9 1/2 Ninjas! (1991) User Reviews (11)

Well...um...Beats watching Weather Channel, I guess...

[jwrowe3 · 4/10 · 1 April 2013]

Okay, we all know going into this one that it's going to be bad. Shame on anyone who thought they'd be getting a classic motion picture, here. This was what you'd call a "B" movie at it's best...or worst, depending on who you listen to.

Basic plot line? Who cares. We're all here to see what happens when the star, Amee Gray takes off something. This is the early 90's when, along with really awful hair, most of your female leads would lose clothing. And...along with the aforementioned bad hair, she does. She is a very pretty lady but her acting is pretty much like watching a middle school cast do Mamet. It just ain't happening...

Now remember, this movie was done in those days before the internet. Your typical teenage boy had to find movies like this to look at semi-clad women, or pick up a men's magazine. I suspect someone had that idea when coming up with "9 1/2 Ninjas". Make a movie with some skin in it...toss in some action, and find a joke writer to add a laugh. Then, when the movie has it's theatrical run, put Gray on the cover of the VHS clamshell in as little as possible. Put the movie in your local "Lou's Movie Rental" place that's probably a gas station as well, where one can rent a movie like this, and viola! It'll make money.

The acting is pretty wooden and sophomoric. But, I have to admit I laughed at the scene where there's a Ninja attack, and the actors slip on some sort of spilled oil.

Having friends who have had parts in low budget films, I have a warm spot in my heart for a movie like this. They are a "starting point" for talent and production people. And, if you think about it, the B-movie seems to have largely disappeared due to much better technology allowing slicker and better looking productions.

Do I recommend this movie? Sure! It'll give you something to tell your friends the next day.. "Holy crap did I watch a pretty rotten movie...but the girl in it was kinda hot for 1991!" Put this in your Que for "Bad Movies I Will never Own Up to Watching, But it Had Some Redeeming Reasons to Watch"...

4 out of 10, and that's being really generous.

9 1/2 Minutes If You Are Lucky!

[Movie-Misfit · 3/10 · 14 September 2019]

I first bought this when I was about 14 or 15 because it had ninjas in it, and I was all for buying anything with the word ninja it around that time.

Obviously, having the scantly clad and very beautiful Andee Gray splashed over the cover, my friends and parents were very convinced I had bought it for other reasons...

I think my husband would disagree!

At this stage I was sourcing as much Hong Kong cinema as I could possibly find. I had seen some of the finest at this point, and my video collection was growing fast. I knew from the look of this that I wasn't to be expecting anything that would get my adrenaline going, but oh boy - I was not expecting this.

Completely played for laughs, in the style of the hilarious Naked Gun & Airplane movies, this 1990 flick that clearly spoofs 9 ½ Weeks, is just bonkers and unfortunately falls flat on most of its gags!

Director Aaron Barsky (or Worth as he is in this) has quite the credits behind him in the film industry, and 9 ½ Ninjas was his directorial debut - but I have to say, had this been in the hands of Mel Brooks or David Zucker, I reckon it would have been a hit.

Instead, due to weak direction the comedy seems overly forced and so badly timed. The film itself is bland and boring on a technical aspect, but a lot of US films were in this time period. Hollywood go-to Asian of the 80's and 90's Gerald Okamura plays the Master of course ironically having just come off the equally unfunny Ninja Academy from the year before!

Is there any positive viewing experience in this? Well - very little. It will raise a smile here and there, but ultimately, 9 ½ Ninjas is a big flop. The moment has gone...

Overall: Not a vital part of your life, but will make you laugh more unintentionally than you think!

Worst of the Worst

[trygbjornn · 1/10 · 29 May 2006]

Not like anyone really will see this page (unless accidentally via a search for ninja-themed movies, which is totally understandable), but for your own sake, do not watch this movie. I have seen perhaps twenty movies that are on the Bottom 100 (and many that should be, like this), and I can honestly say that this, along with Charge of the Light Brigade and 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain, is the most unbearably bad movie ever.

It's not "so bad it's good," despite what some might think. It's "did human beings really think 'hey, let's make this movie' and why am I gritting my teeth so hard?" Honestly, even as spoof films go, it's terrible. Not one joke is funny. Not ONE. Some parts (the whole movie) are so unfunny, that one wonders if the script were written by anyone over the age of five.

It doesn't deserve to have the word "ninjas" in the title. It doesn't deserve to exist. Don't watch it. My friends and I did so that, hopefully, you all don't have to. Don't watch it.

I seriously could not sit through this entire movie. I had to stop half way for an hour.

[wan2bbrucelee · 1/10 · 12 January 2007]

I wouldn't call myself a movie buff. I mean, I watch a lot of movies, I play six degrees of separation using actors/directors, and I've been accused on more than one occasion of cheating during games of scene-it, the DVD trivia game, though I never have, I just happen to know more about movies than members of my family. But I will say this: I have seen a film that I would call a desecration of cinema. I have seen a film that I believe no one could justify. Some people would say that there is warrant for existence in all things, they would say that any expression of creativity contains some type of merit. I can prove them wrong. With what you ask? Well, if you actually have to ask that, I'm sorry for you, because you are on the 9 1/2 ninjas board on IMDb, so odds are I'm talking about that tragedy that some would call a movie.

Spoofs are often dangerous waters to try and tread. The spoof requires the craftsmanship of a real satirist, or at least someone with some kind of sense of humor. Typically, a spoof correlates somewhat with the plot of the film it is trying to spoof. Supposedly (but I don't believe it) this film is a spoof of 9 1/2 weeks. When I learned this, it begged a certain question: "What?" Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this film is supposed to be a spoof? Don't ask me how, though, I'm just the messenger. This is my biggest problem with the film: its a facade! There is no "spoof," only minor and hardly noticeable references to the film it's trying to spoof. And secondly, there is no real kung-fu. I am an avid Kung-fu film fan. And when I see the word ninja, I expect to see at least some form of semi-skilled combat. Though this film is a comedy, the often sophomoric attempts at fighting are just plain frustrating.

In short, I strongly recommend you don't see this movie. That's pretty much all there is to it.

Silly mishmash of a spoof

[lor_ · 5 June 2023]

My review was written in January 1991 after watching the film on Republic Pictures video cassette.

The wackiness of "Airplane" eludes "9-1/2 Ninjas", a fitfully amusing spof of ninja films and Adrian Lyne's "Nine 1/2 Weeks".

Released direct to the home video maret, pic is an acceptable timekiller for fans not counting up the number of misses among scattershot, almost nonstop gags.

Film was evidently aimed more at the foreign market, where the Mickey Rourke-Kim Bassinger epic was a hti. Most of the gags here are obscure unless one has memories the bondage-oriented romance.

Michael Phenicie toplines as a guy who seems to have stepped out of a shirt ad, who becomes involved with ditzy but beautiful blonde Andee Gray. Running gag has her getting tied up and being treated as a submissive by Phenicie, but it's not very funny.

The ninjas appear as henchmen hired by mean real estate developer Robert Fieldsteel, who's trying to evict Phenicie from his apartment. Also present is a ninja hand puppet, voiced by Paul Jabara, which reduces the film to utter silliness.

Among the odder elements here are Fieldstel's Russian henchman Dimitri, played in drag with moustache by actress Barbara Leary and a weird subplot of Phenicie's earlier romance with lovely overeater Sharon Lee Jones, who put on hundreds of pounds thanks to special makeup effects.

Though this role doesn't give her much to do beyond Little Annie Fanny emoting, Gray is pleasant Phenicie is hamstrung by his Dudley Doright wooden assignment.

Nailing your knackers to a table is funnier than this

[Bezenby · 1/10 · 10 February 2014]

You like ninjas right? And sex, yeah? That's good too. Comedy? Well, we all like a laugh. Get this - this films includes all these elements yet utterly fails on every single level, to the point where, in order to get through to the end, I had to watch this film in twenty minute chunks over the course of several days.

Don't get me wrong, from the moment I opened the DVD case and poured this foul smelling, peanut ridden pile of crap into my poor, innocent DVD player, I knew I was on to a loser. It's 9 and a half weeks, done Airplane style, with ninjas, apparently written by someone with no emotional core who read in a book somewhere what a joke was, then tried to make a film about it.

It's full of sight gags (sh*te gags, more like), slapstick (crap sick, more like), terrible acting, terrible jokes a child would find simple, Benny Hill style sped up antics, and when the nudity comes around (very, very briefly) - it's silicone enhanced, which to me is like painting a ping pong ball pink and sellotaping it to my scrotum.

I actually cringed at one point when the lead actress started acting like a baby. That's no good, is it?

The plot involves a ninja/businessman called Joe Vogue fighting a businessman who wants to evict him from his apartment, with the help of some woman whom he trains to be a ninja. That's the plot. There's an actor who turns up in various, terrible roles (including a french guy and a surf dude), a woman with a moustache (Stop, my ribs can't take much more), a gay ninja (that's hilarious and co), some Jewish rabbis included because, er, rabbis are funny or something.

If I've made you interested in this film, please accept my humblest apologies. This make trash like Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans look almost sophisticated by comparison.

Here's a list of things funnier than this film: 1) Watching a small cute puppy being eaten by a crocodile. 2) Accidentally losing three fingers in an industrial accident. 3) Being caught wearing eyeglasses by Pol Pot. 4) Walking in on your wife while she's involved in a spit roast with two Premier League footballers. 5) Having Lyme's disease 6)Having ants lays eggs in your brain 7) Winning the lottery, stashing the ticket in your house, then having a massive stroke which results in locked in syndrome which means you can't tell anyone where the ticket is, therefore failing to provide for your family in their time of need. 8) Getting locked in a wardrobe full of glass and rolled down a hill. 9) Schindler's List 10) Having your entire body shoved through a one inch gap between two panes of glass 11) Staying at a hotel targeted by an IRA bomb during the early eighties 12) Getting really drunk and blacking out then coming to, finding yourself on the receiving end of a really big gay guy with a beard 13) Being trapped under ice on one of the great lakes. 14) Finding out you're related to Hitler 15) Having elephantitus of the scrotum 16) Being invited to Jeffrey Dahmer's house for a 'party' 17) Pulling a large piece of fluff from a fat guy's belly button and then eating it. 18) That film 'Threads' 19) Anything - anything is funnier than this film.

SPOILER - This film is sh*t

I love this movie, yet know not why...

[jonah hex · 5/10 · 23 August 2000]

I saw this movie for the first time about eight years ago, and I thought that it was the funniest thing I had ever seen. It didn't offer too much that I hadn't already seen, and even those jokes were delivered pretty badly. But I still love it!! I think that my major attraction to this movie is in that you can never quite tell what the people involved in this production were thinking. There are some gags in this movie that could have been really funny had they been pulled off by somewhat professional people, but the poor craftmanship in someway makes the movie much much better. It's a hard movie to obtain, but I recommend it to anyone who can find it. Even if it's not your kind of film, it should be experienced.

This was a real movie

[BandSAboutMovies · 2/10 · 30 May 2023]

You have to admire the sheer gumption to make a movie that fuses the worlds of ninjitsu and softcore, a world that Adrian Lyne could not have envisioned when he put some honey on the table and put "You Can Leave Your Hat On" on the boombox.

Directed by Aaron Barsky - perhaps the only man who could be an assistant director on such wildly disparate movies as When Harry Met Sally, Atlas Shrugged, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan and Amityville II: The Possession - and written by Bill Counse and Don Pequignot (who teamed up for American Cyborg: Steel Warrior) as well as John Morrissey, this movie has about two or three scenes that seem to come from 9 1/2 Weeks and then they kind of just say, "Well, that's enough" and go off and make a different movie.

Land developer Gruber (Robert Fieldsteel, who somehow was in both John Cassavetes' Love Streams and Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time) - yes, he looks just like Hans - is kicking Lisa Thorne (Andee Gray, who appeared in the movies Texas Godfather, Dead Men Don't Die and Vascetomy: A Delicate Matter) out of her apartment. That real estate renegade is also throwing out Joe Vogue (Michael Phenicie, Evil Obsession, Lambada, Carnival of Souls) and sending ninjas his way. But Joe is also a ninja and he's using the teachings of his mother Gladys (Magda Harout) to instruct his new love interest Lisa - yes, of course they hit it off - in the art of the ninja.

You know how Airplane!, Top Secret and The Naked Gun movies work but the movies made by other directors and writers using the same actors never do? Imagine if they didn't have those actors.

For some reason, there's a subplot here where Lisa starts overeating and keeps gorging herself on food. I guess fat people are always funny, as are people addicted to eating because it gives them some limited control over an uncontrollable life. Maybe I shouldn't look so deeply into a movie that brings together eroticism and silent killers, you know?

The most creative thing about this movie is its tagline: Twenty men couldn't knock him out. But one woman might.

Oh yeah - Tiny Lister Jr. And Rance Howard - as a ninja negotiator, I admit that the idea of that screen credit is also pretty funny - as well as Kane Hodder and Gerald Okamura all show up. I think if you made a martial arts movie in the 80s or 90s, you had to hire Okamura or actual ninjas would kill your family.

A beautifully crafted picture!!!

[ABADDONCORLEONE · 10/10 · 21 July 2021]

This phenomenal movie was robbed of every Oscar nomination possible in '91. Superior in everyway to THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS!!!! A brilliant, unmitigated work of art!!!

Fails as comedy but still gives the laughs

[carnage-karo · 6/10 · 4 January 2008]

I was at a recording studio with my band for a weekend when we saw this one together (There were only Dawn of the Dead, Hills have eyes 2 and this, so..). At first we didn't know what to expect, just looking for something to kill spare time. Nobody read the cover before it started rolling, so we didn't know if it was a serious martial arts movie, drama or comedy etc.

After the first five minutes all of our mouths had just dropped wide open and we all kept asking: "What the hell??" The movie started out with jokes so unfunny, childish and Buster Keaton-like and kept them coming. Since none of us were prepared for this, we started laughing quietly at first and then harder and harder as the quality of comedy kept dropping down.

Some of the stuff in this film, especially some of the one-liners became memorable as hell during that weekend as we had this running in the background repeatedly about a dozen times or so. We were all pretty tired and of course enjoying something this bad as a group with our kind of sense of humor we had really had a blast. I know it's were poor movie in it's genre but we loved it and it will live in our memories for a long time.

Why do people not understand intentional comedy?

[sarastro7 · 6/10 · 18 November 2023]

Really, a rating of 2.5...?! That's absurd. This is not a BAD movie; this is a fully self-aware martial arts spoof of the exact kind that I've actually been looking for for a long time! The first two thirds of this movie had me chuckling throughout, quite thoroughly enjoying it. I'd have given it a clean 7 star rating if it weren't because the humor wore thin in the last third of the movie, becoming strained and annoying. A shame, but still fantastic fun if you love martial arts movies and can see how easy they are to parody. A polka dot "Wonder Ninja"? A ninja pillow fight? This is hilarious! Milking a number of cliches for all they're worth, and hamming it up in the execution. Overall, this was NOT BAD! As I was looking at this movie in the second-hand shop, weighing whether I should get it or not, I thought it would probably be really bad, but it was a very positive surprise and I'm glad I got the DVD. I'll never part with it; it is a small gem. No joke, folks. If you love kung fu movies, this is a real pearl.