The Octagon (1980)

Like my blog colleague, Doug, I don't particularly consider myself to be a huge fan of Chuck Norris as a public persona, but I love his movies. I also think that people really do underestimate the impact of his movies.

Missing In Action nearly single handedly launched the "get 'em back" era of American action films during the Cold War, where the US always managed to top our traditional Communist enemies. Mission In Action was particularly significant as it helped to numb the eternal sting to US pride over embarrassments of the Vietnam War.

Chuck went back to 'Nam, Chuck won, and before you knew it so did Sylvester Stallone's John Rambo as the anticipated sequel First Blood diverged dramatically from the premise of the first film and seemingly tried to replicate what Mission In Action had already accomplished, albeit on a much larger budget.

The rest was history and the message was clear: "If you want your action movie to turn a profit, have the hero kill as many Communists as possible."

Like Missing In Action, The Octagon also tried to set the trend as it attempted to be one of the first films to introduce the ninja to a modern Hollywood.

Unfortunately for Chuck, the Cannon Group would fare much better in bringing shuriken-throwing assassins to mainstream audiences in the states than American Cinema Productions.

It's not surprising that after bouncing around film compainies for a couple of years, Norris eventually ended up as one of Cannon Group's biggest draws in the aforementioned, Missing In Action.

1981's Enter The Ninja is arguably the wellspring for the Ninja boom in 1980's action cinema. A year prior, American Cinema Productions delved into ninja lore and tried to introduce their mystique and menace to action movie aficionados the world over.

The result was The Octagon; a movie that tried to be equal parts spaghetti western and ninja movie.

The story itself is both cluttered and implausible. Chuck Norris stars as Scott James, a retired martial artist with a checkered past. As a boy, James was raised by a master of ninjutsu named Isawa (played by John Fujioka who played just about everyone's shidoshi in ninja movies including American Ninja) and is raised alongside a resentful foster brother named Seikura (played as a youth by Brian Tochi and as an adult by Tadashi Yamashita).

Predictably, both James and Seikura grow apart and Seikura (in the most hilarious plot development ever) sets up a ninja training camp for would-be mercenaries somewhere in the jungles of Central America.

I'm not lying. I couldn't possibly make up something like that.

Eventually, James is approached by Justine (Karen Carlson), a vindictive and spoiled witch that tries to use any means necessary to seduce our hero and send him off to avenge the murder of her father at the hands of Seikura's minions.

The tale then takes the traditional twists in plot one would expect from a Western, as James becomes the ninja version of the retired gunslinger slowly being drawn back in for one last showdown.

Supporting characters include Lee Van Cleef as McCairn, a rival mercenary band leader looking to help James deal with Seikura (and rid himself of a business competitor in the process), Art Hindle plays A.J, James's martial arts protege, and exotic 80's siren, Carol Bagdasarian, plays Aura, a no-nonsense female merc turned unlikely ally in James's crusade.

And to answer what you are thinking, yes. Carol is the daughter of Ross Bagdasarian, the man who once assumed the name David Seville and introduced Alvin and the Chipmunks to the world at large.

You'd have to think that the aspirations for The Octagon were pretty high since the story is pretty complex and the dialogue is rich when compared to the action movies of the time.

Sadly the film falters due to a laundry list of complications. The script plods along painfully at times and The Octagon does not follow some of the most important rules of ninja movies.

First of all, the ninjas don't really provide a tangible sense of threat. To paraphrase the immortal line from Sho Kusugi's classic, Revenge of the Ninja, the only people that are supposed to be able to kill ninja are other ninja.

Unlike the badass minions of Shiranui Shogen in Shogun's Ninja or even the Makato from The Hunted, the ninja in The Octagon are routinely outclassed and butchered by mere mortals that they should be fighting circles around. Granted that this adds some element of realism (ie. bullets > swords) but it also makes light of one of the most important parts of the plot.

If Seikura's elite shinobi are dealt with so easily, then why are mercs from around the globe flocking to his training camp in droves to learn what he has to teach?

To paraphrase Pops Racer (John Goodman) from the Warshowski's Speed Racer movie, it is a shame what passes for ninja in this production.

Secondly, The Octagon saps all of the fun out of ninja movies with an overly complicated plotline and rather silly dramatic effects. The parts of the movie that don't have to deal with Norris beating the snot out of ninja or Carol Bagdasarian walking around in really tight jeans are nigh unbearable.

Even more unbearable is the plot device where James's innermost thoughts are broadcast to the audience as audble narration....

.... but are narrated as whispers.....

We're talking "chu, chu, chu, ha, ha, ha" sounding, "Friday the 13th slasher movie"-style whispers that are almost indecipherable and are completely hilarious.

As if this wasn't bad enough, the climactic fight scene you'd expect to happen doesn't happen as James squares off against Seikura's number one ninja, Kyo (played by John Belushi's former bodyguard, Richard Norton. Norton also appears in The Octagon as Long Legs, the merc recruiter), while Seikura's fate is a disappointing dénouement that will leave you dumbfounded rather than awestruck.

The Octagon stumbles because it tries to be smarter than it should be. The 80's ninja epics of Golan-Globus and The Cannon Group worked because they took the traditional folklore and fed it steroids.

The Octagon fails because it doesn't place its tongue as firmly in its cheek as it should. While I admire The Octagon for attempting to be a different movie, I think it would have been a better film if it had stuck to the 80's ninja movie formula.

Namely: More ninja, less plot.

Invasion U.S.A. (1985)

(This entry is for the Chuck Norris Ate My Blog contest at the Chuck Norris Ate My Baby blog. Please visit and support the love for genre cinema.)

I'll preface this by saying that I don't think of myself as much of a Chuck Norris fan. In fact, despite seeing any number of his films in the 1980s, as an adult I tend to think of him from his execrable television series Walker: Texas Ranger along with his support of nutball Mike Huckabee for president. I have to think very hard to remember the Chuck Norris I really loved - the martial arts expert that sparred (beardless!) against Bruce Lee in Way Of The Dragon. But, despite the fact that I don't enjoy his public persona, and I even became rather weary of the internet meme that seemed omnipresent a few years back, I do have an appreciation for 80s action cinema. While necessarily conservatively bent - this was Reagan's America after all - the films had an energy and vitality (along with massive amounts of homoeroticism) that I just find missing in a lot of modern action epics. Chuck Norris became, like Mr. T, a pure symbol of unabashed manliness that seemed totally at home with the era - and seems almost quaint in the present day.

Perhaps the peak of Norris' cinematic machismo came in 1985's Invasion U.S.A. which put Norris' Matt Hunter against a hoarde of Russians - led by the vaguely Rutger Hauerish Mikhail Rostov (played with unhinged glee by Richard Lynch) - intent on spreading terror throughout the United States. Feeding off the cold war paranoia of the era, the film posits a not-too-distant-future scenario where ice-cold Russian mercenaries (with a raging hard-on of hate for American freedom) invade American shores forcing their commie values on hard working joes. But Rostov is equally interested in getting a little revenge on Hunter for spoiling his attempted attack on an American embassy years earlier, and for kicking him in the face repeatedly. Hunter is interested only in rassling alligators and zooming through the Florida swamps in an airboat, his mullet flapping fearlessly in the breeze. But it's funny how things change.

And change they do when Rostov decides to remove the thorn in his side by blowing Hunter up real good. Instead, his attack (which kills Hunter's friend John Eagle) serves only to bring the ex-secret agent out of retirement. Oops! While the terrorists had been doing a great job getting the upper hand - completely demolishing a neighbourhood with a series of bazooka blasts, and murdering fairly indescriminatly - now their attempts to blow up churches and shopping malls begin to hit a wall. A wall named Matt Hunter.

This would be a good place to mention Hunter's catchphrase, which began back at the American embassy when - with a gun barrel pressed against Rostov's head - he had told him that it was "time to die". Having obviously not followed through with that statement at the time, Hunter brings up this phrase repeatedly to taunt the Russian, even managing to get the statement broadcast on television in what must have been a particularly confusing news segment. In fact, in the last half hour it becomes less a question of if Hunter is going to kill Rostov, and more of a question of whether he's going to be able to make a callback to his catchphrase before he does so. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

These Russians are a particularly sneaky bunch, posing as police officers and national guardsmen, but Hunter can sniff out a red from a mile away and blows them away with his trademark twin Uzis. Eventually Hunter is arrested for various murders and destruction of property, and Rostov sees this as his final chance to kill his nemesis once and for all. Gathering all of his available men, they make an assault on the makeshift army base where he's being held but they soon discover that the whole thing was a cunning trap. The shit then convincingly hits the fan until it's "time" for Rostov to "die".

While Chuck Norris regularly played a one-man-army in his movies, perhaps no other film in his oeuvre best captures his ability to play an unstoppable bad-ass more than Invasion U.S.A. Until the film's finale (where ol' Hunter suffers a boo-boo over his eye), he is literally untouchable in this film - easily getting the upper hand on terrorists, the police, and nosy reporters who hide their lust for him under low-key hostility. Norris isn't asked to do much more than fire guns, kick bad guys in the face and occasionally throw in a witty (or, close enough) remark ("If you come back in here, i'm going to hit you with so many rights you're going to beg for a left."), but does all three quite convincingly. As an action hero, Norris never takes much joy in crushing his enemies and hearing the lamentations of their women, but his stone-face seems to be part of his appeal. Saving the U.S.A. is simply part of his job description.

Thankfully, what Chuck is missing in personality is made up for by Richard Lynch's venomous portayal of the psychotic Rostov. In a recent interview with Shock Cinema Lynch comes off as an intelligent and good-natured man, but he's supremely good at playing steely lunatics and he's in rare form here. In one memorable scene (also featuring genre favorite Billy Drago in a brief role), Rostov feigns a drug deal before killing some bodyguards, blowing Drago's nuts off and tossing a crack-whore through a window. While perhaps a bit deranged to be a believable mastermind, in a nice touch Rostov is kept in check by Nikko - his second in command. It's only after Nikko's death (at the hands of Hunter, natch) that Rostov sends all of his men into a rather obvious trap. Lynch obviously takes a lot of joy in being evil, and his eventual comeuppance feels well earned.

Director Joseph Zito cut his teeth on horror films like The Prowler and Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter (a.k.a. the one with Crispin Glover), and it's rather amusing how he treats his baddies - Rostov in particular - like slasher villains. The terrorists stalk around in the dark silently - even killing two unlucky promiscuous teenagers on the beach. Zito obviously takes relish in the larger budget, and decides to immolate every building, vehicle and (occasional) terrorist that might make for an interesting visual. The action choreography isn't particularly interesting, but the sheer scale - particularly the total warfare in the streets at the end - are of a scope that is still impressive to witness.

Invasion U.S.A. goes against a lot of what I enjoy in both my action and exploitation films. It's mindless - except for some general cold war paranoia and xenophobia - and exists solely for the joy of watching Chuck Norris mow down bad-guys in increasingly violent (and unlikely) ways. But it's the capable direction of Zito, along with a great villainous performance from Richard Lynch, that keeps things moving swiftly and I couldn't help but feel a tinge of nostalgia for Norris' final victory. Even better, the film recognizes that - at that point - there's nothing more that needs to be said and simply ends. I think i'll do the same.