Beverly Hills Ninja (1997)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Beverly Hills Ninja The best part of being a ninja is that the all-black outfit has a slimming effect.Mind you, it doesn't seem to be working on the assassin in this comedy.An American (Nicollette Sheridan) hires Haru (Chris Farley), a klutzy Caucasian adopted by a ninja clan when he was a baby, to investigate her boyfriend's suspicious behaviour.When Haru discovers a counterfeiting operation, he travels to Beverly Hills to advise his client, only to learn she isn't who she said she is and that the case now involves a murder.Watching over Haru, on his Sensei's (Soon-Tek Oh) behest, is his Haru's adopted brother (Robin Shou), who protects him from afar.Although this is not the stout SNL alum's best comic outing, Beverly Hills Ninja does play to Chris Farley's strengths: incessant pratfalls and dumb-guy naivety.Ironically, when you send a fat ninja to California, they come back home anorexic.Yellow Light vidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

This movie took classic jokes but put them into suck odd places it makes them feel new. So the general plot is that Haru is a baby found on the shore of japan. An old legend of a foreign boy. now for the first time (or at least from the movies I've seen) They had a incorrect "Legend".This movie took classic jokes to new levels.This movie was great and I think that it was a great movie for a quick laugh! now onto the cons. -as it did have some jokes that felt new, others were just the same old ones from about every other movie that used them. Finally is that sometimes everything had the worst luck, I know this is a common element in comedy's but it's really getting old. But overall this is a great movie!

A slapstick comedy starring Chris Farley, Beverly Hills Ninja is part prop-gag movie and part testament to the late comedian's physical comedic abilities. As a baby, Haru (Farley) appeared on the coastal shores of Japan. Legend has it that a foreigner would arrive and become the greatest ninja ever, known as the "Great White Ninja." As Haru grew, it became apparent: he was not the one. But when a beautiful stranger named Sally (Nicollette Sheridan) appears at the Jojo seeking a ninja's help, Haru finds his calling. Through a series of mix-ups (generally caused by Haru himself), Haru is framed for murder and he follows Sally to Beverly Hills to set things right. Finding out Sally's boyfriend is a counterfeiter and murderer, Haru with the help of hotel bellboy Joey (Chris Rock) and unknowingly with the help of his ninja brother Gobei (Robin Shou) takes down the counterfeit ring and finds his place among the ninja clan. Beverly Hills Ninja is full of individual comic gags that are hilarious in their purity--call it sadistic, but sometimes it's just plain funny watching a guy unwittingly walk into a lamppost while carrying on a conversation. Farley was a master at these tried-and-true gags, which reach right back into the origins of comedy. But it's not all slapstick; a scene where Haru is so taken by dancers at a local strip bar that he joins in is reminiscent of the mud-wrestling scene from Stripes. Beverly Hills Ninja may be considered a low-brow romp, but a romp it is nonetheless.

I first saw this 1997 comedy about four years ago when I was well into my teenage years, and found it very amusing. I even watched it a couple more times about a year later, and still liked it a lot! However, seeing it again several years later, I was no longer impressed. It no longer made me laugh at all, and I didn't even smile that much, either. Obviously, I have changed somewhat in the past few years, as this isn't the only comedy that I thought was really funny a few years ago but don't find very funny at all now (there's also "Johnny English").When an American baby boy washes up on Japanese shores, he is found and adopted by a ninja clan, who name him Haru. They believe that he will turn out to be a great ninja, but sadly, as he grows up, this appears to be doubtful. Haru is very clumsy, doesn't fit in, and it seems that he will never fully make it as a ninja. However, one night, when he is left to guard the dojo, a young American woman, who claims that her name is Sally Jones, comes in, seeking help from a ninja. After some struggle, Haru soon sets out to Beverly Hills on a mission to find "Sally Jones." His brother, Gobei is sent by the Sensei to secretly follow Haru around and help him. So, Haru and Gobei are both on challenging missions, but this is Haru's chance to prove himself a worthy ninja! Late former "Saturday Night Live" comedian Chris Farley played the starring role of Haru in this movie. The character is a walking disaster, the kind of role that Farley was always known to play in movies. Now, he COULD be funny in that role, but in "Beverly Hills Ninja", he obviously wasn't given a very good script to work with, so he's not very funny here. The gags involving Haru lousing up on virtually everything (which are most of the gigs in the film) are mostly just plain stupid, and it obviously didn't take a comedic genius to write them. It's almost like the same joke throughout the film, starting out stale, yet continuing for the rest of the movie! Most of the "jokes" in this film are mediocre, but at least one of them is lower than that, which is the one with the Chet Walters character laughing to death.Fortunately, Chris Farley was funny in some movies (at least in "Tommy Boy"), and was hilarious in many SNL sketches, so we have that to remember him by, and that's why he's so sadly missed. Sadly, when this movie came out, he was getting close to his death, and he was going through a lot of trouble with substance abuse, which was what eventually killed him. It didn't help that apparently, he was upset after seeing himself in this film. So, aside from not enjoying this movie the last time I watched it, I was left with a bad feeling, knowing all this. To wrap this up, I will say that I don't recommend "Beverly Hills Ninja" unless you're an absolutely DIE-HARD Chris Farley fanatic, and want to see slapstick done VERY unprofessionally!