I have seen cheesy kung fu fight films. Living in Taiwan they come on in lieu of sitcoms in America. I have seen movies make fun of themselves, but this film belongs in the sad category of fight films that try too hard with awful actors, awful props, and awful music to be taken seriously. I seriously felt pity for the person who composed the music for this movie. How sad it must be to be a composer who has to churn out crap like what I thought should have been titled "Generic Ninja Fight Scene, Op. 1" or "Variations on A Bad Guy Pointing a Gun at a Girl's Head When Backed into a Corner" or the daring "Flight of the Helicopter". Then the fight scenes were over and the credits rolled. Those actually had me in tears laughing. If the "special effects" weren't proof enough that this was low-budget, the fact that only two or three of the crew members, presumably locals which although good for the much-needed Phillipino economy was probably done solely to save money, have ever done anything since this series of movies. They rented equipment, despite making sequels to this movie. That was pretty funny too. The thing that really had me going though, was not the music (which left me half expecting an animated Sargeant Slaughter from G.I. Joe to pop up), but the ending...I suppose this would be a spoiler if there was really a plot to spoil, but when the American Ninja drops the girl into Jackson's arms and then takes off his mask, I wanted to see him jump off the roof and Jackson drop the girl to catch him.
I think that would have been the perfect punchline for this joke of a movie.
I think that would have been the perfect punchline for this joke of a movie.