A westerner named Casey, studying Ninjutsu in Japan, is asked by the Sensei to return to New York to protect the legendary Yoroi Bitsu, an armored chest that contains the weapons of the last Koga Ninja. I just watched Pray for Death on Showtime at 2:30 in the morning. This is a totally sweet movie about ninjas, in which Sho Kosugi is this bad ass super ninja who kills a whole bunch of people before moving to America, where he is framed for drug trafficking, and his wife is raped and murdered, and that is the point where he totally flips out and kills dozens and dozens of people.
Revenge of the Ninja is an entertaining martial arts actioner, following up Enter the Ninja (1981) but lacking that film’s name players and Far East locale. After a brief intro set in Japan, where Cho Osaki (Sho Kosugi) witnesses most of his family wiped out by black-clad ninjas, action shifts to an unidentified US locale (filmed in Salt Lake City) six years later. Osaki, with his surviving child and its grandma, runs a gallery featuring imported Japanese dolls, which unbeknownst to him is a front for heroin smuggling run by his pal Braden (Arthur Roberts). Braden is involved with an unscrupulous US mobster Caifano (Mario Gallo).
Songbringer gameplay. Revenge occurs when Braden kills grannie, kidnaps the child Kane (Kane Kosugi) and later kills Osaki’s best friend, martial arts expert Dave Hatcher (Keith Vitali). Fine fight choreography by Kosugi, including fast and often funny moves by him, keeps the film cooking.