Growing up in the 80s my family didn't have cable, but my Aunt and Uncle did. Whenever there was a family get together, my dad would give them a couple of blank VHS cassette tapes and they would record movies for us (they had HBO). Here's just some of the films that they recorded for us off of cable: Aliens, Big Trouble In Little China, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Karate Kid, Sesame Street Presents Follow That Bird, and Ninja III: The Domination, to name a few.
My sister and I watched Ninja III: The Domination so much when we were kids that we inevitable wore out the tape. When I was a kid I thought Sho Kosugi was the epitome of awesome, with his eye patch and his extremely calm demeanor; the guy never breaks a sweat, even though he is up against the ghost of an evil ninja. Hell, I still think Sho Kosugi is the epitome of awesome.
For the longest time I never knew which series Ninja III belonged to, as there is no Ninja I and Ninja II. As it turns out it is a sequel to Enter the Ninja and Revenge of the Ninja, though it's not a follow up to either of those films. The only thing the three films have in common is Sho Kosugi, who plays a different character in each film. These are all stand alone films, which makes the Ninja III title a tad bit confusing. While Kosugi gets top billing in the credits, he is more of a supporting character; he appears sporadically throughout the first hour of the film and then dominates the proceedings in the last half hour. The main protagonist is Christie, a telephone technician/aerobics instructor who gets possessed by the spirit of an evil ninja. Christie is played by Lucinda Dickey, who is best known for her role as Kelly in the Breakin' films. Dickey is by no means a good actress, but she does have a rather appealing presence about her; she has a sunny disposition that shines through even in the movie's darkest moments. She is the All American Girl that can break your neck if you're not careful. She's also one of the few actresses that spent a good portion of her film career acting in a spandex leotard.
I'm going to be frank for a second: Ninja III: The Domination is a bad movie. It's premise is ridiculous and it is often inept in it's presentation. Early in the film, there's a scene in which Christie sees four men harassing one of the students in her aerobics class and she yells at the men to leave the woman alone. The men forget about the other woman and set their sights on Christie. They start shoving her around and start spewing all sorts of sexist remarks her way. Meanwhile,a crowd starts forming in the background, appalled at what they are seeing but unwilling to help in any way. There are at least well over twenty people witnessing the whole thing, which makes you think at least one of them would come to Christie's aid, or at the very least call the police. However, the men picked the wrong woman to harass, for when things seem their darkest, Christie unleashes her newly acquired paranormal ninja skills on the poor suckers. She beats the living crap out of her oppressors and gets a round of applause from the formerly passive crowd. And then Christie is arrested for assault. It is later revealed that the arrest is just a ruse so officer Billy Secord (the love interest) can have some quality alone time with Christie, but as a climax to the scene it makes no sense. Not only was Christie defending herself from four Neanderthals, but she has a lot of witnesses to back her up.
In my favorite scene, the evil ninja spirit comes to possess Christie, she tries to fight it by blaring rock music and dancing like an idiot. Unfortunately, the spirits of evil ninja's are immune to bad 80s music. She then gets sucked into the closet and once again the spirit uses her to exact his revenge. The plot of the film is this: the spirit of an evil ninja possesses Christie so he can kill the police officers that are responsible for his death; one of those police officers is Billy. Yet, despite all the opportunities the ninja's spirit never attacks Billy...until the very end.
The Christie/Billy romance is one of the more problematic aspects of the film; he comes off as kind of a douchebag in the early going. He first puts the moves on Christie at the police station - this is coming shortly after Christie's traumatic encounter with the evil ninja; at first she is attacked by him and then minutes later she witnesses his death. She is completely annoyed by his nonstop hounding of her for a date. After Billy has arrested her for assault (as a ruse to literally pick her up), she stills gives him the cold shoulder, telling him she doesn't like cops. This enrages Secord and he goes on the following rant:
You know? I am sick and tired about hearing how you don't like cops, cause I'm gonna tell you something Ms. Independence. I like being a cop. And if you don't want to go out with me just because I'm a cop, then the hell with you lady!
This completely wins Christie over! There was no indication prior to this that Christie had any interest in Bily, but after he asserts himself she finds him irresistible and can't wait to jump into bed with him; less than thirty seconds of screen time elapses between this scene and the "erotic" love scene. By erotic, I mean Christie takes a can of V-8 juice, pours it over her neck, and Billy licks it off her. The filmmakers obviously thought this would arouse the audience, instead it's just awkward. It doesn't help that the dialogue gets drowned out by an incredibly cheese love song blaring on the soundtrack. Or maybe it does. It helps drown out lines like, "You're very sexy when you're angry!" The scene itself is mild and ends as just as quickly as it begins. After getting laid, Billy becomes less of an obnoxious dick and more of a sympathetic character for the rest of the movie.
The filmmakers at least try to give the movie an emotional center - it may not work, but at least there was an effort. Most action films tend to be so over the top with their stunts and explosions that anything resembling human behavior gets tossed out the window. In one of the film's more effective moments Christie confides in Billy about all the weird happenings in in her life and, thankfully, he listens to her and takes her problems seriously, as opposed to just shrugging and laughing them off. At one point, he even takes her to see a shaman to find the answers to her problems. The shaman scene is a poor man's Exorcist; all sorts of creepy noises are pumped on the soundtrack, while Christie's complexion turns pale and her eyes become slanted (to show she is being possessed). She then flails about for a few minutes, while a demonic voice roars from a her mouth. She is chained against a two poles and has a harness attached to her midsection, she promptly breaks the chains and starts flipping in circles. And then scene ends with the reveal that only a ninja can defeat a ninja. Luckily for both of them, Sho Kosugi is on hand.
I might be a little harsh on the love story; the set up is definitely problematic, but there is a nice emotional pay off at the end. Billy confronts Christie and tells her that he's going to take her to a temple where Yamada (Kosugi) is waiting to help her out. However, Christie gets possessed by evil ninja's spirit and lunges at Secord with a sword, but is able to regain her senses (after he shouts, "NO!") and stops the blade within an inch of his face.
As mentioned before Ninja III: The Domination is a bad movie, but it's extremely hard to dislike. In fact, it's a fairly well paced film, which is odd, given it's limited budget. It doesn't really dwell on exposition; the only background we're given about Yamada is in a brief flashback in which it is revealed that the evil ninja killed his master and is responsible for his one eye.This flashback only last for a few seconds and this plot point is never brought up again in the film. The opening scene is surprising in its complete lack of exposition - the evil ninja attacks kills rich people at a golf course, but it is never explained why. A bit of information pops up later on that one of the victims was a prominent scientist, but it is only mentioned in passing and never expanded upon. Was the evil ninja carrying out someone else's plans? Or did he just go batshit insane and decide to attack whatever happened to be nearby? The evil ninja is also shown to have superhuman strength; at one point he stops the scientist from fleeing in a golf cart by grabbing the back end of the cart and lifting it up in the air. Later on, the police fire countless rounds of ammunition into his body and he still manages to escape. Does his super human strength come from a supernatural source? Or is he superhuman because he is a ninja? Yamada is shown to have superhuman strength as well - at one point he jumps over a high barbed wire fence with very little effort.
None of these are questions are really essential to Ninja III: The Domination, because it's a film where story takes a backseat to the action scenes. It's true, the filmmakers try to add some depth by adding a love story into the mix, but audiences want to see a Ninja kick some ass and that is what they get. Sho Kosugi is very compelling action hero; part of his appeal is the dead pan humor he brings to the role of Yamada. The best scene has Yamada breaking into a morgue to retrieve of the corpse of the evil ninja; he motions for two guards to come towards him, they walk up to him, he puts his hands on their shoulders and then butts their heads together, knocking them unconscious. A look of bemusement comes across Yamada's face at how easy it was for him to steal the corpse. It's a funny moment. Kosugi is such a badass that even a battle with an evil ninja spirit seems one sided in his favor.
Oh, and just for the fun of it, here's a fan video that perfectly sums up Ninja III: The Domination.
Credits:
Cast: Sho Kosugi (Yamada), Lucinda Dickey (Christie), Jordan Bennett (Billy Secord), David Chung (Black Ninja), Dale Ishimoto (Okuda), James Hong (Miyashima).
Director: Stan Firstenberg
Writer: James R. Silke
Running Time: 92 min.
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