Rick, a down-and-out American boxer, is hired to transport a sword to Japan, unaware that the whole thing is a set up in a bitter blood-feud between two brothers, one who follows the traditional path of the samurai and the other a businessman. At the behest of the businessman, Rick undertakes samurai training from the other brother, but joins his cause. He also becomes romantically involved with the samurai's daughter.
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This is a fascinating & kick-ass movie for anyone interested in Japanese swordplay, & especially great for us stupid Americans (gaijin) who don't know our butts from a brick about the subject, because it's a film ABOUT a gaijin who gets caught up in the middle of a generations-old violent family dispute over a mysterious pair of very important & impressive swords. Scott Glenn (Silence of the Lambs) is an American boxer recruited to smuggle an ancient sword into Japan. Upon arrival he is taken by thugs who explain that the sword he was hired to smuggle is one of a pair of swords known as "The Equals"-- swords passed down from generation to generation in a powerful Japanese bloodline. During the last passing-down ceremony, one of two brothers bloodily ambushed the ceremony, wanting The Equals for his own. Banished, he has become a ruthless & powerful modern business warrior. The other brother has stayed true to his ancient heritage & now trains others in tradition & a myriad of ancient fighting arts, including mastery of the sword. Glenn is forced to choose between the brothers to reunite The Equals & bring an end to this long and bloody feud, one way or another. Along his journey, he(& thus vicariously the viewer)is taught a wealth of knowledge about the ways of both ancient & modern Japanese power and lifestyle. It's a fascinating education that never leaves your intelligence insulted. On top of all this, the action scenes are at once brutal, graceful, thrilling, inventive, never escaping the realm of realism, & just damn astonishing. An outstanding film, The Challenge is one of my all-time favorites.
Scott Glenn, Toshiro Mifune, Atsuo Nakamura, the list goes on, it's like a whos who of eighties martial arts movies. This movie starts of fast and is a pretty decent ride right up until the end. The first time I saw it it was called "The Sword of the Ninja" and I was about 13 years old but the fact that there were no black clad "ninja" in it didn't disappoint me at all. To top it all off the choreography was done by none other than Steven Seagal before he made it big as an actor and it shows. The end fight in the office building is quite brutal and bloody for an eighties film. Actually, there is quite a bit of gore throughout this movie. I think the final showdown/sword fight between Scott Glen and Atsuo Nakamura is one of the most realistic and well choreographed Japanese sword fights I have ever seen. Nakamura is clearly an expert who "underestimates" the gaijin opponent and Glenn is the American who will do anything including using a stapler to stay alive. I wish this would come out on DVD
No one should except to see an Oscar worthy film here, but this movie simply ran with the standard "white man learns to love Asian culture" script, and it doesn't even pull that off well. Everything Scott Glen/"Rick" learns to love about Japan is just a cliché. Instead of showing the American audience what there is to love about Japanese culture (which could fill 16 hours, easy), we're reduced to stereotyped figures and situations.I love Toshiro Mifune, and it pained me to see him have to dull his acting and swordplay in this film to suit the rest of the cast. Scott Glen is about as good of an action hero here as Ben Aflect is in "Dare Devil"... and that's bad. I normally like Mifune and Glen, even in his bad movies, but this time it was just painful."The Last Samurai" was successful where this turkey flopped- it explored the differences between two cultures that were clashing. It did this by refusing to boil everything down to simple stereotypes, as "Sword of the Ninja"/"The Challenge" did.By the way, where was the ninja? I counted a few Bushido warriors (samurai), but no ninja. Hmmmmm... "Crap Storm" is a nice title...
I saw this under the title "Sword of the Ninja" back in the 80's and not being a huge fan of martial arts movies, found it very enjoyable. I didn't expect the movie to be so deep...it really has a great story of two Japanese brothers, one traditional and one a powerful businessman, fighting over a set of ancient family swords. The American is brought in as a courrier(and planted thief)and becomes embroiled in the battle.The amount of action and gore in this movie is unbelievable, and the story even has room for a young boy training to become a warrior and a great scene where the American is introduced to fine Japanese food thats still alive.Moving at a brisk pace, this movie flows well from beginning to end..and what an ending it has!My rating....7 out of 10
