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You know, after the first few Chuck Norris movies, I got so I could tell that a movie was produced by Golan-Globus even if I tuned in in the middle, without ever looking at the credits or the title. What's more I could tell it was Golan-Globus within a minute of screen time. Something about the story structure, the goofy relationships between the characters, the mannered dialog, the wooden acting (spiked with the occasional outright terrible performance), the scene tempos and rhythms that made Albert Pyun look like John McTiernan, the paper-thin plots and not-ready-for-prime-time fight choreography...Golan-Globus has been incredibly consistent over the years in style, subject matter and point-of-view.
What can you say, it must work for them, since they've produced literally dozens of movies. You go to one of their productions, and you know exactly what you're getting. And it ain't brain food, folks.
"Ninja 3" is another piece of hackwork in a long line of products from the G-G sausage factory, and offers the typical limited pleasures to the movie-goers' palate. You've got a Bad Ninja, slicing up cops and criminals and anyone else who gets in their way. You've got a Good Ninja, pledged to stop him. You've got a Westerner thrown into the mix so we Americans can identify with him (or her in this case) and be reassured that "We can still beat those pesky Orientals at their own game." You've got a Love Interest (who is usually also the worst actor/ress in the film) fencing with the Hero. You've got your endless string of assaults, assassinations and lingering shots of men gurgling in agony while an arrow or throwing star sticks unconvincingly out of their eye, neck, or chest. You've got your Beefy White Guy/Bodyguards in Suits calling a Ninja a 'Son of A B*tch' and throwing a roundhouse punch, only to get his *ss handed to him. You've got a Final Confrontation between the Good Guy and The Bad Guy which goes on for 20 minutes and just sort of stops like a RoadRunner cartoon instead of reaching a climax or a resolution.
Ninja 3 is a little different, in that the plot revolves around a scrappy female athletic type getting possessed by the Bad Ninja, so she ends up killing a lot of the cops and criminals and Beefy White Bodyguards in Suits while under his spell. But all the other elements are there, as formal in their way as a Kabuki play or a Noh drama.
I actually thought Lucinda Dickey was pretty likable in this film. She's nicely muscled and curvy, has great cheekbones and some athletic 'ooomph' to her movements, and you can actually suspend belief enough to accept that her character could do some of the feats she pulls off in the movie. She can almost, but not quite, carry this thing. One extra start for her participation and good energy.
Naturally, Sho Kusugi is in here, and he pretty much dominates the last 10-15 minutes of the movie. And just to show you how 3rd-rate and uninspired G-G movies are, the director and editor inter-cut the last climactic fight between Kosugi and the Bad Ninja scene with numerous reaction shots of Dickey and her boyfriend watching the life and death battle with an expression of mild bemusement. I'm serious...for all the emotion and reaction they show to the proceedings, they could be looking at a sea turtle in an aquarium at Marineland. I can only imagine how Dickey must have felt when she saw the finished product - she probably wanted to run the editor through with a katana for real because those reaction shots make her look like a complete idiot.
An enjoyable waste of time...but it definitely IS a waste of time. Maybe if you are a Sho Kusugi fan, or even a Linda Dickey fan you'd find it worth your while.


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