Sam (Shmulik) Firstenberg is an American Israeli director. The Polish-born Firstenberg moved to Israel with his parents as an infant. In the early 1970s, he headed to the US to study film and later, returned to Israel and took up work as an assistant director in the local film industry, often on the sets of Menahem Golan and Boaz Davidson’s films. In the eighties, Firstenberg moved to LA and started directing features for Cannon Films (now The Cannon Group) – Menham Golan and Yoram Globus’s production company. Highlights of his directorial credits for Cannon Films include the cult classic, American Ninja (1985) and its first of several sequels, American Ninja 2: The Confrontation (1987).
In 1990, Firstenberg directed his only Hebrew-speaking feature, The Day we Met, starring Yehuda Barkan and Michal Yannai. Highlights of his other directorial credits include One More Chance (1981), Revenge of the Ninja (1983), Ninja III: The Domination (1984), Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo (1984), Delta Force 3: The Killing Game (1991), Cyborg Cop (1993), and McCinsey’s Island (1998).