Sam Firstenbergs first foray into action direction was the middle part of Canons (Unofficial) Ninja Trilogy. And what we have here with ‘Revenge of the Ninja’ is a much more well rounded endeavour when compared to ‘Enter the Ninja’.

The film follows a father and son who flee there country after an onslaught of Ninjas kills everyone else. They’re brought to the US by a friend of the family who sets them up running a gallery showcasing traditional dolls. Little do they know, this gallery showing is actually a front for drug smuggling and money laundering. But when the deals arranged between the mafia and the Japanese Ninjas falls through, a turf war of epic proportins is unleashed.

I was genuinely somewhat surprised by ‘Revenge of the Ninja’ the script has a lot more nuance, pacing and detail compared to its predecessor. The characters all have active motivations, the 3 act structure has a nice pacing and decent transitions between the acts, theres plenty of characters and plot variety on hand to help keep things fresh and interesting and the final act has decent closure and feels solid.

The dialogues quite a bit toned down from the first film, I find this one much less quotable, but there are still some good lines in here that do help keep the thing going and I can quite happily say I had fun with this thing. Theres also a few moments where you kind of have to take a bit of a leap of faith with this thing, nothing too aggregious, just one or two moments where you have to assume that our characters are either really REALLY stupid or oblivious. But other than that, this is just a kind of fun, somewhat generic, but well managed script.

The directions pretty functional as well, the crew all seem to be on the same page and theres a little bit more experimentation and creativity behind the wheel here, I feel like Firstenberg played his first foray into action a *little* overly safe. But it’s quibbling honestly and whats here is really solid and more than keeps the audience on board.

This extends to the cast direction too, where we see our core cast utilise set space effectively with some great usses of props and experimentation on delivery flowing freely. If I was being a bit of a Grinch, i’d maybe suggest this was down to Firstenberg not quite being as comfortable in the directors chair at this point as he’d like to be, rather than it being some kind of intentionally free form melting pot…But whats presented here works for me as a piece of entertainment and I really quite enjoyed it.

As for the Fight Choreography? For a first time action director here, Firstenberg has absolutely bettered the first film in terms of how they show the fighting, weapon play and soft/no contact interactions are the flavour of the day and with firstenberg carefully masking the no contact shots, we have some fun and interesting little fight scenes that again, wont win over any of the die hard martial arts afficionados. But DO manage to look decent, impressive and weighty, which is everything you need at minimum for a good fight sequence. From there they only continue to build quite honestly…

The cine has a bit of a boost over the first one, scenes have a bit more considered structuring, theres clearly been more thought into b-roll and cutaway footage and the edit feels quite a bit tighter. The use of onset audio in places added a degree of gritty realism to the film which I thought was a nice touch. Its still not exactly changing the world. But its a much tighter, coherent and interesting production which I think really goes the extra mile.

The performances across the board are much more toned down vs the original. Theres a degree of ham present, but nothing like what was there before and instead we have a smidge of melodramatisism mixed largely with cheesy macho action fodder. The cast are lively, animated and really push themselves to give the best they can give here.

‘Revenge of the Ninja’ is just good cheesy fun and would probably pair up quite well with ‘New York Ninja’ or ‘Death Wish 3’ as a goofy and at times over the top revenge story, thats surprisingly well made given the budget and circumstances. Definitely one to check out if you’re a fan of the genre. Dont expect to have your mind blown, but do expect a damn good time.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/revenge-of-the-ninja/