One of my favorite things about writing this daily blog is the fact that I get to talk about, sometimes briefly or at length, about movies that I love. Terrible movies, classic movie, horror, suspense, foreign, action adventure, monsters, martial arts movies and so much more. It doesn’t matter what I see cause it’s all part of the life of a cinephile. So today, I get to talk about the movie Enter the Ninja staring the original Django himself, Franco Nero. The 1981 classic, yes classic ninja film that is just balls out epic and unintentionally funny action film.
While visiting old pal Frank Landers (Alex Courtney) in the Philippines, master ninja Cole (Nero) is approached by villain Charles Venarius (Christopher George). Coveting Lander’s plantation, Venarius tries to strong-arm Cole into turning against his friend. Our Hero refuses, whereupon Venarius brings in his own ninja Hasegawa (Sho Kosugi), the first step towards the battle-royal climax. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Enter The Ninja is just a whole movie of ninja kills, knife throwing, sword stabbing, and kick flipping good time. It’s an epic movie that pulls no punches with the violence as an obscene amount of thugs and ninjas just get karate chopped and sliced like a bad video game. There is probably more sword clanging sounds than there is actual dialog and I love it for that. Enter the Ninja is just a beautiful movie to behold since they really don’t make movies like this anymore. This came right at the beginning of America’s love obsession ninja and martial arts movies that turned ordinary dudes into action killing machines.
But while I could go on about the movie and the climatic ninja battle royale, I want to talk about one scene that has stuck in my mind for so long about this movie that even the mere mention of the movie will get me to reenact this follow scene. Take a look below.
I agree with the title of the video in that this is the single greatest death scene in a movie ever. I mean, it was a slow motion death scene in which the recipient of the comically large ninja star just milks the death scene before shrugging and accepting his death. You can’t make that shit up. It’s like Franco Nero dipped that ninja star in a poison that makes the person just not give a fuck that they are being killed with a ninja star and just falls over. That villain had the look of a man who just had a deep contemplation on life’s existentialism and decided that it is futile to rationalize the fact that he just died of a ninja star to the dead center mass of his body, possibly missing vital organs, and just shrugs it off as part of the deal of being a henchman. Slow clap for that man.
God, now I want to go watch this movie. Fucking amazing.
