"In 1985, America hit peak ninja," says Hendrix. "'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' surfed out of the sewers, Remco's Ninja Strike Force dominated toy stores, Parfums de Coeur sold $20 million of Ninja cosmetics, and everyone dressed like a ninja for Halloween."
Ninjas had been on the periphery of movies and television for decades. Professor Ronald Duncan, a Black ninjutsu teacher, performed weapons demonstrations in the New York area in the 1960s and on TV shows like "Thrillseekers" and "The Wide World of Sports" in the '70s, though as Hendrix notes, his efforts were largely ignored, and he was virtually "erased from history."
Ninjas turned up in the James Bond feature "You Only Live Twice" in 1967. But the release of Eric Van Lustbader's 1980 novel "The Ninja" sparked mainstream interest in all things ninja, which was answered by Cannon Films' "Enter the Ninja" in 1980. In the film, Franco Nero — the original "Django" of spaghetti Western fame — played a ninja battling an evil businessman. Few found Nero believable in the role, but Cannon chiefs Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus saw a new star in Sho Kosugi, who played an evil ninja.
A martial arts teacher and minor actor in Bruceploitation films, Kosugi briefly became the go-to screen ninja in the 1980s, though his early showcases for Cannon were underwhelming, or in the case of "Ninja III: The Domination," downright bizarre. He parted ways with the company in the mid-'80s to oversee his own films for Trans World Entertainment, including the box-office hit "Pray for Death."
Cannon rebounded with "American Ninja," a vehicle intended for Chuck Norris which instead became a star-making project for former model Michael Dudikoff, who, as Hendrix says, "discovered the ancient teachings of his ninja heritage" in the film. This ludicrous effort was followed by four more "American Ninja" titles, but ninjas retained their hold on martial arts fans and pop culture through toys, costumes, video games, action figures and other ephemera until the early 1990s.
