AMERICAN NINJA 3: BLOOD HUNT (1989)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*

It’s likely that the first draft of the script for this film imagined actor Michael Dudikoff returning to the role, since the hero-ninja was once more teamed with his sidekick from the previous two films, Curtis Jackson (Steve James). When Dudikoff said no—probably for reasons of money, since he did return for the fourth installment—the producers substituted David Bradley, who just happens to run into Jackson at a tournament, so as to form an immediate partner-bond. Bradley, playing a new guy named Sean Davidson, was also raised with ninja skills by a Japanese mentor. The new mentor is then captured by a scurrilous villain, the Cobra, whereon Davidson, Jackson, and a comedy-relief character named Dexter team up to find the missing mentor, name of Ikumo.

The Cobra (Marjoe Gortner) runs the usual mysterious installation guarded by multi-colored ninja, and his purpose is to produce a deadly virus for sale to the highest and most evil bidder. When the heroes track down Cobra, the villain manages to capture Davidson and subject him to the virus, which is the only predicament that arouses a little sympathy for the main hero. Davidson escapes and tells his friends they may have to kill him, though the reason for this is not stated.

The three good guys also make a new friend, a lady ninja named Chan Lee. (Jackson calls her a “ninjette.”) She’s an enemy of the Cobra, a master of disguise, and—if I understood the dialogue correctly—Davidson’s mentor Ikumo. The male actor originally playing Ikumo disappears after the first thirty minutes, possibly because the writer lost interest in him and decided to meld him with the lady ninja. This imposture is never rationalized in any way, but it does rival a similarly nonsensical “big reveal” in AMERICAN NINJA 4. There’s a jot more fantasy-logic in the way Davidson overcomes his viral infection. Apparently, he burns it away with his “chi,” though the film can only show this by having a cameraman shine a really bright light on Bradley.

Of course, fight-scenes are the selling-point of all the American Ninja films, and BLOOD HUNT does have a decent allotment of martial dust-ups courtesy of Bradley, James and Michele Chan. Bradley’s not a particularly charismatic presence, but he’s not as wooden as many other “one-chop wonders,” and Steve James helps take up some of the acting slack. Marjoe Gortner makes a decent comic-book villain, even if his resources seem to be a bit on the impoverished side. Still, before being slain he manages to do away with both Dexter and Chan Lee, though the two surviving heroes don’t seem all that broken up by the loss as they end the film celebrating their victory. If there was ever a trivia-contest on this series, one might rack up a point by knowing that BLOOD HUNT was the only film in which Bradley played Sean Davidson, since his role in Number Four is that of a ninja-impostor, while he essays a separate character in the even moreabysmal fifth entry.