American Ninja 4: The Annihilation (1990)

The two American Ninjas, Joe Armstrong and Sean Davidson, team up to do battle against a terrorist and his band of Ninjas.

Director:

Cedric Sundstrom

Writers:

Avi Kleinberger, Gideon Amir,

Stars:

Michael Dudikoff, David Bradley, James Booth

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Michael Dudikoff	...	Joe Armstrong
David Bradley	...	Sean Davidson
James Booth	...	Mulgrew
Dwayne Alexandre	...	Brackston
Ken Gampu	...	Dr. Tamba
Robin Stille	...	Sarah
Frantz Dobrowsky	...	O'Reilly (as Franz Dobrowsky)
Ron Smerczak	...	Maksood
Kely McClung	...	Super Ninja / Delta Force Team
Jody Abrahams	...	Pango
Anthony Fridjohn	...	Freddie / Treddle
David Sherwood	...	Gavin
Sean Kelly	...	Norris
Jamie Bartlett	...	Segal
Deon Stewardson	...	Delta Force Team

Storyline

CIA agent Sean Davidson and his sidekick Carl are sent into the stronghold of sadistic British ex-soldier Mulgrew to rescue some Delta Force commandoes who have been captured and tortured. When Sean, Carl and pretty doctor Sarah run into some problems, Peace Corps vet Joe Armstrong is lured out of retirement to stop Mulgrew's plan to explode a nuclear device in New York City.

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Plot Keywords:

ninja | battle | american ninja | delta force | ex soldier | 

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Genres:

Action | Drama

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

8 March 1991 (USA)

Also Known As:

American Fighter 4 - Die Vernichtung

Filming Locations:

Lesotho

Box Office

Gross:

$358,047 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Cannon Group

Technical Specs

Runtime:

99 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

This is the only entry in the series to star both actors that portrayed the American Ninja in previous films (Michael Dudikoff of American Ninja 1 & 2 and David Bradley of American Ninja 3).

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Goofs

When Joe fights the ninja in the boiler room (right before the from-below-shot of him climbing the stairs), he throws a punch at the ninja's head, and there is a loud punching sound effect accompanying it, but a close look reveals his fist stops a foot in front of the ninja's face.

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Quotes

Sean Davidson: This isn't a game, Gavin, those were ninja!

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Connections

Follows American Ninja 2: The Confrontation (1987)

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Soundtracks

"Fight Fire with Fire"
Written by Nic. tenBroek & Jenny Meltzer

User Reviews

Not What I expected But Still Good

After a quite disappointing third sequel, the fourth one did bring back some grace into the franchise (eventhough it didn't work out as I hoped). Steve James resignation for the fourth sequel (and if I'm not mistaken, this film was made before he passed away) in my opinion was due to the fact that the director decided to bring Dudikoff back after a setback in the third installment. For me, the most interesting but could have used a little bit of polishing up in the film was the plot itself. A group of soldiers gets captured by an Arab and English terrorist building a bomb. The American government then sends Sean Davidson (David Bradley) to try and handle the situation and when he fails as well, they finally the send in the back the original kickass ninja pro Joe Armstrong (Michael Dudikoff) into the action since it was sort of like when everything else fails, Joe Armstrong doesn't. This was a pretty interesting sequel and probably the 2nd best of the entire series behind Annilation. To get to this film, I have no real idea why Dudikoff agreed to return back to this fourth installment (maybe he did it just for the sake of the fans of the franchise) but thankfully, he really brought the life back into the series (and for fans like myself) even though he didn't seemed like he was in the mood of acting in this sequel. David's character in this sequel in my opinion was far more respectable than in the third one. He might have done a decent if not good job on the 3rd sequel but in my opinion, his performance here as the 2nd leading actor was way better since he really looks more of a ninja expert in this one compared to the third installment. However, there were a few minor complaints that I have for the film. First off, I expected Dudikoff and Bradley to team up together and become buddies like almost immediately in the film but sadly this did not happen for until like the final 20 minutes of the film. The final fights from both sides (Dudikoff's and Bradley's) were not really that entertaining either since Bradley only had to fight a chicken whuss and Dudikoff once again made an Arabic ninja (whose even more quite in the film than Michael was throughout the film) look like a kindergarden amateur. Another complaint that I would like to bring up (although minor) is that I think that it felt like pointless having the scene where Joe was making his weapons (the sword and shurikens) and holding up the sword in front of his face like it was the most important possession that he ever had but in the end, he just fought the enemies with his own bare hands and never used them at all throughout the ending of the film. I think that maybe the director had accidentally forgotten about that part which was why we never got to see Dudikoff using his weapons in the end. Another part that I have to complain was that they never really told the story of how Joe (Michael) and Sean (David) became friends in the first place and all in all, I felt like maybe this was more of like shrink and squeeze in as much as possible kind of plot story than the one that they had originally intended to create. However, these flaws did not ruin the film too much since I felt it really did make up for the rather disappointing third sequel. All in all, I would really recommend this to all American Ninja fans out there and anyone else who just wants to spend three hours of their time watching some mindless but still a rather fun action movie