American Ninja

Anti-terrorist agents are assigned to rescue a busload of adults and schoolchildren who are taken hostage in the Philippines.

Director Emmett Alston's offering opens with martial arts acting legend Shô Kosugi and Brent Huff on mission with explosions, shurikens, hammy deaths and badly staged action; but it's all is fine, as it's really only a training exercise. Nine Deaths of the Ninja is the James Bond ninja film of the 80s, the theatrical opening credits complete with female dancers, a smoke machine and a theme tune that Sheena Easton maybe proud of.

With an array of periodic weapon play, bow and arrows, nunchakus and sword fights to name a few there's also ninja traps and surprise deaths. But despite the title, Alston's insists on trying to make a Bond film complete with wall to wall women, waterfalls, boats, helicopters, jungles, a dwarf, larger than life villains, including a wheel chair bound German baddie. It had its own version of M (played by Octopussy's Vijay Amritraj) and money Penny-like secretary. Kane Kosugi the child actor from Revenge of the Ninja also appears. Aiko Cownden is notable and Regina Richardson does her best Grace Jones. Leah Navarro appear briefly but Emilia Crow steals every scene.

It's a wonderful looking film, with momentary feel good vibes littered throughout, fully utilising the real locations as a backdrop. However, the tone is a mix bag, serious at times, a severed head, an attempted rape, prostitution, kidnapping etc. In contrast to some hammy acting, goofy dialogue and outlandish setups. It's of it's time, exploitative, sexist and offensive - at times on the nose, others times without even realising. For a Ninja film it's talkie with the action scenes few and far between but when they come they're done well, with gusto and usually with a one liner thrown in here and there for good measure.

Overall, worth watching if you're a Kosugi fan, also if you've always wondered what would happen if you mixed Never Say Never Again with a Ninja film and the A-Team.

For starters, the title is misleading. Nine Deaths of a Ninja? Fat chance. I hope the ninja would have used up his nine lives early on and get this movie done with. Nine deaths? Pfffft.

Okay, the plot, if there is one. A German (of course a German, and a Nazi, swastika flag and all) terrorist and his amazing bunch of henchmen and -women kidnap a bus load of tourists. They take them to a remote place in jungle and demand the release of Rahji Mohammed, some kind of fellow terrorist. The best special team, consisting of Shô Kosugi, Brent Huff who looks like he's escaped from a toothpaste ad and a gorgeous but oh-so-clever blonde Emilia Crow, is sent to take care of the problem.

The actor who plays Rahji Mohammed, Sonny Erang, sure has a challenging role to play. No one, not even the severely retarded mental patients I have seen in hospitals, laugh menacingly all the time. Rahji had two or three lines in the whole movie, the rest of the time he just laughs. Oh and he must be a really nasty guy: he takes some balloons away from children and squeezes the balloons until they pop. Terrifying. The rest of the terrorists show their bad to the core nature by stealing medication from a girl with severe heart condition.

The rest of the actors are just as wooden as Sonny Erang. Brent Huff is expressive as a brick (and I always thought Ben Affleck is wooden!) and Shô Kosugi is downright awful. The same you can say about every single soul in this pathetic excuse of a martial arts movie. Oh wait! There is someone who was relaxed and expressive: the little monkey. He was well cast.

The fight scenes are so stupid they are laughable. The bad guys stand in line and neatly wait their turn as they are being slaughtered. I wonder why this movie has been cut and given high PG, there is nothing to see here, not so gory violence and no sex, excluding a pair of titties in one scene.

Saving the hostages is forgotten for a long time while the brave men of the rescue team visit a floating whorehouse (Madame Whoopee's Floating House of Fun or something like that) where the assassin-trained whores try to kill our hero's, but one of the assassins loses her bikini top and they have to abort the mission...

The "hejsan så ska vi dansa" amazon women, lead by the queen bitch Honey Hump (!!) are maybe the most laughable element of this movie. And the Rahji's explosives in the mouth scene... how the hell can it leave the head untouched but come out of his butt???! Beats the hell out of me. But what can you expect of a movie where the best actor is a monkey in diapers.

Make no mistake, Nine deaths Of The Ninja is not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, however, reading a number of reviews on the web for this film, it is plainly overt that a great many of the reviewers have woefully missed the point.....this is NOT a movie that begs to be taken at all seriously!

What it actually is, is a deliberate tongue in cheek parody that mixes and simultaneously pokes fun at a number of other movies such as its main star's previous ninja films which were produced by Golan Globus. Also added to the mix we have elements that could well have jumped straight out of a James Bond film such as a group of midget assassins, a sadistic lesbian militia leader and a megalomaniac wheelchair bound Nazi!

With such exaggeratedly comic characters on display it frankly baffles me how any reviewer could perceive this as and subsequently attempt to judge this against the criteria of a serious action film!

As to the actual quality of the film in question, and adjudicating it for what it actually represents, Nine Deaths Of the Ninja comes out as a fairly entertaining watch.

Sho Kosugi plays Spike Shonobi aka lollipop (on account of his predilection for them!), head of the fictional highly elite 'DART' team. Under his command are Steve Gordon aka Macho Man and Jennifer Barnes aka Foxy (and she is to!!!) Their mission in this case is to free a group of hostages who have been seized by the exceedingly evil Alby the Cruel.

The above plot provides a great excuse for lots of martial arts action, big explosions, military shenanigans and even some ninja along the way!

As mentioned previously, the whole thing is basically played for laughs and plenty of fun can be derived throughout (check out the hilarious scene when our man Sho is besieged by some villainous midgets!)

Overall then, whilst ambiguously labelled as an 'action' film, this is not a classic by any means, but is in fact a refreshingly light hearted and self effacing take on what is for the most part a stoic and humourless genre.

All in all, good fun!

9 Deaths, despite the mediocre score I've given it, definitely has a place amongst some of my favorite 80's action fliks. I'm actually surprised at the multitude of the negative feedback it's receiving here on the IMDb. I believe this is partly due to the common misconception that this movie is a serious, devoted stab at a true action movie (and it doesn't help that the site lists it only as being an action movie in genre). 9 Death is, to the enth degree, a COMEDY. It is intended to be a parody and comedy of martial arts/action movies and television of its time. Spike Shinobi A.K.A. lollipop (ala Kojak)? Come on, you know this is a joke.

You should be able to tell this film is deliberate humour, just watch the opening credits. It's a spoof off of the over-the-top Bond introductions, and there are other Bond parallels as well, such as the moronic laughing "arab" guy (who is subsequently played by a white guy .. riiiight), or Kosugi's speedo swim to the over-the-top whore boat. All taking ques from Bond movies as well as others. Secondly, you have your gung-ho American commando type ala Rambo or Ah-nold in Predator, mowing people down with a ridiculous chain gun.

There are simply too many comedic elements to list. The fighting midgets, the ridiculous, out-of-the-blue ninja fight near the end (with not a hint of explanation as to how or why the ninjas are even there), the melodramatic nazi villain, and the grace jones may-day esquire lesbian combat killer, "honey hump".

So before you watch this movie, I think it's important that you realize it is a comedy, and that it is filled with spoof or parody elements, right down to the cheesy music and characters. Of course, the film COULD be a little less deceptive in which genre it fits under. I can easily see how many would think the director was just a goof trying to make a serious action film - and the use of Kosugi's kids in the movie doesn't help (has it ever in the past? remember the Kane Kosugi/horrible actress fight in Revenge of the Ninja).

Even as a comedy, though, the movie isn't perfect. There are a lot of shots that don't make sense, some of the acting is terribly wooden, and the title (while I suspect is all part of the humour) is just ... EXTREMELY misleading. And, unfortunately, some of the jokes that 9 Deaths tries to pull off just simply aren't funny -- and it can be excessively campy and cheesy at points, whether this film is a satire or not. Regardless, I recommend it to anyone looking for a cheesy, funny throw-back to 80s martial arts/action films. It's not bad for an afternoon viewing.

9 Deaths of the Ninja (1985)is one of those guilty pleasure films. It's so bad that it's enjoyable. A fourth entry into the Ninja series (following Enter the Ninja, Revenge of the Ninja and Ninja III: The Domination). 9DOAN stars Sho Kosugi as a government agent who travels to the Philippines in order to stop a gang of terrorists.

Sho Kosugi's acting is about as good as his English and the rest of the cast makes him look like Sir Lawrence Olivier. This movie is so bad, bad in the tradition of the cheese classic Final Mission. But I enjoyed very, very much. If you like Sho Kosugi or those wacky Cannon films, then this one's for you!

Highly recommended (for all the wrong reasons).