The Master (1984 NBC series)

[AlbertV]

OMG!!! Over the weekend, I bought a 4-DVD, 16 movie pack of martial arts films for $5.00. Included in the collection was the first two episodes of the 1984 NBC series THE MASTER, which starred Lee Van Cleef as John Peter McAllister, a former Korean War vet who after the war lived in Japan and trained to be a Ninja. Thirty years have passed and he sets out to America to find his daughter. Of course, the ninja clan are not happy and send their top man and former McAllister protege Okasa (Sho Kosugi) to find McAllister. Meanwhile, the "American Ninja" finds himself a student in recluse troublemaker Max Keller (Timothy Van Patten), who offers to help with the search in exchange for Ninja training.

The pilot was awesome that it featured a swordfight between Van Cleef (and double Ed Anders) and Kosugi, who also served as the series' ninja choreographer and technical adviser. The second episode featured Brian Tochi as a scumbad Triad lord whose master Lika, played by veteran Soon Teck-Oh, was a ninja who takes on McAllister in the climatic bout.

This is one series I wished hit DVD. I know there was only 13 episodes of the series, but it was such 80's ninja fun during that era...plus I found myself humming that theme song for too long now LOL

[HAZ]

The series is on dvd. There is a 2 disc set of resonable quality. Max Keller wen't on to direct televison. I think he did some of the Sopranos series.

[AlbertV]

Really??? Gotta look for that :)

You're right...Timothy Van Patten did direct a number of Sopranos episodes and before THE MASTER, he was on the series THE WHITE SHADOW and also played the gang leader Peter Stegman in one of my all-time favorite cult classics, CLASS OF 1984.

"Life is Pain. Pain is everything"... he must have followed that line because in THE MASTER pilot, he's thrown through not one, but two bar windows??? LOL

[The Running Man]

The series is on dvd. There is a 2 disc set of resonable quality. Max Keller wen't on to direct televison. I think he did some of the Sopranos series.

An official release of the whole series? I've only seen a DVD with 2 episodes here. An England I believe they have a release as well but don't know if it's of the whole series.

By the way, I find it funny that Demi Moore was on one of the episodes.

[kungfusamurai]

The same two episodes have been floating around on DVD for a long time. I don't know what the original source was. Maybe someone had released it on VHS in the 90s, and then it got dubbed onto DVD by someone like Platinum DVD or one of those other cheapy labels.

KFS

[daisho2004]

I use to love this show when I was a Teenager!!

[venoms5]

The same two episodes have been floating around on DVD for a long time. I don't know what the original source was. Maybe someone had released it on VHS in the 90s, and then it got dubbed onto DVD by someone like Platinum DVD or one of those other cheapy labels.

KFS

The series was released on VHS tape by Transworld Entertainment back in the late 80's early 90's. There were something like six or seven tapes total.

[AlbertV]

By the way, I find it funny that Demi Moore was on one of the episodes.

She was in the pilot episode, "Max", as the daughter of an airfield operator who was getting hassled by a ruthless businessman. :xd:

I also saw that Revenge of the Nerds' Takeshi, Brian Tochi, was a villain in the second episode of the series as well as Soon Teck-Oh as Van Cleef's rival ninja in that episode.

[bigrogie]

A custom made DVD set of the 13 episodes is available here:

http://www.ioffer.com/i/121323647

[MattC]

I just recently got this series. There's 13 episodes in total on 6 dvds. The quality is great! I think all the episodes were transferred from the 7 video tapes that were released back in the 80's and 90's....

[remo]

Looks like a complete set is floating around eBay too -- would be fun to see again, but $30 is ridiculous.

[Karlos]

I've just found my set - 2 discs, all episodes, perfectly watchable quality - in fact, I re-watched the George Lazenby/David McCallum episode!

Anyone need a set, please feel to PM me.

:bigsmile:

[MattC]

I just recently got done watching the series but I think I may watch them again. Anything with Sho in it is always good in my book!