They don't make 'em like they used to...

Those of you with a rudimentary swivel system permanently protruding from the back of your necks will have been eagle-eyed enough to have noticed a small break in your regularly scheduled programming. Alternatively, just like I was, you were off doing something more fruitful and/or distracting. Good for you, we could all use the exercise. It's occurred to me that over the last few weeks, everything is getting really depressing and serious and even fun things like the NFL are now being used by a terrifying megalomaniac to push the US closer and closer to both an Authoritarian Dictatorship and probably Global Thermonuclear War. Heavy stuff. I don't want to say I'm obsessed by it, but I think people have really underestimated the harsh realities of North Korea getting the hump; everyone wants to be Mad Max, but most of us are going to end up more like Brundle Fly; more likely resembling a warm bowl of organ soup or cloud of faintly pork-scented ash. So I've decided to be a bit more positive where I can so at least when someone stumbles across my charred remains there's a smile on my face.

I challenge you to name someone who wasn't fascinated by ninjas when they were a kid. OK, that's bold but anyone in my generation grew up with Teenage Mutant Ninja (or Hero) Turtles so a vast proportion of my friends have at least attempted to use a broom handle to emulate Donatello or ruined a perfectly good t-shirt trying to make a bandanna. I was fortunate enough however to have a deeper, more rounded frame of reference for martial arts; my Mum's VHS collection.

Obviously, only a tiny proportion of my readership is ever likely to have met my Mum, but that's your loss because she's awesome. I can attribute the man I am today to her unfailing ability to make the best cake ever at every conceivable opportunity. My Mum loved martial arts movies when I was younger; Van Damme, Jackie Chan, Cynthia Rothrock (Google her you Philistines) you name it. Also disaster movies but that's another story. It's a beautiful irony because my Mum absolutely despises real violence, particularly combat sports, but nothing tops watching JCVD laying a giant flying spin kick on some hapless crony as they dutifully attack in single file like the cretins they are. I digress. The absolute crown jewel in the collection however, was American Ninja; if you haven't seen it, you're missing a vital piece of your soul, the name Michael Dudikoff will be unfamiliar and frankly I pity you.

American Ninja is what happens when you get a bunch of creative types together who don't actually know the first damn thing about Ninjitsu but have a great concept and want to get on that bandwagon quick as you like, grab a young actor who actually looks like the physical embodiment of a Fist of the North Star character (his face is so long and pointy it defies standard physiology) and just have a bunch of stupid fun. Plot wise, imagine every action movie written and produced in the Eighties: US military Base on foreign soil, arms dealers, the colonel's hot daughter kidnapped at least once, amnesiac loner earns the respect of his peers using hand to hand combat and general bad-assery, mild-mannered gardener turns out to be the hero's long lost sensei, the bad guy has a ninja school straight out of a Bond movie. Just replace all the shoot outs with Ninjas and you're off.

It's brilliant at the same time as it's monumentally stupid, but that's why it works and why 30 years later it's still as enjoyable as it was the first time I watched it. It's crammed full of horrible clichés and tropes, but it comes from a less cynical time when frankly audiences were less of a bunch of know-it-all douche bags. The ninja school is hilarious for example; our guided tour shows off a raft of skills being practised by guys in the brightest, most primary-coloured and least stealthy gi known to man. Rope climbing? You bet there's stunt people awkwardly shimmying towards the top just like in PE when it was raining and your teacher had to improvise a lesson in the sports hall. Forward rolls? Hell yeah! Small groups practicing largely pointless twirly stuff with sticks? Liberal portions of that. Shoddy ninjitsu demonstrated at all times? Fill your boots. Boss Ninja demonstrating his deadline abilities by fighting and killing his own men? Check. Black Star Ninja even has a little black star facial tattoo so you can tell him apart. Bless him. All with commentary by our resident Arms Dealer Ortega, played by an American actor with a French accent. It just keeps giving.

Our heroic, eponymous American Ninja Joe Armstrong (genius character naming there 1980s) seems to only remember how to punch and kick people's faces after being abandoned on an island, found by a Japanese soldier and then blown up on said island all before reaching his teenage years. He earns the trust of his squad by besting their leader in unarmed combat which includes a bucket, wins the heart of the colonel's daughter without any mention of buckets at all and does it all while uttering about 10 lines of dialogue. It's almost quite emotional when he finally gets to put his ninja suit on at end and start forcibly inserting various sharp objects into the soft spots of a swathe of faceless stuntmen. He's joined by his mentor, who obviously dies heroically, before he faces off with Black Star Ninja who now has lasers on his wrists, before fighting an entire helicopter and saving the day. I think my favourite part is the chase through the ninja school where they run through the gauntlet-style training device with swinging bags covered in knives rather than run round it. Either that or the jeep chase where the corrupt Sargent bites it when his vehicle hits a tree at moderate speed, promptly explodes like it was manufactured solely out of C4 and nobody mentions him again. It's perfect.

There is of course, a reason they don't make movies like this anymore. The PC brigade would have gender-neutral kittens over all the sexism, racial stereotypes and general machismo on display here. There aren't even two female characters, so the Bechdel test goes straight out of the window. You know what though,? Who cares? If you go into American Ninja expecting anything other than glorious 80s face-punching I suspect it's your problem not Michael Dudikoff's.