For whatever reason, my parents decided it would be OK if I had a copy – - not a subscription – - to a martial arts publication whose name escapes me. It wasn’t Ninja monthly. It was something like American Martial Arts Monthly, something like that. Something that applied to me, the american martial arts enthusiast.
I should add that I was twelve and still fainted at the sight of blood.
In any case, this was a magazine which showed you exotic weapons and training techniques to uh, defend yourself with. This was the 80s. and ninjas were commonplace, delivering pizzas or working as car-hops, which was often a conflict of interest when a pepperoni or a cheeseburger had to be delivered to a powerful shogun or executive of a technology-driven company.
So I don’t think this was a failing of my parents that I ended up with an illustrated catalog of illegal weapons with information on how to acquire and use them. Ninjas were everywhere, and you would have to pick one up and shake them in order to figure out if they were good or bad (if they were bad, sharp objects would fall out of their pockets. If they were good – - pepper.)
While I tired of the metal-bladed fans and the nunchucks and the variations of push-ups, and yes, a one-man helicopter, the movie reviews were INCREDIBLE. And by that, I mean they had movie reviews about martial arts.
I remember a tepid review of American Ninja (which should really be called American Smoke Bomb), something awful about streetfighting, and a review for a musical called The Last Dragon.
They noted that the film made actually no distinction between Asian cultures, had nothing to do with actual martial arts, and was racially insensitive (Yes, a martial arts magazine made all these distinctions, at least, in my mind it did. ). They did not care. They wanted more. And I wanted to have whatever they were having.
But largely due to the fact that I didn’t personally own a VCR until I was twenty, I didn’t get to see the movie until at least ten years later. By then, Busta Rhymes had already done his impression of Sho Nuff the Shogun of Harlem* and I was well behind the curve of people who had seen The Last Dragon and were put off by its uneven plot and tone.
But somehow, that made it better. I wanted more.
That’s because no matter what your gender, class, race, or creed, whether or not we read American Martial Arts Enthusiast Monthly for the metal bladed weapons or the movie reviews, we all want heavily 80s themed martial arts musicals heavily salted with an upbeat mysticism and nebulous spirituality.
I mean, most of us anyway.
I say all this because even though I’ve only seen it once, I still get songs from the movie stuck in my head. Like this one:
And I am not the only one who get infected by this weird energy (let’s just call it the Glow for consistency). For example, this scene. On one hand, it’s dorky and a little embarrassing. On the other hand – - I turn this over to YouTube commenter llcawthorne:
Imagine if a chick made you a custom music video to your favorite movie (and this is the 80′s when people didn’t do that stuff for Youtube everyday)… You’ld be pretty impressed/excited/whatever.
You know what? I would be. Even in the YouTube era. Because that’s just awesome.
(I must go now.)
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*Julius Green, who played Sho Nuff, passed away in 2008 at the age of 56. IMDB notes that “His favorite role was playing Lord Bowler on “The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.” (1993). Between this and learning that the actor who portrayed Blacula was also the King of Cartoons on Pee Wee’s playhouse, I am again starting to respect TV.
