American Ninja 5: O Pequeno Ninja

This is an inferior outing with plenty of action , adventures , fights and suspense in a comic book style . New and last entry in which the tough American Ninja encounters ample reasons and opportunity to use his deadly skills . David Bradley starred fourth installment in "American Ninja" series titled ¨American Ninja: Annihilation (1990)¨ by Cedric Sundstrom with David Bradley, James Booth , Ken Gampu , going on this ¨American Ninja 5¨(1993) with Pat Morita , Lee Reyes , Norman Burton . This ¨American Ninja 5¨ has little to do with former entries , it explains why star David Bradley performs Joe , a different role than the Sean Davidson character he played in ¨American Ninja 3 : Blood Hunt¨and ¨American Ninja 4: The Annihilation¨. In ¨American Ninja 5¨ there're lots of karate combats , fighting and full of suspense and thrills . When a scientist's daughter is kidnapped , American Ninja , Joe Kastle (David Bradley), attempts to find her , but this time he teams up with an annoying brat , a youngster named Hiro (Lee Reyes) he has trained in the ways of the ninja . Kastle and his young sidekickset out in rescue of their friend , Lisa (Anne Dupont) , who has been captured , and being mistreated by some hoodlums .They attempt to free her , held for blackmail in the fortress of a villainous ruler , the nefarious Glock (von Franckenstein) , featuring an army of training Ninjas who obey the chief's every command . There a scientific is refusing to work on a potentially dangerous project , but this scientist results to be Lisa's father , who's coerced to develop a deadly insecticide , in order to plan a formula to use as a lethal military weapon . Of course , the villainous tyrant is supported by bands of implacable ninjas commanded by the evil Viper (Lew) . So Joe and Hiro must go through a series of dangers and confontations to execute their risked mission . As they'll wipe out a passel of violent Ninjas , as the relenting pair running afoul while facing off evil criminals . The two-fisted American Ninja Joe Kastle must take on deadly terrorist contenders , but then , things go wrong . Now his most deadly enemy ... is time. Evil with no cure. A warrior with no fear. The Magic Power of the Ninja Is About to Reveal Itself...

Lots of action , thrills , non-sense fighting and plenty of silly intrigue . This time the 'The American Ninja' David Bradley to do battle a sadistic terrorist along with his band of Ninjas and along the way , showing their impressive karate skills . As Joe Kastle joins a little boy against an army of violent Ninjas and his ruthless chiefs who are planning a fiendish global terrorist venom , threatening the world peace with horrifying disasters ; as our brave protagonists must save the kidnapped girlfriend and to stop terrible schemes . Of course , the main amusement results to be the breathtaking fights between the valiant heroes against the super-Nijas dressed in black, hooded , a blade on the back and using Shinkaisen, a metallized star they throw . Meanwhile , Joe and Hiro forge an intimate , agreeable friendship filled with wisdom , oriental philosophy and hard training based on the ways of the ninja . It's a gripping story of one man's feat and his short-aged partner , both of whom undertaking a dangerous rescue , including graphic violent scenes . At the beginning this movie was not originally intended to be part of the American Ninja series ; however , producers : Ovidio G. Assonitis , Bob Bralver and Perlmutter , changing of mind . The film displays a Norris' style , but Chuck does it much better . This low-key art-martial film is the firth entry about a heroe , the brave Joe Kastle along with his proficient very young sidekick , all of them executing a difficult mission . Stars David Bradley who is beefy as ever by playing a valiant karate man utilizing efficiently his deadly skills , and replacing the always good-looking , attractive Michael Dudikoff . And co-starred by the sympathetic Lee Reyes , brother of the most known Ernie Reyes who at the time starred various chop-socky movies . And some B-secondaries such as : James Lew , Marc Fiorini , Yamashita , Norman Burton and Clement von Franckenstein boasting his badness with hammy panache . Special appearance by Pat Morita, the famous Sensei plays briefly when he pawns off his "grand-nephew" Hiro on Joe and leaves to go to Greece for a vacation. Entertaining , though pedestrian -at times- screenplay , very loosely based on characters created by Avi Kleinberger and Gideon Amir . Atmospheric musical score composed by synthesizer in similar style to previous entries and functional cinematography . The film was lousily produced/directed by Bob Bralver , he's a low-grade expert about art-martial and Ninjas sub-genre , rip-offs and second-class films.

¨American Ninja¨ has various entries starred by Michael Dudikoff , subsequently replaced by David Bradley and Steve James , being mostly directed by Firstemberg and Cedric Sundstrom . As the American Ninja series is formed by the following ones : the first two "American Ninja" series entries produced in middling/low budget by Yoran Globus and Menahem Golan, Cannon Productions , ¨American Ninja I¨ (1985) by Sam Firstemberg with Michael Dudikoff , Steve James . ¨American Ninja 2¨ (1987) by Sam Firstemberg with Michael Dudikoff , Steve James , Larry Poindexter , Gary Conway , Jeff Celentano . ¨American Ninja 3 : Blood Hunt¨(1989) , here Michael Dudikoff turned down the lead role in this film for various reasons , among them being the fact that he didn't want to get burned out on martial-arts movies , being replaced by David Bradley , along with Steve James , but David Bradley's character was originally offered to Kurt McKinney, who turned it down for fear of being typecast as a martial-arts actor. ¨American Ninja IV¨ (1980) by Cedric Sundstrom with David Bradley , Michael Dudikoff , James Booth , Ken Gampu , Robin Stille and here the late Steve James who early died of pancreatic cancer is substituted . And ¨American Ninja 5¨ (2003) by Bob Bralvel with David Bradley , Lee Reyes , Pat Morita , Anne Dupont , James Lew , Clement von Franckenstein , this film was not originally intended to be part of the American Ninja series . As Cannon Pictures : Menahem Golan , Yoram Globus made it under the title American Dragons but the title was modified to American Ninja V before release .

Garbage martial arts movie that has nothing to do with the previous four American Ninja films, despite the title. This was originally called American Dragons but Cannon changed the name to reap whatever limited rewards they could from having it associated with the American Ninja series. Note David Bradley's character name is different from his previous appearances in the series. The plot to this stinker has "American Ninja" Joe (David Bradley) teaming up with Hiro (Lee Reyes, brother of Ernie Jr.), a young man whose granduncle (Pat Morita) wants him to learn to be a ninja. The two must rescue a girl from a ponytailed villain called Viper. Stupid stuff. Lacks any of the cheesy appeal of the American Ninja movies that starred Michael Dudikoff. Not even Mr. Miyagi can save this one. Good for some mockery I suppose.

I can live with David Bradley being a bad actor and all, but when just everything else is just as terrible as his acting, it starts to get real ugly. American Ninja V is a great example of how some people just don't know when to stop. After the third movie, this series has been nothing more than a piece of crap. This last movie is the worst of them all. The action scenes (fight scenes, mainly) are very bad. The story is childish, stupid and totally uninteresting. I almost fell asleep several times during the movie, and even the action didn't make it any better. What is Pat Morita doing in this disaster? I guess his quality control was out of function the day he signed up for this one.

Readers of my user comments will see that I reviewed the first four "American Ninja" movies years ago, but I only got around to reviewing the last entry just now. Hope it was worth the wait. Speaking of waiting, it wasn't worth the wait for me to track down and watch a copy of this movie.

The action, the main attraction of a movie like this, is very lame. There is only one real martial arts battle in the first 30 minutes of the movie. When the action does start coming, there is nothing exciting or special about the martial arts sequences. The movie is also not very well made. There are signs that footage is missing from the movie - either it was lost or never filmed, leaving to some question marks such as how Bradley's character severs the chain on his handcuffs. But even if the missing footage was here, the movie would still suffer from a badly written screenplay - there's barely a plot here, and it crawls at a snail's pace, with plenty of scenes seemingly only there to pad out the running time.

I suppose Bradley gives one of his better performances, though he's still not a very compelling actor. And it's always good to see Pat Morita, though he only gets three short scenes. But even with that stuff, the movie will still have even dedicated martial arts movie fans squirming in their seats.

I bought this movie for me and my daughter to watch and what can i say, this movie was funny, action packed, and full of really clever zingers which had me laughing non stop. American Ninja V is an instant classic that I had hoped would go down in history as one of the great action-comedies. The expertly choreographed fight scenes keep your heart pumping and your mind at all times completely at a loss for who is fighting who and why. This unique style is both ground breaking and a pleasure to watch. The dialogue is very witty and surprisingly full of rich subtext. For example, when the male and female leads are escaping from an army of ninjas, the female comically remarks, "Ladies first!" (Ba-Zing!). This seemingly one-dimensional and inane one liner actually reveals the film's deeper message of female empowerment and social equality. Another example of this emotionally layered narrative is the small Asian child's swift transformation into a fat white man during the stellar chase sequences. I recommend American Ninja V to everyone I meet. It is one of the classics that redefined the way I watch films.