American Ninja

Name: American Ninja
Genre: Action
Released: 1985-08-30
Duration: 1 h 35 min
Rating: 5.9
Cast: Michael Dudikoff, Steve James, Judie Aronson, Guich Koock, John Fujioka

The deadliest art of the Orient is now in the hands of an American.

American Ninja (1985)

Timing: 1:35 (95 min)

5.908/10
402

6.554/10
11209

5.5/10
18000

All about film

Video 1

Photo 6

Actors and characters

Watch film American Ninja | American Ninja (1985) Original Trailer [HD]

Release date

1985-08-30

Country

United States

Production

Cannon Group, Golan-Globus Productions

Genre

Action

Budget

$1 000 000

Revenue

$10 499 694

Website

Director

Sam Firstenberg

Actors

Michael Dudikoff, Steve James, Judie Aronson, Guich Koock, John Fujioka, Don Stewart, John LaMotta, Tadashi Yamashita, Phillip Brock, Tony Carreon
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Menahem Golan, Yoram Globus, Avi Kleinberger, Ken Metcalfe, Gideon Amir

Operator

Hanania Baer

Composer

Michael Linn

Artist

Audition

Perry Bullington, Robert MacDonald, Ken Metcalfe

Editing

Michael J. Duthie, Andy Horvitch, Peter Lee-Thompson
All team (24)

Short description

Joe Armstrong, an orphaned drifter with little respect for much other than martial arts, finds himself on an American Army base in The Philippines after a judge gives him a choice of enlistment or prison. On one of his first missions driving a convoy, his platoon is attacked by a group of rebels who try to steal the weapons the platoon is transporting and kidnap the base colonel's daughter.

What's left behind the scenes

In 1988, a remake (or rather, a plagiarism) was filmed in Bollywood – “Commando” (1988), exactly copying the main plot of the original film. Only the ending and the protagonist’s motivation differ. The film widely uses a musical theme “borrowed” from another famous film – the saga “Star Wars”.
The film features 114 “on-screen deaths”.
The music heard during the ninja training scene is also present in the action scenes of another film, “Ninja Revenge” (1983).
Before filming began, Michael Dudikoff had absolutely no experience in martial arts. He learned and trained while working on the film and earned a black belt.
According to Steve James (1952-1993), Michael Dudikoff was very worried about having to work with him, as James knew martial arts, while Dudikoff was a complete novice and feared he would "show off." To avoid problems with his co-star, James even insisted on filming the final fight scenes far away from him, on the other side of the set. Dudikoff and James were only able to overcome these disagreements during the filming of the sequel.
The music featured in the ninja training scene is also present in the battle scenes of another film, "Revenge of the Ninja" (1983).

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