"Rage of Honor" starring Sho Kosugi seems to uniformly get bad reviews on the internet, which I don't really understand. Sho Kosugi plays a modern day ninja who works for an imaginary US-based international drug enforcement agency. When one of his buddies is killed and tortured he sets off for a revenge of honor at any cost. Meanwhile, the drug-enforcement agency has actually been compromised by the bad guys so his boss tries to stop him and he faces assassination attempts at every turn. One of the reviews I found on the internet claimed that the storyline was incoherent, but this isn't correct. The storyline may be *silly*, but it's certainly not incoherent. If you pay attention to the dialogue the storyline is at least internally consistient. I love this movie and it always gets me pumped up to think about or play Shadowrun.
The movie opens with a glorious 80s party boat filled with women who have big hair and 80s bikinis, including one with a neon yellow coloration and a big black circle on the ass. Kickin' 80s dance music sets the scene for a ninja romp and right away the viewer knows that this film is indeed mighty.
This film answers many questions that can only be answered by communing with the lore of the 80s. For example, would a ninja or sterotypical amazon tribesmen win in a battle? In this film, a ninja is directly pitted against sterotypical amazon tribesmen and a highly realistic simulation of such an encounter is played out.
In another scene, the ninja is pitted against a helicopter with a doorgunner. In the simulation which follows, we see that the helicopter with the doorgunner is useless against the ninja, as the helicopter subsequently decides to stop using the doorgunner and instead lands to let a squad of ninja in camo ninja suits and pole arms attack on foot. This reminds us of the principle, "only a ninja can stop a ninja", articulated by Sho Kosugi in "Revenge of the Ninja".
Sho Kosugi speaks English very well but in this film he really chooses to ham up a Japanese accent. This is entertaining in and of itself. For example, instead of saying "Havelock" he will say "Haverock!"
When the film is over the credits roll to more kickin' 80s tunes and we realize that, metaphorically speaking, there is not a cherry blossom out of place.
I think that everyone on this forum should go out and watch "Rage of Honor" right now. It would be a stunning and brutal rebuke to those fools who have written bad reviews; a struggle between life and death in which the purity of hope and valor will outshine the villanious negativity and nihilsm of other negative reviewers.