Directed by Cedric Sundstrom and written by James Booth — and produced by Ovidio G. Assonitis! — this movie sees Sean Davidson, the new American Ninja played by David Bradley, battling the ninja army of Colonel Scarf Mulgrew (also Booth, who had already written American Ninja 2: The Confrontation) and Shiekh Ali Maksood (Ron Smerczak), who also plan on dropping a suitcase bomb in New York City.

Working with Carl Brackston (Dwayne Alexandre) — they have to leave his wedding to handle the mission — and a local contact named Freddie (Anthony Fridjhon) and a plucky teen named Pango (Jody Abrahams, they’re looking for a local Peace Corps worker named Dr. Sarah (Robin Stille, The Slumber Party Massacre, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama) before all hell breaks loose. Freddie is killed, Dr. Sarah is assaulted — and learns that Mulgrew killed her father — and ninjas torture our heroes.

It’s time for another American Ninja.

The call goes out to Peace Corps teacher Joe Armstrong (do I have to even tell you that it’s Michael Dudikoff?) who wants nothing to do with the government. Yet he brings along some rebels from Sulphur Springs, a former penal colony led by Dr. Tamba (Ken Gampu), and kills everyone in his path.

Bradley was not happy at all that after making the series his own in the last film that Dudikoff was back. Sure, he gets to kill the main bad guy, but Dudikoff gets the big battle against the final boss known as Super Ninja (Kely McClung, who is also the first Delta Force member that gets murdered by the ninjas).

It takes 45 minutes for Dudikoff to show up and there’s no Steve James. That makes me really not like this one as much as the others, but then Dudikoff remembers that he loves killing pajama clad martial arts fighters more than teaching reading and starts wiping out karate dudes left and right. That makes things so much better.

You can watch this on Tubi.

You can listen to more about American Ninja 4 on The Cannon Canon.