{"id":1327,"date":"2024-07-25T21:45:14","date_gmt":"2024-07-25T21:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=1327"},"modified":"2024-10-14T00:41:26","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T04:41:26","slug":"nine-deaths-of-the-ninja","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/07\/25\/nine-deaths-of-the-ninja\/","title":{"rendered":"Nine Deaths of the Ninja"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Nine Deaths of the Ninja<\/strong> (1985)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Crown International\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 94 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence, nudity, some sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Emmett Alston\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Emmett Alston\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Cecile Colayco\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Roy H. Wagner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 30, 1985 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Sho Kosugi, Brent Huff, Emilia Lesniak, Blackie Dammett, Regina Richardson, Vijay Amritraj, Lisa Friedman, Kane Kosugi, Shane Kosugi, Bruce Fanger, Sonny Erang, Aiko Cownden, Jennifer Crumrine.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Answer me this, where can you find a team of lesbian commandos, kung fu midgets and a German villain in a wheelchair with a really bad accent? The answer is Nine Deaths of the Ninja<\/strong>, a really cheesy martial arts exploitation flick starring Sho Kosugi (Revenge of the Ninja).<\/p>\n

\u00a0While it has plenty of the ninja stuff, Nine Deaths of the Ninja<\/strong> really wants to be a James Bond-type movie replete with an opening credits sequence featuring Kosugi busting some serious kung fu moves surrounded by sexy dancing girls, all to the tune of a song by a female singer. Every time I watch this one, I feel like I\u2019m in bad movie heaven. That\u2019s the highest praise I can offer a movie like this.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The funny thing is it wasn\u2019t released by Cannon Films. Nope, I\u2019m afraid Nine Deaths of the Ninja<\/strong> is too low-caliber for the studio that gave us the original Ninja trilogy (Enter, Revenge and Domination). A movie this bad could only come from Crown International, the ones responsible for the likes of Kill Point, Tomboy and Weekend Pass. It\u2019s so bad it\u2019s actually deliriously entertaining.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I remember when it opened at the movies. It was Labor Day weekend \u201985 and I tried to talk my dad into making the long trek to Northeast Philadelphia to check it out. It didn\u2019t happen, we ended up staying local and seeing Compromising Positions instead. Fortunately, Nine Deaths of the Ninja<\/strong> made enough of a non-impact that Crown put it out on video about a month later. You know I snatched up that sucker the day it came out.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Nine Deaths of the Ninja<\/strong> opens with a routine training exercise in which an anti-terrorist team led by Spike \u201cLollipop\u201d Shinobi (Kosugi) easily defeats the bad guys. Next up, the aforementioned credits sequence which is too funny for words. Then we get to the plot. Terrorists, led by the evil Alby the Cruel (Dammett, Lethal Weapon), take a busload of tourists hostage in Manila. His objective is to force the government to release the Middle Eastern terrorist Rahji (Erang) from prison. Among the hostages are an American congressman, a little girl with a heart condition (Crumrine), a hot tour guide (Friedman) and a couple of Asian kids (Kosugi\u2019s sons Kane and Shane). Alby\u2019s chief henchwoman is Honey Hump (Richardson, Tightrope), a stone-cold lesbian with a trio of gun-toting hotties.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The local head of law enforcement (Amritraj, Octopussy) summons help and it arrives in the form of Spike and his team. They are Steve Gordon (Huff, The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak [I assure you this is a real movie title!]), a handsome ladies man and Jennifer Barnes (Lesniak, Hollywood Vice Squad), a blonde as bad ass as she is hot. BTW, Spike is called Lollipop due to his propensity for those particular sweet treats. Now it\u2019s up to them to track down and rescue the prisoners before Alby makes good on his threat to kill them all.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I haven\u2019t forgotten about the kung fu midgets. They attack our heroes in a museum while they\u2019re tracking down a possible lead. It\u2019s too bad they\u2019re only in that one scene; they totally add something to whole campy experience of Nine Deaths of the Ninja<\/strong>. I did forget to mention that Spike is a former ninja whose master told him he must follow a different path after making a near-fatal mistake during a fight with a rival clan. He\u2019s still every bit the ninja, dispatching bad guys with throwing stars and swords.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Kosugi may be a well-oiled fighting machine, but he\u2019s a lousy actor. The guy can\u2019t deliver dialogue to save his life. He\u2019s like the Asian version of Charles Bronson with his array of stone-faced facial expressions that runs the gamut from A1 to A2. His co-stars aren\u2019t much better, but the Worst Acting dishonors go to Dammett and Richardson. His ridiculous fake German accent belongs in a bad 40s B-movie; the makers may as well have named him Klaus or Fritz. She delivers all of her dialogue with this exaggerated wild-eyed look on her face. These villains are too ludicrous to be dangerous. Oh yeah, Alby has a pet monkey and all I could think about was Mike Myers\u2019 Dieter character from SNL (\u201cTouch my monkey!\u201d).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Nine Deaths of the Ninja<\/strong> is only slightly better in terms of its technical aspects. I\u2019ve seen much worse editing and cinematography. The fight choreography is about average for a low-budget job like this.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As a whole, Nine Deaths of the Ninja<\/strong> is pure B-level action movie silliness. It\u2019s one of those bad movies where you\u2019re laughing your head off the entire time. I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s what director Emmett Alston (New Year\u2019s Evil) was going for, but a win is a win. If it fails as a martial arts actioner, it succeeds as an unintentional comedy. Interestingly enough, it\u2019s on a DVD paired with Kill Point and I\u2019ll tell you what, it makes for a decent Saturday night double feature. It\u2019s best watched with your brain in the OFF mode. It\u2019s a lot of fun if you dig bad movies. Let\u2019s call it a \u201cchop-schlocky classic\u201d.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nine Deaths of the Ninja (1985)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Crown International\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 94 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence, nudity, some sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Emmett Alston\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Emmett Alston\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Cecile Colayco\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Roy H. Wagner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 30, 1985 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Sho Kosugi, Brent Huff, Emilia Lesniak, Blackie Dammett, Regina Richardson, Vijay Amritraj, Lisa Friedman, Kane […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,27,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure","category-b-movies","category-guilty-pleasures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Nine-Deaths-of-the-Ninja-PI.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1327"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1929,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327\/revisions\/1929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}