Great ways to spend those ninja dollars…
There are some nifty new ninja and ninja-adjacent opportunities at hand to lighten your wallet folks: I was delighted with the positive and supportive tone of Austin Trunick‘s first volume of The Cannon Film Guide (as reviewed here) and this … Continued
A 1960 Ninja Version of ‘Man in the Iron Mask’ Has Surfaced!
Once in a (sadly, increasingly seldom) while, an old ninja movie never before available will surface out of Japan, and man do we have a shiny new toy to play with this month!!! Daiei’s Koga no Misshi — coined “Wrath … Continued
THESE FISTS… KILL TREES!
I have great appreciation for a new worthy cause to wipe out some trees, and as an author, book designer and marketing pro myself, These Fists Break Bricks hits me in all three of my hearts! For starters, this 330+ … Continued
Finders of the Lost Ninja
So here you are, thinking you’ve seen and collected it all, and between decades of official releases, budget box sets, bootlegs and streaming rips, you’ve nigh-completed the finite genre that is the 80’s ninja film. Then labels like AGFA and … Continued
VN’s Japanese Ninja Movie & TV Guide is HERE!
At over 50 pages and even more titles (with more to come on the to-be-entered stack), loaded with visuals and recommendations, here’s your singular resource on Japanese ninja movies and TV from the silent era to the booms of the … Continued
MIKE STONE: ‘THE FIRST NINJA’
“Aloha friends, another beautiful day in paradise.” It’s how Mike Stone begins every post on Facebook from his home in the Philippines, where he’s currently working with a writer on an extensive biography of his storied life and career(s). He’s … Continued
Hey, we’re 12!
Today marks the 12th anniversary of VN‘s first ever post, and coincidentally I was 12 when the 1980s ninja craze more or less ‘officially’ kicked off with the release of Enter the Ninja in 1981. I bring up Enter because … Continued
Everything old is new, but old, but newly old, again, again…
It is the summer of 1984, and I am baffled. Hiroyuki ‘Henry’ Sanada has been with me through every phase of my ninja fandom. Desperately hungry for ANYTHING ninja in the mid-80s and as pasted to HBO as any other … Continued
Gerald Okamura is My Co-Pilot
The advent of the 80s ninja craze saw all sorts of established martial artists from the 1970s transition from various arts to the explosively profitable and high profile modern ninjutsu of both dojo and screen — Sho Kosugi and Mike … Continued
REVIEW: The Cannon Film Guide
If there’s one speck of light in the dark months of the pandemic shutdown, it’s been some great quarantine reading for fans of Cannon Films, and that continues with Austin Trunick‘s The Cannon Film Guide Volume 1: 1980—1984. After an … Continued