Joe Armstrong, an orphaned amnesiac drifter with little respect for much other than martial arts, finds himself on an American Army base in the Philippines after a judge gives him a choice of enlistment or prison. The base comes under repeated attacks by local rebels who are after the military equipment that their leader, Ortega, plans to sell to the highest bidder. His top henchman is Black Star Ninja, who runs a training camp to train Ortega's private ninja army. In the end, Joe must use his secret martial arts skills to defeat the bad guys and rescue his girlfriend, with the help of his new buddies in the army and his long-lost mentor.

American Ninja is a 1985 martial arts action film produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus's Cannon Films. Like most other films produced by that studio, American Ninja was a low-budget action film. Directed by Sam Firstenberg, who specialized in this genre in the 80s, the film stars Michael Dudikoff in the title role, with Steve James as his side-kick. Domestic box office grosses for the picture totalled $10,499,694, and the studio responded with a competently-made but less successful sequel, American Ninja 2: The Confrontation in 1987. Three more commercially and critically unsuccessful sequels would follow with another lead actor, David Bradley. Dudikoff returned for a short cameo role in the fourth film in this franchise. The fifth and final film in the American Ninja franchise disregarded the series continuity and was a direct-to-video release.