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9 Deaths Of The Ninja (1985) Director: Emmett Alston. Hacktors: Sho Kosugi, Brent Huff, Bruce Fanger. Rating/5: The lowdown: Sho Kosugi enjoyed a purple patch during the 80s as a ninja action star. He appeared in some damn fine movies - see Revenge Of The Ninja, Pray For Death or Ninja III: The Domination - and some clumsily conceived nonsense like this movie. It sees Kosugi teamed up with fellow anti-terrorist agent Steve Gordon (Huff), attempting to free a bunch of kidnapped American schoolkids in the Philippines. Good points: Bruce Fanger is tremendous as the wheelchair-bound evil genius Dr Wolf, playing the role with such exuberance that it stumbles across the line into caricature. Regina Richardson is also fun as Honey Hump, the Foxy Brown-style guerrilla with her horde of gun-toting prostitutes. The whole thing's nicely tongue-in-cheek and it's always fun to watch Kosugi in fighting mode, even if... Bad points: ... this certainly isn't the best movie to showcase him. For one thing his voice has been over-dubbed by an American and his attempts at comedic acting fall somewhat flat. Choppy editing and supremely cheesy 80s action traits (dumb one-liners, bandana-wearing heroes seeming to enjoy slaughtering hundreds of people) make this a movie teetering on the brink between bad and so-bad-it's-good. Hard to tell which side it ends up, although it recently helped me pass a train journey from Newport Gwent to London Paddington well enough. Weirdly, an expletive was censored on my Region 1 print - the word was just cut from the soundtrack. Must investigate the UK video and see if this version has been snipped: maybe it's the TV cut... DVD Details: The disc reviewed here is the Region 1 release which is fullscreen, although a Region 4 disc is apparently widescreen. No extras on either. A Region 2 disc appeared in 2001, boasting a photo gallery (and we all know how endlessly rewatchable those are, right?), but now seems out-of-print. Overall: A deeply silly and poorly made affair, 9 Deaths Of The Ninja is basically The A-Team with people dying. It's still worth a watch for both Sho Kosugi fans and devotees of bad 80s action fun. Release Date: Out now. [Check it out at Amazon US] [Check it out at Amazon UK] [Reviews Menu] [Home] © Copyright Slasherama 2002-present