Five element ninjas

A young martial artist seeks revenge on the Ninja who kills his martial arts brothers and teacher. He finds help in the form of a new teacher (who knows Ninjitsu) and new brothers. Together the four pupils face the Five Element Ninja challenge: Wood, Earth, Gold, Water, and Fire.

From retrospective reviews, AllMovie described the film as "a legend amongst fans of Asian cult fare and for once, the legend lives up to the hype." The review noted that the plot sticks to simple martial arts tropes, while noting that the "actual methods used are so off the wall that no fan will care" and that "the final twenty minutes is the kind of high-kicking bloodbath that is guaranteed to leave any fan of these films smiling and slackjawed. Thus, Five Element Ninjas is the kind of gloriously over-the-top blowout that every genre fan needs to see." Sure, we have that same shallow backdrop we have come to expect from Chang Cheh, and we can say this film is cheesy with all its camera tricks and explosive punches. Haven't we seen this a million times by now? But you know what, this may be among the best of its kind, at least since "Five Deadly Venoms". Ninjas wrapping a guy up in chains and making him explode? Oh yeah, that happens. This is a lot more than punches and kicks, and it seems more like something Troma or Cannon would do. I absolutely love it.

Before I even knew the name Shaw Bros. I was a fan. I saw this movie many years ago on a t.v. series Black Belt Theater.

The 5 elements are unique and add some of the fun to this movie.

If you are a fan of old Kung Fu movies, do yourself a favor and pick this up on DVD. The quality isn't great, but it does have a nice mini-filmography of the actors in the movie.

The Garrish colors add to this awesome action flick. The choreography is beyond superb (almost no wire use, no stupid CGI, Joel Silver not in presence.) King Fu films are like gene Kelly films or Fred Astaire films- you watch them for the beautifully choreographed moves. The Kung Fu here is among the best of all kung fu films (not classic fung fu films--ALL Kung fu films) The crap Hollywood is spewing now and calling kung fu is just their shallow brainwashed doctrines of how anything that doesn't encompass CGI or a woman for PC reasons is cheap. This is a must for your King fu collection.

How do you go about making an old school Shaw Brothers kung fu flick even more entertaining? Simple… by chucking in a whole load of crazy ninjas with special fighting skills and have everyone who dies do so in a shower of bright red blood.

Directed by Chang Cheh, Five Element Ninjas opens as two kung fu schools go head to head to see who is the best. One team, who wear natty matching white outfits, are clearly the superior fighters, even beating the samurai brought on as guest fighter by the other side. As the defeated samurai commits seppuku, he throws his ring at his opponents, warning that when they see another ring like it, it will mean their death.

Sure enough, a note arrives soon after with a ring attached, a challenge from the five elements ninjas. The guys in white barricade their headquarters and send eight of their finest fighters to confront the ninjas. Two of their men go up against four Gold ninjas, who wear lamé outfits and use metal hats that fire blades from the rim; both meet bloody fates. The duo who face the wood ninjas (who disguise themselves as trees!) also die in gory fashion. Another pair battle Water ninjas, who lurk under the surface of a pond, ready to strike; they fare no better than their companions. A lone fighter faces the Fire ninjas, who wear red and are equipped with smoke weapons; no prizes for guessing how he gets on. The last of the eight is attacked by the Earth ninjas and their master, who appear from and disappear into the ground; he also dies.

Meanwhile, sexy female ninja Senji (Pei Hsi Chen) infiltrates the base of the white guys (who I think are called The Alliance of the Martial Arts World, but 'white guys' is quicker to type); she sends plans of their building to her ninja pals who launch an attack, killing all but Shao Tien-hao (Tien-Chi Cheng), who makes it to the home of a martial arts master who teaches him how to fight against the ninjas. Together with three equally adept pals, Shao Tien-hao goes looking for revenge.

With all manner of cool weaponry, and superbly choreographed fighting throughout, all taken to crazy extremes by director Cheh, Five Element Ninjas is a seriously enjoyable movie, with a satisfyingly brutal finalé that sees all of the ninjas being kicked, punched, sliced, diced and literally torn limb from limb by Shao Tien-hao and his buddies. Anyone who doesn't find this a whole lot of fun should forever be forbidden from watching any film with 'ninja' in the title.

If you don't like Ninja movies then don't watch this movie. If you can't appreciate that this movie does not take itself too seriously then don't watch it. This is a well crafted movie. The are a lot of things wrong with this movie but there are more things that are right and work. The story is good and leaves me satisfied at the end. This is VERY key when watching any movie. The creativity is great, clever and very funny. The fighting is in no way extremely slow paced (like one person writes in the comments) but it is possible to see that it is rehearsed here and there which of course it is for safety reasons. Most of the locations are horrendous especially where the elemental confrontations take place. I don't care so much about that because the story works and the dialog is funny so these flaws don't ruin it for me.

There are a lot of movies from this period that are REALLY bad and leaves more questions than answers. This is not the case here because this movie is one of the best Ninja movies out there. I have seen A LOT of Ninja movies (well nearly all I think):)

Another wonderful albeit very different movie from that era is "Ninja in the Dragon's den". I give both these movie 7/10. Also if you like goofy Ninja movies you might wanna watch Shogun's Ninja. It's hilarious :D