Enter the Ninja

For the song by Die Antwoord, see 5 (Die Antwoord EP). For all other uses, see Ninja (disambiguation).
Enter the Ninja

Film poster designed by Design Projects, Inc.
Directed by Menahem Golan
Produced by Yoram Globus
Menahem Golan
Written by Dick Desmond
Mike Stone
Starring Franco Nero
Susan George
Sho Kosugi
Christopher George
Music by W. Michael Lewis
Laurin Rinder
Cinematography David Gurfinkel
Edited by Michael J. Duthie
Mark Goldblatt
Distributed by Cannon Films
MGM/UA
Release dates
 October 23, 1981 (USA)
Running time
 101 min.
Language English
Budget est. $1–$1.5 million[1]

Enter the Ninja is a 1981 martial arts film directed by Menahem Golan and starring Franco Nero, Susan George and Sho Kosugi. Production was started in the Philippines with Emmett Alston directing, but when Charles Bronson refused to allow Menahem Golan to direct Death Wish II, Golan, a co-principal of Cannon Group which was producing both movies, took over directing duties of Ninja replacing Alston.

Plot

After completing his training of ninjutsu within Japan as a Ninja, an Angolan Bush War veteran by the name of Cole (Franco Nero) visits his war buddy Frank Landers (Alex Courtney) and his newlywed wife Mary Ann Landers (Susan George), who are the owners of a large piece of farming land in the Philippines. Cole soon finds that the Landers are being repeatedly harassed by a CEO named Charles Venarius (Christopher George) in order to get them to sell their property because, unbeknownst to them, a large oil deposit is located beneath their land. After beginning to thwart Venarius' hired henchmen's attempts to bully and coerce the Landers into the selling of their property to Venarius, Cole eventually finds himself facing an old rival from the days of his training – Hasegawa (Sho Kosugi), who was hired by Venarius as an assassin to eliminate Cole. In the midst of these events, an affair occurs between Cole and Mary one evening.

Cast

Sequels

Enter the Ninja was popular all over the world[1] and became the first film in a series of Ninja films, the second being Revenge of the Ninja and the third being Ninja III: The Domination, although they are not directly related to one another in terms of storyline.

Home video releases

The movie had been released on VHS and Beta during the 1980s, but an official US DVD release had long eluded the masses until MGM issued as part of its Limited Edition Collection (a series of manufactured-on-demand DVD-Rs) in October 2011.[2] The film had also been distributed on DVD in the UK by Lighthouse (2001) and Optimum Entertainment (2011).

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Andrew Yule, Hollywood a Go-Go: The True Story of the Cannon Film Empire, Sphere Books, 1987 p19
  2. ↑ "Enter the Ninja FINALLY coming to DVD via MGM’s Limited Edition Collection". InsomniacEntertainment.com. October 5, 2011. Retrieved October 5, 2011.

External links