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American Ninja 2:
The Confrontation (1987)

Rate: 6
Viewed: 9/04, 3/06, 3/22

Aninja2
3/06: The good news is American Ninja 2: The Confrontation is better than the original, but the bad news is...it's still crap.

If I follow the plot correctly, the drug lord wants to create an army of lethal assassins through genetic engineering. But after seeing them to get their butts kicked by the American Ninja along with a couple of fairly good fighters and many poorly trained marines, I guess the answer is: they need to increase the dosage greatly.

My favorite moment is when the ninja nemesis finally faced Joe Armstrong. Out of frustration, he decided to fuck it and pulled out a shotgun. That moment may have literally killed the ninja movement in cinema because the logic is basically this: guns will always win.

All in all, it'll be nice if Michael Dudikoff could show some personality, but he admitted in interviews that "acting is a real challenge." *sigh*

3/22: American Ninja 2: The Confrontation is actually better than the original with plenty of ninja action.

It also corrects an error by giving Steve James more screen time. He's a lot of fun to watch. Michael Dudikoff is okay but looks significantly older despite being aged by two years. A nice addition is Jeff Weston as Wild Bill for moral support. The film is notable for the rare meaty appearance of Mike Stone, a real-life martial arts champ who did a lot of fight choreography for other films.

As many ninjas as there are, they aren't Asians but inflexible white people. I don't get the part when Tojo Ken killed many of them for demonstration which is tantamount to admitting they aren't good enough to be lethal assassins before the sale. It gets worse when he decided to forego his martial art skills for a shotgun to shoot at Joe.

Entirely shot on location in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Mauritius of South Africa, the first half goes well, but, like the original, it's slowed down a bit during the second half. There's a point when Joe was leaving Wild Bill's office with Steve James, but it's not Michael Dudikoff but his stunt double. Um...why? By the way, whatever happened to Taylor's wife? Now, if you asked, "Taylor who?", it's all right...don't worry about it.

All in all, American Ninja 2: The Confrontation is the best installment of the franchise which isn't saying much.