Kosugi is pretty much wasted as he only appears in a couple sequences including the ending where he does battle with Nero. Christopher George isn't much better but at least he goes over-the-top with his role and at least manages to get a couple laughs. Susan George offers up the typical George performance but it is worth noting that this was the first film I've seen where she doesn't get naked. There wasn't a single second where I believed him in this role and you can tell that he seems rather bored throughout. Nero was trading in his Western gear for this here and isn't all that convincing as the ninja. From this point on there are many different fight sequences but none of them pack any punches and more often than not you're just sitting there waiting for something exciting to happen but it never does. Even the opening where Nero, in his white ninja outfit, does battle against a group of ninjas just comes off flat and deadly boring. Sadly this one here doesn't offer much in terms of entertainment. I think the best of these American ninja movies are the ones that know they're corny and just want to deliver entertainment. He really thinks he must be doing a serious piece of art and its this serious nature that slows the movie down and in the end kills it. I think it's also safe to say that these American ninja movies were a major, major step down from the brilliance of Akira Kurosawa but you wouldn't know it by Golan's direction. ENTER THE NINJA is the first in the series and clearly the weakest, which is due in large part to the poor direction by Golan. Nero is able to keep the bad guys away with his ninja skills but soon the baron hires a ninja (Sho Kosugi) to take care of him. Enter the Ninja (1981) * 1/2 (out of 4) The first film in the series features Franco Nero as a war veteran who finishes training at a ninja school and goes to visit a friend and his wife (Susan George) and discovers they are getting pushed around by a creep (Christopher George) wanting to force them off their land.
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