'Pray for Death' (1985) - Gordon Hessler.

Springing forth sprightly from the unlikeliest of Kung Fu scriveners, James Booth, 'Pray For Death' is arguably the second best VHS-era beatdown from Cult Japanese pugilist, Shô Kosugi! The honourable Kosugi clan moves to the US in order to construct a shiny, prosperous new American Ninja Dream, only to inadvertently find themselves dangerously embroiled in the increasingly malign machinations of ruthless gangsters, due to the presence of illicit booty stashed under the floorboards of their only recently purchased business premises, their innocent lives are very soon inhospitably besieged by all manner of sinister scum and villainy!

Booth's prosaic plot is very soon overwhelmed by a fearsome flurry of mystical martial arts mayhem, as the enraged Patriarch, Kosugi unleashes his (bruised) balls-to-the-wall Master Ninja justice! Pray For Death's scintillating series of acrobatic Ninjutsu sequences are executed with brutal efficiency by nitro-Ninja, Shô Kosugi! There are still some who refute the uproarious entertainment value of a mid-eighties, Kosugi classic; but one must never be swayed by the ill-considered protestations of the sober majority! In the halcyon days of Betamax & VHS, rising video star, Shô Kosugi reigned supreme, and it would seem that in this increasingly banal era when any lumpen Hollywood popinjay can appropriate the spurious crown of action hero, one could do a whole lot worse than root down, adjust one's beer goggles, and marvel at the Ninja-tastic, 'Pray For Death', wherein the ferociously fleet-fisted, wickedly weapon-savvy, gravity defying, sword-slashing, Shô Kosugi slices n' dices a gang of bovine thugs into strips of wet sushi!!!

'Five throwing stars out of five, 'Pray For Death' is Ninja Armageddon!' - Weirdlingwolf.  

 

'If you can see me then you're already dead, which means you never saw me!'

 

'On deze dark nights, I don’t put up a fight, as the only sick-fisted shizz that'll make my brain fizz is to watch, Master Ninja, the Shogun Dillinger, diabolical death in each fatal finger; packing twice the street beat of Mister Miyagi! Savage skell-killer, Kosugi is the mercurial murder-magi of martial arts mayhem, the street stuff’s never too ruff, this buff Ninja’s too tuff, his death stars accurate to a hair’s fucking breadth, so don’t waste one short breath, Kosugi death skills are most def, you see him manifest his broad chest before you, it’ll signal your last fucking breath, as y’all won’t even get time to ‘Pray for Death!'