The Octagon (1980)

The Octagon's premise is simple. Chuck Norris vs Ninjas. That's really about it. Norris is Scott James, a man haunted by memories of his growing up and rivalry with his former martial art brother Seikura, who now heads a Ninja training camp and is teaching international terrorists the ways of the Ninja. James must stop the organization and face off, once and for all, with his former brother.There's little in the way of story, and sadly the film takes it's time in getting to the point where Norris finally takes out the Ninja trash. Like a lot of his movies, the lack of much plot means the film moves pretty slowly between the action. When the action does kick in, it's quite impressive. The real standout though is Norris infiltrating the Ninja base in the film's climax. It's classic Norris.The cast are okay. Lee Van Cleef and Richard Norton pop up in small roles, Richard Norton actually has a few different roles here.I would have rated it an 8 out of 10 if there was a bit more action in the middle half of the film. For the most part, only Chuck Norris and ninja fans will get the most out of THE OCTAGON (1980).Overall worth watching..7 out of 10

The Octagon sees martial arts legend Chuck Norris taking on an organisation of ninjas, which should be awesome, but isn't.Thanks to loads of drawn-out, talkative exposition before the inevitable showdown in the ninjas' South American terrorist training camp (the Octagon of the title?), the majority of this early Norris vehicle is, to put it simply, very boring.As martial artist Scott James, Chuck is given nowhere near enough fighting to do, the character spending most of his time chatting to attractive heiress Justine (Karen Carlson), best pal A.J. (Art Hindle), and mercenary McCarn (Lee Van Cleef), while revealing his innermost thoughts to the viewer as reverberating whispers (a silly gimmick that quickly becomes very irritating).Avid martial arts movie fans will likely get a kick from the sight of genre regular Richard Norton's really bad hair, and the closing moments feature a reasonably choreographed fight between Norris and a hooded, hissing ninja, but the rest of the film is a major disappointment.

A film that could be easily summed up as simply ninja terrorists and the sexual allure of Chuck Norris' hairy mammoth-chest, The Octagon is a standard martial arts actioner, involving a conspiratorial group of, well, ninja terrorists. Chuck Norris is Scott James (although I was convinced after Norris stated his character name that he was in fact Scotch Eggs), a martial artist who stumbles upon the organisation that is secretly training a hard-core team of terrorists in a camp of unknown location. He has to infiltrate and bring down the clandestine operation before they begin "terrorising". I'm guessing that ninja terrorists would work ridiculously as they would waste all that time stealthily and silently getting into targets, only to make a whole lot of noise on their way out: it just seems reductive to me.Of course Norris gets an entourage collected on his way. From Lee Van Cleef's mercenary to Art Hindle's young martial artist with a case of premature penetration (that's not supposed to be euphemistic), but of course, as suggested by the appearance of his fur covered chest, one flash of this (in almost any Norris vehicle) sends the women giddy. It seems that just previous to any final battle in the action genre of this period, the hero will use his visual tool (here, of course, the suspect, revealing chest), and the usually younger female character will throw herself at him sexually, a clichéd catalyst that empowers the machismo of the hero into ultimate battle.Whilst wholly generic, the acting is inevitably dull. In an early scene the trainees of the oriental organisation are being shown the fighting techniques of the ninja, scythes and swords are shown penetrating watermelons. One trainee says glibly, with the characteristics and delivery of a red-neck on his tenth bottle of moonshine: "It would be a lot better it they used real people". To which is relied with: "They will". For some bizarre reason, when I sit down to watch any late '70's or '80's standard action film, I seem to believe that I am going to enjoy it. That somehow these films are fun and exciting. However, every time I convince myself of this, the film I watch is so incredibly dull. Perhaps it is simply that my movie watching habits have changed since being a wide-eyed youngster, and that these films were always awful. Maybe I will re-watch one from my youth that I will enjoy... Here's hoping, but it ain't this one.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Chuck Norris stars as the only martial artist alive who can take down a ninja clan, (led by his adopted brother) in this very dull ninja movie which earns a couple points for the inspired performance of Lee Van Cleef. Chuck Norris made only one ninja movie in his career (I think because I don't remember any others) but somehow The Octagon is a surprisingly plot driven ninja movie which isn't a very good thing since well ninja movies need to be swift. When it comes to ninja movies, it remains vastly inferior to American Ninja (And it's first sequel) and Revenge Of The Ninja which could quite possibly be the birth of the genre. The Octagon has a few moments but generally Norris' voice-overs and complete lack of action make this for Norris enthusiasts only.*1/2 out of 4-(Poor)