Happily eschewing logic and pretense in favor of loads of exciting and well-choreographed fights, punch-ups, and explosions, this film comes across like a cheerfully ludicrous live action comic book in the most breezy and entertaining manner possible. The slight story centers on loner martial artist army soldier Joe Armstrong (a likable performance by Michael Dudikoff),who almost single-handedly thwarts a gang of nefarious bad guys and lethal ninjas who are involved in an illegal arms operation. Director Sam Firstenberg, working from a perfectly absurd script by Paul De Melche, relates the eventful narrative at a constant zippy pace, treats the silly material with admirable seriousness, and stages the plentiful rip-roaring action with abundant go-for-broke flair and skill. The enthusiastic acting by the pumped cast keeps this picture humming: The gorgeous Judie Aronson adds lots of sass and humor as the feisty Patricia Hickock, Steve James registers strongly as the rough'n'tumble Curtis Jackson, Don Stewart positively oozes as slimy head villain Victor Ortega, and Tadashi Yamashita cuts a menacing figure as the ruthless Black Star Ninja, who uses such things as smoke bombs, poison darts, and even a portable wrist laser gun (!) in his game, yet futile attempts to take out our hero. Hanania Baer's slick cinematography provides an impressive high-gloss look. Michael Linn's energetic score hits the stirring and spirited spot. Best of all, this flick gets right down to rousing brass tacks from the start and rarely lets up for 95 wildly kinetic minutes. A hugely enjoyable romp.

American Ninja is a ridiculous action film, even worse by Cannon standards of the mid 1980s.

Michael Dudikoff lacks charisma and screen presence as the mysterious Joe with a criminal past and elite martial arts skills but with no idea how he got them.

He has arrived at an US Army base in the Philippines where he is a bit of a loner. Almost immediately on his first mission driving a convoy of trucks, the American soldiers are attacked by a group of filipino rebels who try to steal their weapons and take colonel's daughter, Patricia. Joe is to the rescue as Patricia just screams and irritates.

Joe discovers that people in the US army base are involved in gun running with local mercenaries but not too many people believe him.

A feeble B movie, with ineptly staged action scenes.

Young Michael Dudikoff like young Lord Greystoke was abandoned in the jungle on a Pacific island as an infant. But instead of being raised by the apes, he fell into the hands of a Japanese soldier who was still living there because he hadn't heard the war was over. And like young Luke Skywalker it turns out he fell into the hands and learned the fighting skills of a Ninja.

Good thing because they were separated and the young kid came down with a case of amnesia, but those fighting skills didn't go away. The orphaned kid, now named Joe Armstrong enlists in the Army and gets himself stationed in the Phillipines. Meanwhile his Obi Wan Kenobe played by John Fujioka gets rescued himself and goes to work as a gardener on the estate of planter and terrorist go between Don Stewart using a cheesy accent that seems to vary between French and Spanish.

As these things happen everybody meets and Dudikoff both solves the mystery of part of his past and saves the commanding officer's daughter from the bad guys in this Golan-Globus Production. Charles Bronson was getting a bit long in the tooth now and Golan-Globus needed a new star for their action flicks. Michael Dudikoff filled the bill quite nicely and made quite a few films for them including several American Ninja sequels.

This film is all action and Dudikoff dispatches bad guys at a record pace. What he doesn't do, Steve James does doing his best Rambo imitation and showing his considerable martial arts skills.

The film has enough holes in the plot to drive one of those army vehicles through you see in the story. But that's what the ticket buying public doesn't care about. Dudikoff certainly looks magnificent stripped to his fighting clothes. No wonder so many sequels were made.