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Revenge of the Ninja (1983)
This movie was the innovator of its time
By today's standards, yes. By the standard of fighting movies back then, sho kusugi was considered today's crouching tiger. No movies back then had swordplay or weaponplay or martial arts like this. Before this movie, all the movies of any category with any sort of fighting were all conan the barbarian type or the excalibur type. They took roughly 3 seconds to complete a swing of a sword, moved very slowly, etc. Sho kusugi brought speed and finesse to the screen, although his acting was subpar, his fighting skills were excellent. His martial arts sparring with the good guy cop was about the best martial arts ever produced on the big screen up to that time. The cop was also the only other extra with any real skills. All the other fighters in the movies were just that.....extras. They moved slow like conan movie guys, etc. The good guy cop was actually the guy wearing the bad guy ninja suit for all the fighting scenes if you look at the credits.
Basically, these movies with a true master martial artist like kusugi paved the way for movies you see today.
Revenge of the ninja was the matrix/crouching tiger of its time. Unmatched.