The Domination Part 2: This Pisses Me Off to No End!

I really need to remember to insert jump breaks immediately without hastily updating.

Last time, a ninja got a cheaply valuable sword so sharp you can cut yourself just by looking at it, the girl from Electric Boogaloo gets hit on by the piece of slime who functions as a makeshift Coke advertiser. Sam Firstenberg decides "Screw stunts, I'm winging this!" What will happen now that Christie has held a sword and shook in around? Let's find out now!

Meanwhile, with the Zucker brothers...

This is the point where Sho Kosugi finally enters the picture! He walks up wearing an eyepatch and the classic 80's action hero face, specifically like he's trying hard to use every muscle in his body EXCEPT his facial muscles. He is taken by three old guys who apparently invited him to America to sort out a problem. Gee, I wonder what that is. Oh, and those three old guys never appear again. Hooray for characters literally there solely to advance the plot!

I am contractually obligated to stand still for a few seconds at the airport gate, staring into space.

Cut to a construction site, where Christie is working. Seacourt goes to visit her. Great, the one draw of this movie, and now we have to go back to these passionate lovers in love. As Christie goes up to Billy, however, another fat old guy (is this the kind of company Sam Firstenberg normally keeps?) is in the police car, triggering another Ninja Dude memory. The old guy is introduced in a shot in which he removes his sunglasses, even though the lighting makes this movie look like it's always being filmed in late afternoon. Seacourt tells Christie that he can't date her that night because he has off-duty work, kisses her, and leaves. If that's the chemistry we should expect, I'm glad there's no date scene coming up.

Oh, that Larry David and his Cubans!

Christie instantly takes off in her van, and follows the police car. This leads to... well, nothing, really. It cuts to Christie doing aerobics when she gets a call. Guess who it's from. Hint: He's one of the two other characters in the movie. She says that she feels weird, and Billy tells her to "go to sleep, and I'll be there by morning." If I were Christie, I would NOT feel that much more secure. Immediately following this is the old "Flickering lights for cheap scares" trick. Eventually, the room goes dark permanently, and the Bouncer game starts spraying fog, and keeps on facing Christie. Great, and now a friggin' VIDEO GAME is hitting on her! And it does so by subjecting her to a laser-light show. Ooh, scary!

In the future, your face will be scanned to record your high score.

Once again, the sword comes out of the closet (no, not going there). Again, Christie grabs a hold of it, and suddenly, her eye-makeup gets darker. This sword has powers that no one will ever conceive. Anyway, so now Christie goes back to the cave from the beginning of the movie. Because it's so chilly out, she remembers to wear a jacket, and invisible pants. Because remember, this movie's priorities are to provide suitable... entertainment value first, and making sense is a distant second. The weapons are still there, and so is a spare ninja suit. You know, in case the first suit gets dirty, torn, or if its wearer dies.

Making sure you KNOW which half of the body you should be focusing on.

Once again through the miracle of jump cuts, Christie winds up at the house of the fat cop from before. He's playing pool by himself, saying things like "Godammit!" or "Son of a bitch!" as he keeps missing his shots. It must be hard to be this bad at the only sport he could possibly play without crumpling from sheer exhaustion.

Michael Myers decides to change outfits to hide his identity.

Cue another sloppily edited fight scene, complete with Christie kicking Fatboy lightly, and him deliberately falling into his closet door for some reason. And he just immediately gets back up and starts whacking away with his pool cue, obviously to no avail. All this results in is his cue getting diced, and another light kick, to which he responds by running headfirst into his wall. Shortly after, Fatboy magically teleports to the front of his pool table, and Christie is somehow on the other side (consistent cinematography, what's that?). Fatboy tries throwing cue balls at Christie, but she just slices through them, and turns one into a hollow sphere made of construction paper before grinding it into powder. All this followed by the kill; she slashes him across the throat and throws him out the window. Huzzah?

What do you mean, "This is going on Facebook"?

The next late afternoon, Fatboy's body is stowed. Among those watching is Sho Kosugi, who Seacourt seems to view with suspicion.

Back at Christie's, she finally decides to fess up that there may be something wrong with her. Yeah, it's called, you're seeing a sleezeball who sees you as nothing more than an object. She mentions being able to sense things before they happen, finding things in the apartment not knowing where they came from (well, I know where that condom she found came from), and a bruise she got from the makeup department. Throughout all this, Lucinda Dickey continues to sound like she didn't get that Lego set she wanted for Christmas. She's concerned that there's someone making her do things that she doesn't want to do, to which Seacourt helpfully responds, "Then do something about it!" Real productive scene, movie! "There's something wrong with Christie!" No, really?!

No one does professional medical transport like "Professional Medical Transport".

At a doctor's office, Christie is told that she is in great physical condition, and that nothing is wrong with her besides stress. Well, except extrasensory perception and a fascination with Japanese culture. Ah, back then when such things were considered "abnormal". Well, at least the doctor acknowledges that there's "no harm in that", unlike what most people see in guys obsessed with Japan. 

Back at the police station, Christie asks for Officer Seacourt, but finds that he's not there. While there, she sees another sleezy cop walking with a couple of girls. It's like this movie is trying to justify Ninja Dude's killing spree! Is there no decent police officer in this movie who can at least make Ninja Dude seem kind of evil? This triggers another memory, which of course leads to...

The ninja version of the Chicken Dance
(Fall Ass Backward Shot Count: 3)

The sleeze-ball goes the world famous International Spa with his ladies, and they proceed to have a good time. Christie follows them in the guise of a maid or something. When she is received by one of the girls in a hot tub room she says, "We could use some more towels." Which is funny because there are, in fact, no towels anywhere in the room, and Christie only brought like, one or two towels for three people. Although I doubt the three would complain about drying off with towels used by each other. Either way, Christie pretends to kiss the sleezy dude passionately while the girls watch in confusion. After several uncomfortable seconds of this, Christie uses a tiny needle in the rings she's wearing to kill the son of a bitch. Was that ring in the cave with the ninja weapons? Or is there a store nearby that sells this stuff? 

That awkward moment when your kill scene is sexier than your erotic scene.

Christie kills all three of the hot tub people, and who should come to inspect the bodies but Sho Kosugi? Still coming from a different movie, and still doing nothing to aid the plot. 

Billy goes to Christie's apartment to find her intensely doing her aerobics. Concerned, he asks where she's been, and Christie tells him that there is in fact, something wrong with her. I've already complained enough about Lucinda Dickey's line delivery, so I won't here. Billy suggests that she visit a Japanese spiritual healer. Christie says that she doesn't believe in demons, ghosts or spirits. Hey, she didn't mention ninjas! She believes in ninjas, right? Billy doesn't believe, either, but under the circumstances is willing to try anything.

It's just stuffy in here. Really!

So the two leads go to the Japanese healer, and he's played by JAMES HONG!!! Yes, that James Hong! David Lo Pan from Big Trouble in Little China is in this movie! Of course, this was before Big Trouble came out, so at this point Mr. Hong hasn't hit his stride yet. But he is easily the best actor of the bunch here. Christie says that he "sure beats the Rocky Horror Picture Show." One, nothing beats The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Two, nothing in this movie beats anything. And if you're suggesting that James Hong looks like a sweet transvestite, that's just sick. 

Wake me up when John Carpenter gives me a call.

So Christie gets tied up in chains, which the healer claims are necessary in case the spirit inside of her gets out of line. Lo Pan (I'm calling him that) makes her smoke some mysterious substance. Yeah. Of all the bullshit spiritual procedures this movie could have picked. And then he starts flogging her with a streamer. I'm doing my best to describe what is going on, but for all I know, the script just said, "James screws around for five minutes." 

The new safety features at Disney World are getting a little excessive.

Suddenly, the sound mixer for this movie gets a seizure, and a bunch of BOOM BOOM sounds are sprayed all around. Lucinda Dickey raises her face to reveal that it is covered in makeup. Not that it actually makes an effort to make her scary, it just turns her face blue. Ooh. Her voice deepens to the level of Ninja Dude, and he and Lo Pan converse in mock Japanese (James Hong is of Chinese descent, and was born in Minnesota, so it's sort of excused). And then s/he breathes on him. I have a feeling that they going for a rip off of the vomit scene in The Exorcist, but that would imply this movie actually having a budget.

There is no Christie. Only... fuck it, Zuul is tired!

After that, Lo Pan tries reading from an ancient scroll, but this only angers Ninja Dude's spirit, as he starts yelling what sounds like "Heresy!" repeatedly. So that scroll was a rough draft of 50 Shades of Grey? Eventually, Evil Ninja Christie breaks free of her cuffs, and starts thrashing around, trying to free herself completely. But good thing Seacourt is there to tie her up with a rope. Where did he get that, exactly? Aw, well, it means Billy actually gets to do something remotely heroic, so it's not all bad.

The 80's. Can't go one movie without the female lead chained up.

What follows is the most awesome scene in this movie. Evil Christie levitates Lo Pan in the air for basically no reason whatsoever, and then she starts doing somersaults over the chain she's trapped in. It's supposed to be the movie's biggest scary scene, but it's so ridiculously over-the top that it's beyond funny. All this followed by, "You fool! You cannot stop me! I AM A NINJA!" This is probably also the most convincing line delivery that Lucinda Delivery has in the entire movie, and the seriousness with which she says this in comparison to just about everywhere else is priceless. 

I am so disturbed by this I might move a facial muscle.

So after that spectacle, Lo Pan informs Billy that the spirit of Ninja Dude will return, but he cannot say when (there's like 35 minutes left in this movie, so I assume fairly soon). Billy inquires using another classic line. "I heard 'ninja'. I want to know what the hell that is." Well, I'm sure the rest of this movie will give a completely educated and accurate assessment of just what a ninja is. According to Lo Pan, Christie is possessed by a black ninja (I thought he was green!) with all the powers of the... Something Something Clan Thingy. Who cares? The important thing is that this scene culminates with the line, "Only a ninja can destroy a ninja." I could go on forever about how little sense that line makes, but it would ruin its pure unadulterated awesomeness. Needless to say, I like this scene a lot.

So now we cut back to the real star of this movie, Sho Kosugi. He's trying to sneak into a morgue. First, he throws a rock against an oil drum to attract a guard's attention, and proceeds to beat the crap out of him with... holy crap... actual martial arts skills? Are you sure this wasn't going to initially be two different movies? Followed by another ninja star shot, which Sho gets from his belt buckle. This movie rocks.

Sho used Plastic Ninja Star. It's not very effective...

After entering the building, Sho sneaks around, wearing all black in a place where the walls are all white as snow. Aren't ninjas supposed to be masters of camouflage? Needless to say, he gets caught rather quickly, and even more needless to say, people get their asses handed to them. After entering the body room, Sho meets two nurses (who are of course fat and unshaved, as per usual for Sam Firstenberg), and beckons them over. Not being very genre saavy, the two come over to get their heads knocked together. Smooth.

They were so confident in their security guards that they didn't bother to close the door.

Now with the room cleared, Sho gets to see Ninja Dude one last time. There's a flashback to when Sho was fighting Ninja Dude. Apparently, Ninja Dude killed his friend and threw a ninja star into Sho's eye, hence the eyepatch. And he just runs away. I'd like to know how Sho freed himself then. Did some random stranger have to untie him? What did he think of a guy with a missing eye? Sho goes off into a temple with Ninja Dude's body.

Yes, I knew Japanese The Final Sacrifice existed!

Back with our filler main characters, Christie and Billy are talking about the Lo Pan scene with the same chemistry that they normally have. Billy says that Lo Pan merely hypnotized Christie, and that he didn't know what he was doing. But more importantly, two officers come up to ask Christie how she is, leading to...

He's trying to mime with his feet.
(Fall Ass Backward Shot Count: 4)

After is more exposition about Sho's breaking out of Ninja Dude's dead body, and about a funeral. Got to give this movie credit, it acknowledges that killing off lots of people would probably have consequences. 

Back at Christie's home, another freaky Trumpy scene happens, this time started by the "evil" blinds closing over the window. Followed by the trash can lid going awry, and the bottom of the sink being covered in darkness. Christie opens the pantry door, only to discover that her fog machine is broken again. Finally, the light explodes, the rest of the blinds close, and her filing cabinets are opening and closing repeatedly. But the worst is the refrigerator blocking her way out. All this insanity followed by a trademark Lucinda Dickey "Damn you!" that sounds like it belongs in a Nicolas Sparks movie. 

Finally, Christie makes it into her bed, where Ninja Dude's voice can be heard, saying God knows what. The evil fog machine returns to her closet, and continues to get rejected by the art of door closing. She tries to distract herself with aerobics, but corny 80's music is enough to get Ninja Dude's sword to levitate and destroy her stereo. I find it easier and easier to side with Ninja Dude with every minute. Finally, the fog machine becomes strong enough to suck Christie into the closet in a scene that is not like Ghostbusters in any way.

Darn these 80's cord phones and their demonic possessions!

Next time: Will Christie get back to normal? Will Sho actually do something heroic? Will anyone actually come over to do stuff with me on my birthday? Sorry, real life butting in here. Either way, stay tuned.