DVD/Movie Review: American Ninja 5

 

American Ninja 5 is a movie from 1992 starring David Bradley, Anne Dupont, Lee Reyes (from the renowned Reyes martial arts family), and James Lew. Pat Morita (from The Karate Kid) is billed as a lead, but he is really only in the movie for less than 10 minutes, a couple of minutes in the beginning, a few minutes in the middle, and a couple of minutes in the end.

The plot of the movie is a mess. It is kind of a combination of the plots from the other American Ninja movies mashed together with a bit of Karate Kid (the mentoring aspect, not because of anything Pat Morita does) mixed in. The basics are a rich bad guy in Venezuela played by Clement von Franckenstein is forcing a scientist played by Aharon Ipale, to build a bio-weapon and using an army of (really pathetic) ninjas led by James Lew's character, the Viper as enforcers. 

The movie is about as bad as you would suspect, especially if you have seen the other movies in the franchise. Ultimately, this movie is not really a part of the franchise since it has no ties to the other movies. David Bradley is brought back, but he plays a completely different character than he did in American Ninja 3 and 4. Tadashi Yamashita, who played the lead evil ninja in American Ninja 1 does appear as himself at the very beginning of the movie, but there is not even a reference to Michael Dudikoff or Steve James' characters from the other movies. So, this movie is basically a total reset of the franchise that was not in any way needed. The acting and writing are horrible, but the martial arts action is good, for the most part. The movie is very cheesy and campy. There are horrible sound effects throughout the movie, and the lead evil ninja never wears a ninja uniform. Instead, he alternates between a trenchcoat and a cape from scene to scene, and he has a pompadour and a ponytail.

The DVD just has the movie itself, which starts playing as soon as the disc loads. There are no extras or bonus material, and there are no captions. Ultimately, you know what you are getting with the movie. A D-level action movie. It was one of the last ninja movies that was made after the genre started to putter out in the late 1980s. It is longer than most of the other movies in the genre (clocking in at 1 hour and 40 minutes) and definitely seems to drag on. If you accept it for what it is, it is an okay action movie. If you expect anything more than that, you will be disappointed.

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: American Ninja 4: The Annihilation

 

American Ninja 4 is the (almost) final movie in the American Ninja franchise of movies, and one of the final movies released by Cannon Films (which also released the "Ninja trilogy" in the early 1980s, along with a string of low-budget movies and the disastrous Superman IV.) 

This movie was released in 1990 and brought Michael Dudikoff back into the franchise, having his character "Joe Armstrong" team up with David Bradley's character Sean Davidson. I think the studio was probably trying to recapture the magic of the first movie, which was an unexpected low-budget hit in 1985, but ended up just making a movie that was even worse than the awful American Ninja 3. The plot basically cherry-picks elements of the first three movies, adds a couple of twists to the rich bad guy part of the plot, and sprinkles in a bit of "Mad Max" dystopian renegades. And, much to Michael Dudikoff's disappointment, did not bring back Steve James to reprise his character, which if you watch the making-of featurette, was a conscious decision by the producers not because James turned them down.  Needless to say, that combination did not work.  The fight scenes are awful, and the "main" evil ninja is a white guy with an eye patch. He is not even remotely threatening, and the henchman ninjas are totally pathetic, like killing themselves on an obstacle course pathetic.

The movie clocks in at just over an hour and a half, which is a similar running time to the other movies in the franchise. The A/V transfer of the blu-ray is good, but not great. About what you would expect of a low-budget early 90s movie. For extras, there is a 15-minute making-of featurette that was produced in 2016 and is mostly a conversation with the director of the movie, Cedric Sundstrom, a music video that has clips from each of the four movies set to a bad 80s song, and the theatrical trailer. This is basically the final movie in the series because, while American Ninja 5 was made with David Bradley as the star, he played a completely different character, and Dudikoff did not return for that one.

This is a movie that you have to take for what it is, a bad, low-budget action movie with bad acting and writing. It is basically something you would get just to keep a collection complete, and maybe watch if you are in the mood for a cheesy action movie. 

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt

 

If you take portions of the plots of American Ninja 1 and 2, combine them with any other martial arts movies that involve a tournament (e.g., Enter The Dragon and The Karate Kid), and don't do any of them as well, you get American Ninja 3. This is the third movie in the American Ninja franchise created by Cannon Films after the popularity of the "Ninja Trilogy" that starred Sho Kosugi. The first American Ninja was a pretty big hit (for a low-budget martial arts movie) and the second one was more of a flop. The first two movies starred Michael Dudikoff as Joe Armstrong, the titular American Ninja. For this movie, Dudikoff's contract was up and he was replaced with David Bradley, who played Sean Davidson another (convenient) American Ninja. Dudikoff's character is named dropped once during the movie, but that is it.

The plot, to the extent there is one, is recycled yet barely comprehensible. The main bad guy is another terrorist nicknamed The Cobra (played by Marjoe Gortner) who is making biological weapons and genetically enhanced super ninjas. One of the main problems with the movie is that there is no "main" bad ninja. There are just a bunch of rando ninjas that would be expendable henchmen in any other ninja movie. So, the "final battle" is just silly. Steve James is the only one from the first two movies to appear in this one, reprising his role as Curtis Jackson, who is now out of the Army and attending a karate tournament where he meets Davidson.

The A/V transfer is okay, but not great. It is definitely a step up from VHS quality, but as you would expect with a low-budget B-movie, it did not get a great restoration. For extras, there is a 13-minute behind-the-scenes featurette that includes interviews with the writer, director, producer, and Dudikoff who basically says it was not his decision not to come back for this movie. Then there is a 6-minute portion of David Bradley's screen test and the theatrical trailer. Unlike the blu-ray releases for the first two movies, this one does not have a commentary track.

The only real reason to get this movie is if you have the others and want to keep your collection complete. The action is fine and Bradley certainly could handle the martial arts. But, the writing is horrible and as a result, the acting is pretty shitty too.  It is something you can watch once and never watch again and/or just have it on in the background while you are cooking or cleaning. 

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: American Ninja 2: The Confrontation

 

This is the 1987 follow-up to the surprise 1985 hit, American Ninja. The movie brings back Michael Dudikoff as Joe Armstrong and Steve James as Curtis Jackson and was again directed by Firstenberg (who directed the first movie, as well as a couple of movies in Cannon's early 80s "Ninja Trilogy". 

The movie is set on some unnamed tropical island in the Caribbean, where Marines are being mysteriously abducted. Armstrong and Jackson (who are still in the army) are sent to investigate. From there, a silly plot about a local drug lord (played by Gary Conway, who also wrote the movie) that involves genetically engineering ninjas plays out. This time, the lead "bad" ninja was played by Mike Stone (who had trained Elvis Pressley in Karate). 

The blu-ray transfer was decent (an upgrade from the VHS version for sure), but not great. Very similar to the transfer the first movie received. The extras include an audio commentary track with Elijah Drenner and Firstenberg, which was very similar to the track they did for the American Ninja Blu-Ray, a making-of featurette, and the trailer. In the commentary track, Firstenberg again provides a lot of good nuggets about the movie, including filming the movie in South Africa toward the end of Apartheid and working with an even lower budget for this movie than he had for the first, despite the success of the first movie. 

Overall, the movie itself is bad. It definitely has the look and feel of a very low-budget 80s action movie. The script was hilariously bad, which resulted in horrible acting, and the fight sequences were not nearly as good as in the first movie. The "expendable" black ninjas could not beat anyone, and even Stone's lead ninja was pretty lame in the final fight. But, you know what you get from the movie. It is not an award-winner by any means but is a nostalgic blast from the past. 

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: American Ninja

 

American Ninja was the other series of cult-classic martial arts/Ninja movies (the other being the Ninja Trilogy, Enter the Ninja, Revenge of the Ninja, and Ninja III: The Domination, which starred Sho Koshugi) that were put out in the 1980s by Cannon films and Golan-Globus productions. The plot is set around the character of Joe Armstrong, played by Michael Dudikoff, in one of his early roles, a Private on an American military base in the Phillppines. When a convoy moving not only weapons but the daughter of the base's colonel (played by Julie Aronson) is attacked by rebels and a band of evil ninjas, Joe is forced to fight to save the Colonel's daughter. From there, the movie becomes a mix of an action-drama, a romance story, and a story of a reluctant hero. The rest of the main cast includes Steve James as Corporal Curtis Jackson, Don Stewart, as a French arms dealer, Victor Ortega, Tadashi Yamashita (who had black belts in multiple martial arts styles) as the Black Star Ninja, and John LaMota, as Master Sargent Rinaldo. 

The blu-ray, which was released in 2016, got a decent A/V transfer, so it is definitely an upgrade from the VHS version, which many people who are old enough to remember the movie probably owned. There are a handful of extras that were made for the 2016 release, including a commentary track that is basically a conversation between producer Elijah Drenner and the director of the movie Sam Firstenberg (who also directed Revenge of the Ninja and Ninja III) that provides a lot of details about the production of the movie and a lot of interesting tidbits, including the fact that the movie was originally developed for Chuck Norris, who passed on the role because he did not want to have his face covered. Then, there is a 22-minute behind-the-scenes/making-of featurette that includes interviews with Dudikoff, Firstenberg, Aronson, and the stunt coordinator, Steve Lambert, and the theatrical trailer.

Ultimately, this is a movie that is mostly an action movie that will appeal to those who were kids or young adults in the 1980s. The story is pretty cookie-cutter and the script was nothing to write home about. Dudikoff, who had no martial arts training before he was cast in the movie, actually does a very good job in the action sequences, and did a lot of the fight work himself. He actually looked very fluid and looked like he had practiced martial arts for years (unlike Franco Nero in Enter the Ninja who looked absolutely awful in the fight sequences he performed). The problem with this movie is that the script was pretty bad, and Dudikoff had to play Armstrong with almost no personality. Steve James and Phil Brock (who played the comic relief in the movie) probably had the best material to work with. It very much feels like a low-budget 1980s action movie and would probably not be made the same way today as it was back then. But, if you accept the fact that you are not going to see an Academy Award-winning drama and accept it for what it is, it is enjoyable.