Ninja in popular culture

According to Wikipedia, first major appearance of ninja in Western pop-culture was in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice (1967). The 1960s TV series The Samurai caused a significant wave of interest in ninja among younger viewers in Japan as well as Australia and the Philippines, but the impact of the ninja phenomenon was not felt in other western countries until considerably later. Western fascination with the ninja bloomed in the 1980s, especially in the United States;
Several American ninja movies starring Sho Kosugi were released in the early 1980s, largely responsible for introducing ninja to American pop culture and contributing to worldwide ninja-mania on grand scale (including megahit media franchises such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the late 1980s to early 1990s and Naruto in the 2000s).

You Only Live Twice (1967) Trailer