Punching Day: Afro Ninja: Destiny

In 2006, an experienced stuntman and martial artist, Mark Hicks, did a screen test for a Nike commercial. His audition got off to a rocky start, but he got the gig! You've maybe seen the commercial he starred in with Jim Kelly and LeBron James. You've definitely seen his audition's rocky start.

Afro Ninja was 19 perfect seconds. But like all things, it wasn't too long before someone tried to turn it into money. Here in the future we're better equipped to monetize viral fame– Chewbacca Mom published four books on giggling, Alex Jones sold nothing pills to maniac grandpas, and Hawk Tuah Girl fled underground with $17,000,000 in untraceable $SLOPCOIN. But Mark's idea was more straightforward. He was going to make a full-length feature film about the time he fucked up a backflip. He started a company called FIRST PLACE PRODUCTIONS and in less than three years he had funded, written, produced, directed, and starred in Afro Ninja: Destiny. They say you shouldn't make an expensive vanity project based on your most embarrassing mistake, but with that attitude we never would have gotten John Travolta's Battlefield Earth…

… and make no mistake, this is the Battlefield Earth of two-time Chris Tucker stunt double, Mark Hicks.

The movie opens with an ominous voiceover about timeless conflicts between good and evil and chosen warriors. It's the wrong tone, aggressively generic, and seems only to be there to say, "This is the first of many decisions no experienced or sane filmmaker would make." Speaking of, we meet our chosen hero as he does some high speed creeping after a woman on a jogging trail.

In a movie like this, where incompetence contributes to so much, it's hard to gauge intent. But this is supposed to look like a desperate sex pest lunging for prey, right? He is pursuing a stranger who is clearly improvising an escape route from him. She is in terrible danger, and also what is this creature hobble he's doing? This is a pervert whose entire body has shut down except for his unsolicited boner, which refuses to give up the chase. I guess my point is, "I'm a goblin, I'm a goblin, I'm going to put it inside you," is not how most people would rehabilitate their image.

The woman turns around after seeing a dog off its leash, and our hero is knocked out cold by a floppy board. This is bad news because it means our martial arts thriller about the eternal conflict of heroism versus corruption is also going to be a zany sex crime romp.

Our hero, Reggie, tells his sexy co-worker how sexy the jogger who knocked him out was before he goes to work on Halloween. Afro Ninja: Destiny is off to a troublingly horny start. Our main characters are postal employees on Halloween, and today is October 31st, which is Halloween. He explains to his aunt that he's dressed as Jim Kelly from Enter the Dragon for Halloween, which is today's date and a movie where Jim Kelly had a different outfit. With what the film thinks is the right amount of explanation for why this man is wearing an afro wig and tracksuit, he leaves for work. Mark's "produced & directed by" credit pops up at this moment, right as he delivers his signature "hhhh!" for the faithful Best Epic Compilation SIX FULL MINUTES OF FAILS Funny Subscribe for More fans.

Mark is handsome and built like a working stuntman, but his character isn't supposed to be, so every character in the movie calls him ugly and pathetic at some point. His boss, dressed like a little cowboy, violently pokes him in the chest and tells him his dreams will never come true. Weird is too small a word. It is as far from the behavior of man as anything could be. Our hero is living in an HR video made by Care Bears, and I will never understand the rules of his universe.

This grown man came to work to sort mail and now he's finding out his star doesn't sparkle, that the magic of wishes aren't real. It's the kind of understanding of the human condition you can only get after every interaction in your life is reduced to checking the comments on YouTube and hearing, "ha ha, are you that nunchuck face-plant guy." Speaking of relatable experiences, a sexy postal worker's sexy army costume triggers a 'Nam flashback in a customer.

When someone has this much control over a project it means something when every girl is hot and the only thing they do is get charged by rampaging perverts. Also, and I know I'm coming at a 2009 only-time-director's movie with a lot of notes, but no military-trained man would prioritize Army Babe over Frankenstein as the primary threat. Mark does finally make a decision no audience would ever argue with, though. As our hero cowers behind the counter, he tears open a mysterious undelivered package from Japan and finds… magic nunchucks.

This rules. Magic nunchucks are welcome any time. If Schindler's List got changed from a list of Nazi prisoners to a list of magic words needed to summon nunchucks, the only thing you would say is, "Fuck yes. Terrific decision, Mr. Speilberg."

Mark flops over the counter to confront the crazed gunman, and this happens:

The fucking movie cuts to the goddamn actual viral video.

The 25-year-old Vietnam vet points his gun at Reggie and mumbles "Afro negrA!" so his boss can pointedly announce, "I think he said… afro NINJA!?" It's quite a stretch. The filmmaker is smashing a square plug through a tiny round hole labeled, "THIS ISN'T A PUZZLE. YOU DON'T NEED TO SOLVE THIS."

But here we are. It took ten lines of dialog about it being Halloween, a magic box of nunchucks, an unmotivated hostage situation, someone mishearing a racial slur, and a conspicuous panel of carpet stapled to the wall of a post office to get here, but Mark found a way. He created the exact and only circumstances that would allow him to slide footage of his greatest shame into a feature film he had full control of. It makes you long for the subtlety of Han Solo turning to camera and saying, "This furball took a bite outta my star satchel! It's why I'll -now and forever- call him Chewin-Ma Back'a Pack'a! What? Okay, big guy, I'll come up with something shorter. Now let's look up what 'parsec' means. What again? No time!? Okay…

…

…

… Chewbacca. [SWELLING MUSIC]"

The lunatic was pranking everyone with a squirt gun, but had a real grenade, so the post office explodes. It's hard to explain, and I won't. The next part is more straightforward: Mark runs back in to save a ghost he saw, gives her mouth-to-mouth, and she fills him with magic. This is frustrating because if ancient spirits of the Orient can just spit sorcery into your mouth in this movie, why all the contrived setup? The first scene should have said "INT. DAY - AFRO NINJA'S BEDROOM - AFRO NINJA STUMBLES TO HIS KITCHEN AND FINDS SOME KARATE MEDALLION SO WE CAN FUCKING GET GOING ALREADY. HE EATS SO MUCH SHIT TRYING A BACKFLIP."

Speaking of eating shit trying a backflip during a genius screenplay, the security footage of the botched backflip goes viral. In the movie!

Reggie gets woken up by phone calls from all his friends referencing Afro Ninja, his hit new video on the world wide web or "'net." He opens his computer and watches it over, and over. He can barely process the humiliation. So to be clear, the man trying to rehabilitate his image as the embarrassed guy from the botched backflip video has cast himself as an embarrassed guy from a botched backflip video, only 5% more magical. It would be like Paris Hilton capitalizing on her sex tape by writing and directing a romantic comedy about a hotel heiress who can't fuck, and also hatches creatures when you get her wet.

The scene of Afro Ninja confronting his own ignominy goes on for a long time. Arguably way too long. Long after we've fucking got it, he is holding his head in his hands while Jay Leno mocks him. I don't know if this was Mark's intent, but it sucks. I am somehow sick of a video I loved the first 300 times I saw it. It's hard to remember a time when joy could be found in landing a backflip on your face. Mark has put so much effort into this, and all the audience knows about "the real" Afro Ninja is there is nothing more to him than his viral video, but also you hate it now.

Things might turn around, though. After Reggie goes to bed, the ancient Japanese magic gives him an actual afro. Made out of hair and everything. I don't get it either, but he's unimaginably excited. Maybe from the new look, or maybe because he knows what this means. It means he's now in an '80s sci-fi comedy, and running straight at women with your dick out is back on the table. So let's do it. Like all good vanity projects, from this moment forward, Afro Ninja: Destiny is about every woman in the world wanting to fuck writer, director, and star, Mark Hicks.

Most movies do a few bits where the hero almost gets caught trying to keep his impossible powers secret. Not here. Mark shows his new hair to his coworker Sandra right away, and to her credit, she immediately recognizes it as a magic afro. She has never seen anything so amazing. Or so sexy. So very, very sexy.

The ghost's Japanese mouth magic also gave Afro Ninja the nunchuck skills of his father, Cleavon Washington, but I'm sure you figured that. Those come into play at a soul food restaurant where he finds Black Lightning's men shaking down Marla Gibbs for money. Black Lightning is an evil sneaker distributor played by James Black of the Cleveland Browns and there's no need to tell me– this will one day win an Image Award for Blackest Paragraph Ever Typed by a White.

Like they do in every fight, the thugs recognize Afro Ninja from the Internet then take turns getting beaten up in a way that feels like a spoof of awkward '70s fight choreography, but definitely isn't. What's great is this was Afro Ninja's first stop after the nap that gave him his Japanese powers. There is no refusal of the call in Afro Ninja: Destiny. He woke up having hair and knowing karate, and ran straight for a fist fight.

Sandra really likes watching Afro Ninja fight. These two are about to crawl inside each other when a Japanese waitress interrupts to ask if his new powers really include speaking Japanese.

"[IN JAPANESE] You bet your fine Japanese ass they do, girl," says the horniest man in cinematic history, right in front of the girl whose holes still feel the warmth of his fingers.

"[IN JAPANESE] My little Japanese underpants have melted right the fuck off, writer director Afro Ninja," giggles the waitress, right in front of Marla Gibbs. Speaking of Marla Gibbs…

"Oh, shit, Marla gets some Afro Ninja too. Okay, okay," says TV legend Marla Gibbs.

I cannot stress enough how horny this movie is. The Internet's Afro Ninja made a feature length movie to distance himself from Afro Ninja by casting himself as exactly Afro Ninja (except so fuckable). His charms don't always work, though:

In the next scene he kicks two muggers unconscious and immediately makes a move on their victim. But it looks like the actress wasn't told her motivation by the director because after his creepy line, she does not burn with untold desire. Instead, she makes the natural acting choice of giving him a strange look and getting the hell away from the street vigilante waiting for his victory handjob. "Cut! Let's take that again only this time look at me like you want mi– oh, she's gone? She walked off? Okay, that's a wrap on Handjobbing Mug Victim 3!"

The next day, Sandra walks in on Afro Ninja training. "The young woman's fit loins lubricate in readiness for him," says the script for the 20th time in eight pages.

She tests Afro Ninja's reflexes with a punch and he shoves her into a sexually charged embrace. "Ga-derp, I, uh, ha-donk," he blurbles instead of kissing her. This is the call you refuse, Afro Ninja? You're two single adults who have been eye-fucking for 40 minutes! Are these pages from an earlier draft where, on top of everything else, your character was a junior blue belt who got Bigged? What are you waiting for!?

When someone has this much control over a project it means something when the main character has no idea what to do with a woman once he catches her. Anyway, in the next scene, Afro Ninja drags Sandra to a terrible bar and acts like an asshole until he gets himself -and her- beaten up. She rewards him by going home with him and getting naked. This is how he reacts:

So I'm not saying the writer and director of this film is bad with women, but the sex scene does start with the main character, himself, fleeing from a nude woman. And when he comes back, he tells his partner, a woman he's about to sleep with for the first time, that he loves her. In Japanese, a language she does not speak. Speaking of, in Japan this movie was distributed under the title Corny Weeb Who Dies With Dry Dick.

They don't show it, by the way, their lovemaking. Instead, the clock fades from 12:26 to 3:53 where they're both asleep. So if they did have sex, it was for less than 3 hours and 27 minutes. Probably much less since Reggie has been edging himself on the leg of every woman he spoke to this week. It's a bit of a letdown, to be honest. This is your one shot at a movie, man. Get those struggling actress boobs in your face. Hang full dong. Only a coward directs his own sex scene and cuts straight to morning with everyone's nipples covered.

Anyway, he leans over to kiss fully covered Sandra and she turns into the ghost from earlier, who then turns into an old man with nunchucks. And then, I swear to God this really happens, Reggie brings the new ghost over to his computer and pulls up the goddamn fucking Afro Ninja video.

"This is it, strange ghost intruder. You've got to see this. I just wish people would shut up about this video I keep referencing and showing to everyone. Ha ha, this part's really embarrassing where I'm all dizzy and still trying to nunchuck nunchuck nunchuck..."

The ghost fills in the last of the exposition by explaining afro karate only works on bad guys, and Afro Ninja lost the bar fight earlier because he was the asshole. It seems late for our hero to learn "it's important to be good" this late in the movie, or his life, but it's the moral clarity he needed to do the most heroic thing he can think of– fuck up his piece of shit boss:

The movie is suddenly a serious redemption story, so Afro Ninja does not use his speed and agility to trick his bully boss into falling on a pie or whatever. He shoves him into a wall and steps on his little bitch neck. He is going to stomp the life out of him right here, in front of everyone in the employee break room. Then, while still standing on his throat, he delivers a rousing speech about dreams, going around the room, letting everyone express their most secret wishes, the threat of foot murder hanging over every syllable. Anyway, he gets fired.

He responds by ripping off his uniform and declaring his true identity is Afro Ninja. It sounds stupid, and it is, but it's delivered with full sincerity. Unfortunately, while he was spending all afternoon doing this, Marla Gibbs was getting hospitalized by Black Lightning's men. Afro Ninja expresses how this makes him feel with all the acting abilities of Ice Cube's stunt double from Ride Along.

"Gosh dang it," simmers Afro Ninja. "You can't be filming out here," replies Hallway Nurse (uncredited).

It's time for vengeance. Afro Ninja goes to Black Lightning's karate school and kicks down their sign. "Nggh, we're soaked! Helplessly soaked!" say Sandra's panties.

"Stunt team, there has been a lot of emotional acting and romance so far, but it's time for our martial arts skills to shine! This is our chance to show the world what we can do, and maybe I'm wrong about this, but I think if you just kind of shake your head around, it should look like I'm totally nunchucking you. Aaaand ACTION!"

One at a time, Afro Ninja works his way through the karate school until he reaches the final miniboss where he nunchucks through his sword! Awesome. And it maybe says something about this film's cultural penetration that they could name the main bad guy Black Lightning and have a twenty minute fight scene in front of the Flash logo and not one of Warner Bros. corporate lawyers found out about it.

Black Lightning gives him a sarcastic slow clap, but it's a trick. He says, and I quote, "I wasn't applauding you. I was summoning my most loyal bodyguard." And I have no notes on Black Lightning's most loyal bodyguard being This Nearby Guy With Garbage Can.

Afro Ninja beats him by making friends with him in a stillborn comedy bit I wouldn't disrespect you by describing. In the final fight Black Lightning reveals he also has glowing karate magic from the Orient, which sounds like a fun Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon homage, but isn't. Afro Ninja: Destiny was never what you'd call tonally consistent or narratively coherent, but it is rattling the hell apart here at the end. If it's not one to three women leering at his dick basket, Mark Hicks has no idea how to shoot a movie scene.

Black Lightning pulls out an assault rifle, but like the precious vulva of a moistening actress, a gun is no match for magic nunchucks.

In the end, Afro Ninja combines his two nunchucks into a single three-headed nunchuck to 100% kill a defenseless Black Lightning. The cops arrive in time to see only this, a disgruntled postal worker murdering the property owner and richest man in town. So anyway, the easily identified African-American intruder wanted for questioning in three open assault cases, the destruction of a bar, plus this very recent manslaughter, is declared a hero by the city! Mark should have maybe given this ending another pass, but I think he was distracted writing the new female character in the next scene.

"EXT. DAY - MAYOR'S PRESS CONFERENCE - HER HONOR THE MAYOR (35, BOOKISH BUT HOT) GRABS AT THE MUSCLED HAUNCHES OF AFRO NINJA AGAIN AND AGAIN. OH GOD, GET UP IN THERE, AFRO NINJA. SHE NEEDS IT SO BAD, AFRO NINJA."

So that about wraps everything up! No, wait! Afro Ninja still needs to meet the ghost of his father! He's played by Jim Kelly from Enter the Dragon, but nothing weird happens. The gropey mayor was the last of the sad wish-fulfillment moments in this indulgent vanity project. Because if there are any subconscious motivations behind the writing of this scene with his ghost dad, it would take a very gifted psychologist to diagnose them. Anyway, Ghost Dad Jim Kelly manifests and says exactly this to writer director Mark Hicks:

The actor Jim Kelly, who we know from his many references in Afro Ninja: Destiny, has been in a real movie! He knows a script is not supposed to look like this! This is the actual dialog!

JIM KELLY: "I'm proud of you, it's good to see you."

AFRO NINJA: I don't even look like you. I'm a little overweight. Ach. I wear glasses, I'm sort of a geek."

JIM KELLY: "I know."

AFRO NINJA: "I don't remember you."

JIM KELLY: "I remember you."

AFRO NINJA: " I wanna thank you. The last few days. Heh. They been the best days of my life."

JIM KELLY: "Well, we have to go."

And he does! Jim Kelly dematerializes like every last memory of him is scorched to nothing against the forbidden membrane between worlds. Blrrghgblg– gone, jumpcut to the Afro Ninja: Destiny logo, the fucking end. It's where Afro Ninja left us, so it's where I'll leave you.

You know, what? Have a wacky Afro Ninja: Destiny credits outtake. You've earned it.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: John McCammon, a man with the power of karate and zero impulse control.

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