Wednesday, January 18, 2023

Master Ninja II (1984)

The Master was an American TV show about an old ninja, it didn't run for very long but some of the episodes were put together to create TV movies.

So, this is basically episode 3 and 4 of the TV series. No attempt is made to make the join between the two episodes seamless by the way, which is quite funny. Lee Van Cleef plays McAllister, an Army veteran who became the only gaijin ninja master in Japan. However, he is now in the US with his young apprentice Max (Timothy Van Patten) looking for McAllister's daughter, trying to avoid being killed by other ninjas, and fighting injustice (of course!)

In the first story, McAllister and Max help Carrie (Crystal Bernard) with her fight against a corrupt company boss, who was involved in her brother's death. The second story involves terrorists and secret agents and includes guest appearances from George Lazenby (who wears a tuxedo throughout of course) and David McCallum.

Watching this you can see why this only lasted for thirteen episodes on TV. Van Cleef isn't a very convincing ninja master if we are going to be honest. The story is often quite generic 1980s US TV action show but is fun enough if not taken very seriously.