Sho Kosugi never made it big like Jackie Chan, and it's easy to see why: he has the same likable screen presence, the same problems with the English language, even the same haircut...but his martial-arts choreography is two or three notches below, two or three clicks slower than, Jackie's standards. To put it simply, the fight scenes in "Pray For Death" are boring (though the climax does incorporate a wide variety of weapons). The story is boring, too - and spiced up with gratuitous sadism (what fun to see bed-ridden women and old men beaten to a bloody pulp and then murdered, eh?). I don't know if there even IS a "best ninja movie of all time", but this one definitely is not it. (*1/2)
Review of Pray for Death
