Geek Syndicate
A legend was born. Not only was Enter the Ninja a massive hit for Cannon Films, making it a major player in the Independent market, but it also launched the sub-genre of the Ninja movie that would dominate the direct to video action market for most of the late eighties and early nineties. The film’s success also opened the door to a series of quickly produced Ninja sequels (Revenge of the Ninja and Ninja III: The Domination) that would not only elevate Kosugi to the lead role as the films’ hero, but also to icon status. Sho Kosugi became the hottest star in martial arts cinema! Pat Rod, of the Hollywood Reporter once said, “Movie enthusiasts [In Europe] never asked me about Stallone, Cruise, or Harrison Ford; it was always, ‘Have you ever met Sho Kosugi?’” Roles alongside Lee Van Cleef (The Master) and Jean Claude Van Damme (Black Eagle) followed before Kosugi left the industry a few years later. Whilst it’s fair to say that Kosugi movies were often low of both budget and production values, nothing could take away from the stunning action and raw screen presence that Kosugi brought to these films. After almost twenty years away from the role that made his name, Kosugi returned to films in the Warner Brothers produced Ninja Assassin. Directed by V for Vendetta director James McTeigue and produced by Larry and Andy Wachowski, the film sees Kosugi take the role of Lord Ozuna, leader of the deadly Ozuna clan in a story about Raizo (played by Speed Racer star Rain) who, haunted by the merciless execution of his friend, turns his back on the orphanage that raised him only to find himself entangled in a deadly game of cat and mouse through the streets of Europe. The film also stars Rick Yune, Ben Miles and Naomi Harris from a script written by J. Michael Straczynski. Earlier this year, I flew to the world famous Babelsberg Studios in Berlin to sit down with one of my own personal heroes to discuss what led him to leave the industry in the first place, to chart a project that would see Kosugi back on the big screen for the first time since 1989‘s Blind Fury and to find out what Kosugi has been doing for the last twenty years. GS: So … where HAVE you been? SK: I was in hiding, training in Japan up a Mountain… Ha! It’s fair to say that his playful, jovial manor continues apace. Just kidding! Seriously… I wanted to do something else. I went to the US about forty years ago, 1968. I went to school, college, University. By that time I was a defending Karate champion. At the time, being champion, I was expecting Warner Brothers to give me big job like Bruce Lee. But it didn’t happen. So I worked hard, went to twohundred plus auditions and eventually got a part in Enter the Ninja with Cannon films. So I started there. I made fourteen movies or so but after a little while I started getting tired. So many Ninja movies came around from China, Taiwan… so I though maybe it’s time to quit.” Kosugi is right of course. There was a massive proliferation of Ninja movies about this time, from the good (American Ninja), the bad (American Ninja 5) to the very, very ugly (Ninja Squad anyone?). SK: At the same time [as making films] I was training some kids and giving them a chance to do something in Hollywood. Especially Asian children. But adults were asking me also. So I established one school called SKI (Sho Kosugi Institute) in 1998 and I started training adult people from Japan. But they had no patience. No guts. I got tired of teaching these eighteen year olds so I decided why not just teach them from a young age. So I went back to Japan so and started opening up many different schools. I have sixteen schools in Japan now, mainly teaching small kids to sixteen years old giving them more of a chance and more opportunity that I never had.” GS: What exactly do you teach at the Sho Kosugi Institute? SK: It is about teaching people the skills to make a success in the film industry. We teach action with English, fighting with
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