NINJA III: THE DOMINATION (1984)

NINJA III: THE DOMINATION (1984)

Tagline: He's the ultimate killer. She's the perfect weapon.

(Action, Fantasy, Spirit Ninja) [R]

You are under severe stress, of course, but otherwise, doctor Bowen, the psychiatrist you saw, says there's nothing out of the ordinary. Aside from your exceptional extrasensory perception and your preoccupation with Japanese culture. No harm in that!

Because where else can you get ninjas with eye makeup and throwing stars that bounce right off guys that still die anyway? Where else can you shoot a ninja 30 times and have him still escape, where else can a ninja barely cut people’s faces and have them die immediately. Where are you going to get a full-sized video game machine that controls your mind, and probably the hairiest 80s male lead in history? NINJA III: THE DOMINATION, that’s where.

The plot for this follows an evil ninja who dies that was possessed by a spirit that calls itself “Ninja”. As the evil ninja is dying he casts the spirit via a sword into an unsuspecting phone line repair woman that does aerobics in her spare time. She quickly falls in love with a cop that followed up on her story and the two find out that the only way she can escape “Ninja” is to be killed by another ninja. You would think in the 80s love could have fixed the problem, but no. We need another ninja. 

When I was growing up I guess you had to be some sort of ninja snob to hate this thing, because I absolutely loved it back then. In fact, I was running around my apartment complex at the age of 11 throwing smoke bombs from the roof and running from pretend cops and other kids, and making paper ninja stars with pins in them. All that stuff. It was the 80s and everything was fantastically dangerous and nuts. It was the best decade ever. This movie is a little bit GHOSTBUSTERS and a little bit ultra-choreographed goofy looking martial arts. It also has one of the most outrageously horrible soundtracks ever when it comes to lyrics. I mean this thing has to be somewhere in the bottom 10 for containing songs with the wonkiest lyrics. 

The chemistry between Lucinda Dickey (CHEERLEADER CAMP) who plays Christie, and Jordan Bennett who plays Secord is practically non-existent, but honestly, I didn’t watch this thing to see a relationship unfold. Lucinda Dickey, by the way, was in several big movies before quitting acting in 1990. Her husband is the producer of the TV show SURVIVOR. The rest of the cast though is actually pretty good. Even James Hong (BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA) shows up in this thing as Miyashima. I also secretly always get excited when something is filmed in Phoenix, AZ having lived here for decades. Oddly this is the 3rd in a series of ninja movies (ENTER THE NINJA, REVENGE OF THE NINJA, and NINJA III: THE DOMINATION) that are all actually unrelated story-wise. In my opinion, this is by far the best of the 3, but it didn’t fare well at the Box Office making just over half of what REVENGE OF THE NINJA did. 

In case it isn’t clear, this is an underrated 80s gem and I really do wish it had spawned a series, but alas. The 80s already had dozens of women kicking people’s teeth in. I guess they weren’t ready for this thing.

NINJA III: THE DOMINATION is a 7 out of 7 and stands as one of the pinnacles of 80s cheese. 

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