by The Movies at the Old School Kung Fu Fest 2015
American Ninja
(1985, USA, 95min, 35mm)
Directed by Sam Firstenberg
Starring: Michael Dudikoff, Steve James, John Fujioka, Judie Aronson.
Showtimes: Saturday, April 18th, at 3:00 p.m.
The greatest bar mitzvah movie ever made, American Ninja tells the tale of a young American boy who must embrace his people’s ancient traditions in order to become a man. Originally set to star Cannon Films’ martial arts megastar, Sho Kosugi, that plan bit the dust when Sho ditched the exploitation studio over creative differences. Next, Cannon offered the part to Chuck Norris, but he was busy, so the part of the white boy with amnesia who is actually a secret ninja went to model Michael Dudikoff. Shot in the Philippines by Cannon’s go-to director, Sam Firstenberg (Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, Revenge of the Ninja, Ninja III: The Domination), American Ninja delivers balls-out ’80s action as it pits Dudikoff and his easygoing partner, stuntman-turned-actor Steve James, against the mysterious Black Star Ninja, his ninja training camp, and ninja lasers!
American Ninja 2: The Confrontation
(1987, USA, 90min, 35mm)
Directed by Sam Firstenberg
Starring: Michael Dudikoff, Steve James, Jeff Weston, Gary Conway, Michelle Botes.
Showtimes: Sunday, April 19th, at 9:30 p.m.
Probably the most ridiculous ’80s action movie ever made, AN2:TC delivers an easy, breezy dose of sheer gnarlitude as Dudikoff and Steve James team up once again, their pecs a-flexin’, to investigate trouble on a tropical island where ninjas are kidnapping U.S. Marines. “Ninjas? Drug pushers? My men being kidnapped and murdered? This is really beginning to get on my tits!” shouts the base commander. Dressed in jams and Hawaiian shirts because the costume department was on vacation, the Marines are being turned into genetically engineered super-ninjas by drug dealers! Is Dudukoff’s cool coif big enough, and are James’ tiny red shorts short enough, to defeat the Clone Super Ninja Army???
Duel to the Death生死決
(1983, Hong Kong, 83min, DCP, in Cantonese with English subtitles)
Directed by Ching Siu-tung
Starring: Norman Chu Siu-Keung, Damian Lau Chung-Yan
Showtimes: Thursday, April 16th, at 8:30 p.m. and Saturday, April 18th, at 1:00 p.m.
The first movie from Hong Kong’s great action director, Ching Siu-tung (Swordsman II, A Chinese Ghost Story I – III, House of Flying Daggers) this is a fever dream of freaky images ripped straight from his childhood. Once every 10 years, Japanese and Chinese fighters duel (to the death) to figure out who will rule the martial world. But this time, they detect something rotten. This time they detect… ninjas! The story is as old school as they come, but it’s the execution that changes everything. Ching spent his early years locked up in his bedroom reading Martial Arts World Magazine and imagining cool monsters and psychedelic fighting techniques, and after choreographing the action on dozens of films for other directors, this is the first time he finally got to put those fantasies onscreen. The result is a surreal phantasmagoria of flashing blades, teleporting demons, giant ninjas, ninjas on kites, exploding heads, and killer puppets.
Presented with the Hong Kong the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office New York.
Enter the Ninja
(1981, USA, 100min, 35mm)
Directed by Menahem Golan
Starring: Franco Nero, Susan George, Sho Kosugi, Christopher George.
Showtimes: Thursday, April 16th, at 6:15 p.m.
This landmark Cannon Films production launched the ninja craze of the ‘80s and revitalized the martial arts film in America after it died in 1973, with Bruce Lee. When 20th Century Fox announced it was shooting a $20 million adaptation of best-selling novel, The Ninja, Cannon flipped out and bought their very own ninja script from martial artist Mike Stone and rushed this movie into production. Starring Frano Nero (the original Django) as a white ninja with a thick Maurizio Merli mustache, it’s shot in the Philippines where Nero helps an old buddy (and his old buddy’s hot girlfriend, Susan “Straw Dogs” George) take on evil real estate developer, Mr. Venarius (Christopher George). Only a ninja can defeat a ninja, so the bad guys hire Sho Kosugi, who got his start as an extra on this film before his martial arts abilities earned him the role of the evil ninja.
Five Element Ninjas, aka, Chinese Super Ninjas五遁忍術
(1982, Hong Kong, 103 minutes, 35mm, in Mandarin with English subtitles)
Directed by Chang Cheh
Starring: Ricky Cheng Tien Chi, Lo Meng, Lung Tien-chiang
Showtimes: Saturday, April 18th, at 5:00 p.m.
In the ’80s, Shaw Brothers was losing audiences to TV, so it unleashed Chang Cheh (The One-Armed Swordsman, Five Deadly Venoms) to direct his most insane movie ever. A Chinese martial arts clan is fighting everyone and winning, but then they fight ninjas. Ninjas who know Five Element Formation! So secret! So deadly! The only survivor learns that in order to beat ninja… he must become ninja! Ninja fights using Gold Powers, Wood Powers, Water Powers, Earth Powers, Fire Powers! Chinese martial artist fights using Hitting Ninjas in Face Power! Trees bleed. Crotches are stabbed. Guts are extracted. Every second of this movie is high-octane man-against-ninja action and it does not end until every inch of the screen is covered in dead ninja. Screening will be introduced by Dan Halsted, who will tell the story of how he unearthed a massive collection of extremely rare 35mm kung fu films in 2009, which included the print of Five Element Ninjas.
Presented with the Hong Kong the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office New York.
A Life of Ninja亡命忍者
(1983, Taiwan, 88 min, 35mm, in Mandarin with English subtitles)
Directed by Lee Tso-nam
Starring:Chen Kuan-tai, Elsa Yeung, Yasuaki Kurata, Peng Kong, World Wrestling Champion Wong Kin-mi
Showtimes: Friday, April 17th at 10:15 p.m.
He creeps. He skulks. He stalks. He scurries. He strikes! Ninja – most deadly foe. Using ways most nefarious and killing arts mysterious ninja will kill and kill. And kill, and kill, and kill. Sometimes he kills wrapped in gold foil like a baked potato; sometimes he is a naked lady ninja to confuse foes before blowing them up! Life of ninja is easy, no?
No. Life of ninja is hard.
Ninja must learn dancing on ice cubes. Sometime ninja ladies must mud wrestle for no good reason. How do you make a ninja? Are no ninja babies. Must take normal person and beat. Beat until are ninja! A life of ninja is shown in beautiful motion picture A Life of Ninja. At heart of picture is family – they are Cheng family and have family business but no one is happy. Cheng is married to sister and is boss. Bad boss! One sister is boozer – drink lots of cognac. Ha ha! Other wants to be ninja, but can’t! So she wear the tight leather trousers and beat up men with wooden sword.
Then…ninja attack! Kill with icicle! Kill with poison! Police visit Chen Kuan-tai. He is ninja-pooper: he knows ninja, but poops their parties. Police ask for help, he been in many martial art movie (like Crippled Avengers), he must help police. He says yes. Yes, I fight ninja. He fight the ninja?!? Ninja get furious. Use hypno-mind-control killers, flying snakes, tiny bombs, poison ink, swords and knives, even get World Wrestling Champion Wong Kin-mi to wear little red briefs and turn over cars. And stomp! And kill! Big fights!
Then Chen Kuan-tai fight the head ninja, Yasuaki Kurata, in secret ninja fort. They use flying knife, exploding statue, flying backward, invisibility, giant jumping, fighting Irish jig, secret ninja spazz dance, is very strange. There can be only one. Is exciting! You must see A Life of Ninja to believe A Life of Ninja!
Ninja III: The Domination
(1984, USA, 92min, 35mm)
Directed by Sam Firstenberg
Starring: Sho Kosugi, Lucinda Dickey, Jordan Bennett, James Hong.
Showtimes: Saturday, April 18th, at 9:30 p.m.
Lucinda Dickey had an insane 1984. In one year she starred in three landmark Cannon productions that might be the most ’80s movies ever made: Breakin’, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, and Ninja III: The Domination. Directed by Sam Firstenberg (Revenge of the Ninja, American Ninja), the movie stars Dickey as a telephone maintenance technician and part-time aerobics instructor who becomes possessed by the spirit of an evil ninja assassin. Forced to carry out her tormentor’s brutal revenge, she soon finds that one of her main targets is her policeman boyfriend! Only one man – Sho Kosugi (a ninja!) – can exorcise the evil which possesses Lucinda and prevent the lovers from destroying each other. Full of dry ice, floating samurai swords, hot ’80s neon, and aerobics classes, this film is topped off with an appearance by James Hong (Lo Pan in Big Trouble in Little China) as an exorcist, and Evel Knievel’s son, Robbie Knievel, who shows up to pull off some motorcycle stunts.
Revenge of the Ninja
(1983, USA, 90min, Digital projection)
Directed by Sam Firstenberg
Starring: Sho Kosugi, Keith Vitali, Virgil Frye.
Showtimes: Friday, April 17th, at 6:00 p.m.
Cannon followed the box office success of Enter the Ninja with Revenge of the Ninja, the first American movie to give an Asian actor sole star billing (even Bruce Lee had to share billing with his co-stars in Enter the Dragon). Sho Kosugi (a ninja!) returns home from an afternoon stroll to find his family massacred by evil ninjas. With his mother and infant son in tow he flees Japan for Los Angeles, vowing to forsake the ninja life forever. With the help of his friend and business partner, Keith Vitali (a karate legend who fought onscreen in several ’80s Hong Kong movies), he opens an art gallery, specializing in fancy Japanese dolls. What Sho doesn’t know is that his friend is actually an evil ninja who wears a silver demon mask and is smuggling heroin into the country inside the dolls! Sho is just trying to raise his ninja son (played by his real-life son, Kane Kosugi), but now he has to deal with a grindhouse full of dead bodies, fountains of blood, cheap ’80s sex scenes, mafia stereotypes, and dueling ninjas!
Samurai Spy異聞猿飛佐助
(1965, Japan, 100min, 35mm, in Japanese with live English subtitles)
Directed by Masahiro Shinoda
Starring: Koji Takahashi, Shintaro Ishihara, Eitaro Ozawa, Kei Sato, Mutsuhiro Toura, Tetsuro Tanba, Eiji Okada
Showtimes: Friday, April 17th, at 8:00 p.m.
Unconventional in its mise-en-scène, photography and score, unrelenting in its dark philosophical view of war and its consequences, unparalleled in its artistic ambition, Samurai Spy is an existentialist super-noir ninja masterpiece by Masahiro Shinoda (Pale Flower, Double Suicide), which towers over the shinobi genre, and possibly the entire jidai-geki category as a whole. As the days of the Warring States come to a close and the Tokugawa shogunate consolidates its power, wandering samurai (and secretly, a Koga ninja) Sasuke Sarutobi, war-weary, tries very hard to stay clear of the bloody business of the remaining factions. The sudden defection of a high-profile spy from the service of the shogun, puts an end to his aimless wanderings. Inevitably, Sasuke is sucked into a maze of conspiracies and shadow-play. The plot thickens when both the defector and the former wanderer find out they are tracked by a third man: a shadowy white-hooded master assassin (Tetsuro Tamba).
Seventeen Ninja
(1963, Japan, 98min, 35mm, in Japanese with live English subtitles)
Directed by Yasuto Hasegawa
Cast: Kotaro Satomi, Jushiro Konoe, Yuriko Mishima, Ryutaro Otomo.
Showtimes: Sunday, April 19th, at 1:00 p.m.
Toei’s star-studded response to Daiei’s hugely successful 1960s franchise, Shinobi No Mono, this nocturnal, cynical game of chess between two master manipulators is an amazing and underseen ninja movie that we’re presenting with live subtitles since no English-subtitled version exists. As the ruling Shogun lies on his death futon, 17 Iga clan ninja are trusted by their master with an impossible mission: to infiltrate the impregnable fortress where his youngest son plans to take both Edo Castle and the supreme power by force. They have two options: to steal the scroll that will grant legitimacy to the usurper’s claim, or to assassinate him. Before they can even reach the stronghold, a vicious ninja hunter thwarts their every move. As the Iga ninja fall, the success of the mission falls in the hands of one young and inexperienced ninja.
Note: Seventeen Ninja is a super hardcore rarity that very, very few human beings have watched!
Shinobi No Mono aka, A Band of Assassins 忍びの者
(1962, Japan, 105min, Digital projection, in Japanese with English subtitles)
Directed by Satsuo Yamamoto
Starring: Raizo Ichikawa, Shiho Fujimura, Tomisaburo Wakayama, Yunosuke Ito.
Showtimes: Sunday, Aprilth 19th, at 5:15 p.m.
A monster of a movie, worthy of all the superlatives it has earned, Shinobi no Mono was conceived by the fevered minds of far-left director Satsuo Yamamoto and nihilistic pulp novelist Tomoyoshi Murayama, and if you’re devious enough, it can be read as a socialist allegory. Incidentally, it’s quite possibly the ultimate real ninja film. Fate and the invisible hands of evil spymasters ensnare Goemon Ichikawa (superstar Raizo Ichikawa), a dashing but naive young man exceedingly skilled in the arcane ninja arts, in the tangles of a dark plot to assassinate warlord Nobunaga Oda, a cat-loving, power-hungry samurai. Soon, Goemon finds himself outlawed, betrayed, and embroiled in labyrinthine political machinations. Produced with the help of the last living ninja master, Masaaki Hatsumi, Shinobi no Mono features authentic, realistic ninja action packed into a transcendental template. Eight sequels would ensue, and many, many imitations.
Shinobi no Mono 2: Vengeance 続・忍びの者
(1963, Japan, 93min, Digital projection, in Japanese with English subtitles)
Directed by Satsuo Yamamoto
Starring: Raizo Ichikawa, Shiho Fujimura, Tomisaburo Wakayama.
Showtimes: Sunday, April 19th, at 7:30 p.m.
Surpassing its predecessor in the same way The Godfather II is seen by some as superior to the first, the second installment of the Shinobi No Mono series outdoes its precursor at its own game: deeper, darker, and crueller in all aspects. The sole survivor of his Iga fortress village, Goemon Ishikawa aspires only to live the boring life of a family guy. Overlord Nobunaga Oda and fate have other plans for the retired ninja. Not one to leave out any details, the warlord goes on a nation-wide rampage to root out any ninja who might have survived. Bloody mass murder ensues. And soon, vengeance is the only thing that matters to Goemon. The desperate ninja finds unlikely allies in the Saiga clan and spymaster Hattori Hanzo. With nothing left to lose, he weaves a web of deceit and double-crosses to bring bring down Nobunaga.
Super Special Secret Screening! – An Old School Kung Fu Fest Tradition
Showtimes: Saturday, April 18th, at 7:20 p.m.
We can’t tell you the title of this Japanese 1970s cult classic that was first distributed by Roger Corman to the grindhouse theaters in the U.S., but trust us: you want to see it on the big screen, on 35mm, with an audience! Before the show, we’re going to be giving away tons of fun ninja-themed prizes, and make announcements about the lineup and guests for this year’s New York Asian Film Festival (June 26th-July 11th at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and SVA Theater), so what more could you possible ask for!?
Teenage Mutand Ninja Turtles
(1990, USA/Hong Kong, 93min, 35mm)
Directed by Steve Barron
Starring: Judith Hoag, Corey Feldman, Elias Koteas, Sam Rockwell
Showtimes: Sunday, April 19th, at 3:15 p.m.
For years Michaelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello and Raphael have lived deep in the sewers of New York, learning the art of ninjitsu from their mentor, Splinter… OK, we all know the story by now about our favorite pizza-eating humanoid turtles, but the best way to forget about Michael Bay’s lazy and tedious franchise reboot is to come appreciate the first, and still the best version. Produced by Hong Kong’s Golden Harvest studios (home of Jackie Chan), with the Turtles lovingly brought to life by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, edited by Sally Menke (the editor of every single Quentin Tarantino movie before her untimely death in 2010), and with a theme song by MC Hammer, it’s lean, green, and on the big screen – a CGI-free dose of ninja turtle power!
The Schedule!
Thursday, April 16th
6:15pm – ENTER THE NINJA
8:30pm – DUEL TO THE DEATH
Friday, April 17th
6:00pm – REVENGE OF THE NINJA
8:00pm – SAMURAI SPY
10:15pm – A LIFE OF NINJA
Saturday, April 18th
1:00pm – DUEL TO THE DEATH
3:00pm – AMERICAN NINJA
5:00pm – FIVE ELEMENT NINJAS
7:20pm – Super Special Secret Screening!!!
9:30pm – NINJA III: THE DOMINATION
Sunday, April 19th
1:00pm – SEVENTEEN NINJA
3:15pm – TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES
5:15pm – SHINOBI NO MONO
7:30pm – SHINOBI NO MONO 2: VENGEANCE
9:30pm – AMERICAN NINJA 2: THE CONFRONTATION
Venue and Admission
Screenings and exhibitions will be held at Anthology Film Archives (located at 32 Second Avenue, at the corner of 2 Avenue and 2 Street).
$10 general admission, $8 students, seniors, and children (12 and under), $6 Anthology Film Archives members. Tickets are available at Anthology’s box office on the day of the show. The box office opens 30 minutes before the first show of the day.
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