Film Fight Fridays is our weekly series showing our appreciation of the best fights captured onscreen, whether on TV or in films. Whether it’s gunfights, sword fights, knife fights, or good old-fashioned fistfights, we will showcase them all here every Friday.
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We took a break from the column last week, but we’re back this week showcasing our favorite fights. We take it back to 1983 this week with the classic Sho Kosugi film Revenge of the Ninja. Revenge of the Ninja was part of the Ninja trilogy alongside Enter the Ninja and Ninja III: The Domination, which you’ll see in some future columns.
I was a bit older when I finally got to see Revenge of the Ninja as I was only three when it came out. Still, the film was one of the main reasons I got into ninjas ninja-like characters as a kid alongside the American Ninja series with Michael Dudkoff. If a movie involved ninja Sho Kosugi was a must for various reasons, with the most important being that he practiced ninjutsu. In this film, he co-choreographed the fights and even crafted some of the weapons seen in the film.
The final battle against the silver masked ninja was as over the top as you would expect, and while it had some “campy” moments, the fight was solid even by today’s standards. While Arthur Roberts portrayed Brayden, aka the silver masked ninja, most of the physicality involving the silver masked ninja was handled by Steve Lambert, who choreographed a lot of the fights alongside Kosugi. I learned a while back that Lambert also played some of the ninjas in the opening sequence as well.
What did you think of this fight? Do you have a favorite ninja movie? Let us know
If you have a recommendation for this feature, let us know in the comments. We’ll see you next week with another Film Fight Friday.
Make sure to visit the RAGE Works Amazon shop where you can find a section with all the films showcased in this series.
