the title change, even though he isn't playing Sean Davidson (it also features Tadashi Yamashita, the original's Black Star Ninja). It's no longer considered part of the official franchise and was not given the Blu-ray treatment by Olive (Warner owns the rights to it, anyway), and when it appears in semi-regular rotation on cable today, it's shown under its original AMERICAN DRAGONS title. The last Cannon production to be released was CHAIN OF COMMAND, appropriately starring Michael Dudikoff, shot in 1993 and released directly to video in January 1996. And with that, the legend that is Cannon was laid to rest, gone but never forgotten.
