Nicholas gets dragged into Tomkin’s story when it develops that someone, apparently a ninja, is trying to kill him…and Nicholas incorrectly assumes that the mysterious muders going on around his beachhouse are due to the simple fact that Justine lives nearby – the murders are signs from the ninja that even Tomkin’s family is in danger. Gradually (and I do mean “gradually”), Nicholas learns that Justine’s father is mega-wealthy, mega-infamous bad guy Raphael Tomkin. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to get hot beneath the collar or consult a thesaurus. Nicholas pays no heed, until he meets dropdead gorgeous Justine, who just happens to run into Nicholas on the beach…and several pages later they’re having sex in incredibly overwrought prose. Meanwhile, people around him are being murdered. Not that it matters, for as it opens Nicholas has resigned his post after a breakdown.or something.Īnyway, it’s all just a convenient setup so that, when we meet him, Nicholas Linnear is a broken man, despite only being in his 30s, sort of living like a bum along the beach outside of New York City.
![enter the ninja film enter the ninja film](http://www.undertheradarmag.com/uploads/review_images/EnterNinja.jpg)
Raised in Japan, Nicholas eventually came to the US (after becoming a ninja, though Lustbader keeps it a “mystery” for several hundred pages), where he apparently got a job at an ad agency (just like Darrin on Bewitched!). Nicholas (and no, it’s never just “Nick”) is one of the more stoic/boring/unmemorable protagonists you’ll ever encounter, lacking much spark. Our hero is Nicholas Linnear, improbably-named modern day ninja of caucasian and Japanese descent. What makes it so funny is the story is quite simple it’s just been overblown to staggering extremes. The book should come with a pack of No-Doze. Comically overwritten, The Ninja is one of the more pretentious reads I’ve ever had the displeasure of enduring, as if Dow Mossman, after penning his similarly-overwritten Stones of Summer, had decided to take a stab at writing “something Oriental.” You’d think I was joking if I told you that a novel about a ninja was boring, but there it is – I tell you the truth. Even the cover of the mass market paperback seemed to suggest Sho Kosugi, who came to brief fame via Cannon’s Enter the Ninja - which, I seem to recall reading, was rushed into production to jump onto the ninja bandwagon which was kicked off by the runaway success of this very novel.īut here’s the thing…as shoddy, goofy, and bad as Enter the Ninja sometimes is, it’s still a hell of a lot better than this novel. I bought The Ninja fresh off the racks in the mid-‘80s, desperate like other kids my age for anything about ninjas. This read has been decades in the making. It might all lead to Akira donning his ancestral helmet and finding vengeance at the end of a sword, but the way it gets there and its attitude towards the American Dream elevates it to something a little more interesting than the standard bloody punch-up.No month stated, 1980 Fawcett Crest Books
#ENTER THE NINJA FILM MOVIE#
Like pretty much all of Kosugi's ninja films, the action is spectacular, but the really compelling stuff here comes in how the movie presents Akira as an immigrant in pursuit of a peaceful new life in America, and the contrast between the dream of hard work and success and the barriers he encounters along the way.
![enter the ninja film enter the ninja film](http://s.kat-torrent.com/20170604/57533/enter-the-ninja-1981-kat-720p-cover.jpg)
Unfortunately, it doesn't work out that way, and when the mafia shows up looking for a bit of priceless jewelry and puts his family in danger, Akira realizes his old life of violence isn't far behind him after all.
![enter the ninja film enter the ninja film](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/pv-target-images/35b3160237c05672fe93cc6c48988b6bc760d79273060c1798bae7f8189d72a1._UR1920,1080_RI_.jpg)
Make no mistake: there's a lot of ninja revenge in this movie, with Kosugi playing the role of Akira Saito, a highly trained ninja who, after being forced to murder his own brother, leaves a life of shadowy violence behind in order to travel to America with his family and open a restaurant.