Nine Deaths of the Ninja

Cool movie poster!

The doctor told me I had to do stuff I liked in order to help my recovery process, so here I go again. The movie I'm going the review brings me the warmest memories of my early years into the world of VHS tape renting.

Back in the 80's video rental stores where the go to places on weekend with your parents, Blockbuster didn't own everything so there where thousands of independent rental stores. I  remember dad used to say "We'll rent one for you, and one for us adults" funny thing was that after I was done with renting blockbuster 80's cartoons such as Silverhawks, Thundercats, Transformers and many others, I set my mind into renting action movies, silly me! most of the ninja style movies you could find at Marconi's (that's the name for the defunct rental store we used to go to) where adult films, so they always came packed with blood, explosions and loads of sex and nudity! so I was introduced into the exploitation movie making scheme at quite an early stage. Thanks for that dad!

Well, after the heartfelt introduction I tell there were thousands of martial arts b movies made in the late 70's and during the 80's, of course they were all trying to unsuccesfully imitate the success of major action packed releases, and Nine Deaths of the Ninja is one of those I heart for childhood memories.  

For the unaware, the title, as in many exploitation flicks, is completely misleading. Nine Deaths of a Ninja? I hope the ninja would have used up his nine lives early on and get this movie done with. Nine deaths? I don't think so.

A promotional Ad.

a Ninja!

The weird martial arts meet 80's dancing opening titles.

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. Rahji, the terrorist had two or three lines in the whole movie, the rest of the time he just laughs (believe me). Oh and he must be a really nasty guy: he takes some balloons away from children and squeezes the balloons until they pop. Terrifying. 

Part of our team of heroes.

Our man.

A Ninja who digs lollipops.

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.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. 

But hey! chill out! that's the adult serious movie reviewer inside me. When i was a boy this was just an action packed film, I used to play with my friends imitating the plot with our action figures in our patio, ahhh those were the days.

Whitney Houston hahah.

Our heroes to the rescue.

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.

Here's the movie trailer:

By the way, i'm looking for this movie where a white ninja, who wore some cool mask had a secret identity being some retarded boy do you know which movie is it?