Ninja Christmas

One of my favourite Christmas traditions is the Movie Marathon. The cable channels high up on the dial started it. James Bond marathon from Dec 25 to Jan 01.

It was only James Bond Movies for the first few years. But then other franchises started. Or Chuck Norris started.

Now we do our own.

We've all done the Star Wars marathon, and the Lord of the Rings Marathon. The Marvel Marathon is only for the most organized of Christians.

Oh yeah. You are surprised religion comes into this. It is Santa's birthday we are celebrating after all. We should not forget that.

I honour my christian upbringing this year with a Ninja Movie Marathon. All the old ninja and kung-fu movies play on Plex, and it has been 30 years since I've seen most of them. If you have to watch a commercial every 15 minutes, all the better.

I put on Enter the Ninja. It starts with three red ninja and a black ninja chasing a white ninja through the forest. I wonder if red was a good ninja color, or if it is just a device to help the viewer distinguish this ninja from others. Either way, its perfect for a Christmas Movie Marathon.

The white ninja, Cole, is Caucasian. A bit on the nose. He seems to be the best ninja. Better than Sho Kosugi. I guess Kosugi isn't the hero of the first ninja movie. It isn't how I remember it.

It is important in watching the old Kung-Fu flicks, (and yes, ninja movies are just the 80s westernization of the 70s movies out of Hong Kong) to pay attention to the skill ladder. The first half of the movie establishes that our hero is at the bottom of a hierarchy of fighters that culminates is a scarred but handsome arch-villian. Each step of the ladder is a insurmountable difference in skill. The ladder established the villain as a god-like pillar of injustice. Our hero then finds a irritable old mustacheod master to train him, and he eventually topples the villain at the top of the ladder.

That is not exactly how Enter the Ninja starts though. The white ninja is the best from the start. Perhaps I mis-remember things. Perhaps Ninja movies are a genre of their own.

At the bad guy stronghold, the guards are walking around in their red ninja outfits. It's a clever ploy to dress your guards in costumes of stealth, and then to make them bright red.

The stronghold has a Kanji painted on the wall: Nin. It tells us viewers both that this is the secret base, `nin' meaning 'secret'. Good idea to advertise the secret base. But also, us viewers from the 80s have seen this character on all our ninja magazines. We know it as the first character in 'Ninja' and we know that Japan is replete with such secret bases of red ninja.

The white ninja infiltrates, putting down scores of red ninja.

It was all a test, though. White ninja has just earned a license of ninjitstu.

It upsets Hasakawa, the black ninja played by Sho Kosugi. Ninja should be Japanese, he insists.

The white ninja, having earned his license. Goes to the Philippines, as one would, to visit his old army buddy, Frank.

Of course the town his buddy is in is at the mercy of a gang of nasties. They have aims on Frank's farm, and Cole soon realizes that he is going to have to deal with them.

At dinner at Frank's house, Frank gets out booze, "Let's have a drink."

"Do you have to drink tonight?" His wife, Mary-anne asks.

"I don't have to, I choose to." Frank responds, hinting the the viewer that all might not be perfect between Frank and Mary-anne.

The ninja stuff proceeds about as you would expect. Cole first encounters a bunch of thugs in a bar, and thrashes them and the effeminate lower boss that is egging them on.

Then he thrashes bigger and bigger bosses until the top boss discovers that he is a ninja, and hires a ninja of his own to deal with him. Of course, the ninja he hires is Sho Kosugi.

What is not expected is that Cole and Mary-anne get it on when Frank is out drinking. In the back and forth Frank is killed and Mary-anne is kidnapped, and Cole has to go fight Sho Kosugi to save her.

A strong start, the Christmas Ninja Movie Marathon, seems like it will be an unmitigated success, and will become a yearly thing.