The greatest movie ever made..!

Fantastic!

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Cannon Group Golan-Globus Productions were having great success with their previous ninja films, "Enter the Ninja," "Revenge of the Ninja," and "Ninja III: The Domination," so why not start a new franchise? Michael Dudikoff plays the titular American Ninja, a G.I. on a U.S. Army base in the Philippines. He keeps his ninja skills a secret, even when fellow soldier Steve James challenges him to a fight (don't worry, the two become fast friends after Dudikoff repeatedly flips James and chokes him out), but when Dudikoff uncovers arms dealers colluding with military officials, he is one ninja who's had all he can stands and can't stands n'more. To be clear, this is a terrible film, but if you enjoy campy 1980s ninja films, which I most certainly do, you will enjoy this ridiculous ninja/Rambo hybrid. FUN FACT: Director Sam Firstenberg has said this is one of his two favorite films he's directed, the other being "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo." Personally speaking, I think "Ninja III: The Domination" is his career high point.

I remember the days when I would watch just about every action junk that was created. If it had some guns, good. Some martial arts, great. Some Ninjas, awesome! I am far more demanding these days. I don't expect a great story, but I do expect good action. And this movie just doesn't have it.I can still enjoy movies from that era. Commando, for example, is a movie that is still good today. Yes, there is plenty of fighting in American Ninja, but it is so terrible and poorly choreographed, that it won't provide any entertainment, unless you are one of those people that gets amused by how rubbish it is. It is so easy to knock out these supposed "Ninjas" that you begin to wonder if you could it yourself. The only Ninja thing they have about them is the funny outfit. So, watch this only if you have a time machine and can go back go the time when this movie was fun, or if you're feeling nostalgic about action from those days...

When I was young back then, action movies were my kind of films and the American Ninja starred by Michael Dudikoff and his sidekick Steve James were one of my favorite cheesy action movies of all time. Back then Ninjas were considered cool and unstoppable especially the one playing the lead roleGoing into this movie, I really enjoyed it very much and it was very impressively made considering the budget that they had for this film. The fight scenes were entertaining to watch and Dudikoff's fine performances was what made the movie great and he really pulled it off well. I think that the reason why he played the more of quiet character type in the film was because of the script (where the director felt that it would be better for the man to let his skills do the talking for him) and not because of his camera shynessThe late Steve James along with the other actors also did an impressive job in making this movie and apart from a simple mindless action ninja butt kicking story, I don't see anything else that is wrong with this filmThe only complaint that I could come out with here and also in the sequels 2 and 4 was that Michael (or Joe) looked TOO invincible in this film and made all the other ninjas (even the main ones) look like schoolboy amateurs and after a while it tends to bored the audience or fans like meStill however, I would recommend this to anyone who just wants to spend two to three hours of their time watching some mindless but yet still fun and cool movie

American Ninja is a tired martial arts potboiler from the Golan-Globus production team (a pair of Israeli profiteers who unleashed various terrible movies on the world during the 1980s). This one tries to make an action hero of the handsome but thoroughly talentless Michael Dudikoff who, prior to this film, was best remembered for playing a dumb-ass named Ryko in the comedy Bachelor Party. Virtually nothing about American Ninja works, from its appalling score to the utterly routine action sequences. The performances are generally terrible, there's nothing original or interesting in the story department, and even the requisite martial arts moves are far from dazzling. In fact, the only thing that saves this film from the dreaded 1-out-of-10 rating is Steve James's amusing turn as the hero's sidekick. It's not an example of great screen acting by a long shot, but James does manage to embrace the absurd tone of the film with his tongue-in-cheek performance.At an American army base in the Far East there have been a number of ambushes resulting in the loss of military hardware. During a transportation of equipment, more American soldiers are attacked by a number of deadly assassins wearing ninja costumes. The ninjas try to kidnap the Colonel's daughter Patricia (Judie Aronson), who is tagging along, but an American private called Joe Armstrong (Michael Dudikoff) steps in to save her. Joe is a loner and none of the other soldiers know much about him – in fact, he doesn't know much about himself, as he has suffered from amnesia since he was quite young. He does know that he possesses incredible martial arts skills, and occasionally has flashbacks during which he recalls being trained as a boy by a mysterious Japanese mentor. Joe discovers that the army supplies are being stolen by a corrupt businessman, Victor Ortega (Don Stewart), who includes arms dealing among his list of misdemeanours. Ortega has a private army of ninjas guarding his lair and Joe has to take them on in order to put a stop to the bad guy's nefarious plans.The movie had a relatively cheap budget of $1,000,000 and grossed about ten times that amount. It is hardly surprising that Messrs. Golan and Globus were able to carry on churning out this kind of rubbish if 80s audiences were content to keep lining their pockets in such a manner. Everything about American Ninja shows signs of shoddiness. Dudikoff seems to have difficulty delivering the most straightforward of lines, and his expression barely changes during the course of the movie. The action scenes are simply ludicrous, with staggeringly inept bad guys – on this evidence even Dolly Parton could whoop their asses in a fight. The film even attempts to incorporate a few plot twists in the latter stages – with certain "good" characters turning out to be allied with the bad guys – but these twists are both heavy-handed and unsurprising. On the whole, American Ninja is thoroughly low-grade trash with nothing to recommend it.