American Ninja V (1993)

Director:

Bobby Gene Leonard

Writers:

Greg Latter (story)
George Saunders (written by) ...

Genre:

Action

Tagline:

The Magic Power of the Ninja Is About to Reveal Itself...

Plot:

When a scientists daughter is kidnapped, American Ninja (David Bradley), attempts to find her, but this time he teams up with a youngster he has trained in the ways of the ninja. |

Plot Keywords:

Ninja | American Ninja | Scientist | Chase | Martial Arts

Cast

David Bradley	...	Joe
Lee Reyes	...	Hiro
Anne Dupont	...	Lisa
Pat Morita	...	Master Tetsu
James Lew	...	Viper
Clement von Franckenstein	...	Glock
Marc Fiorini	...	Flathead
Aharon Ipalé	...	Dr. Strobel (as Ron Ipale)
Norman Burton	...	Ambassador Halden
Tadashi Yamashita	...	Himself / Tadashi
Jose Guanchez	...	Ninja 1 (as José Guanchez)
Vincente Perez	...	Ninja 2
Jose Salvado	...	Ninja 3 (as José Salvado)
Carlos Ruiz	...	Ninja 4
Tommy Arias	...	Ninja 5

Also Known As:

American Dragons (USA) (cable TV title)
American Ninja 5 (USA) (alternative title)

Runtime:

102 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Telecolor)

Sound Mix:

Ultra Stereo

Certification:

Australia:PG | Germany:16 | Norway:18 (video premiere) | UK:18 (video premiere) | USA:PG (certificate #31879) | Iceland:16

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Cannon Group

Trivia:

This film was not originally intended to be part of the American Ninja franchise. Cannon Pictures made it under the title American Dragons (it is even shown on many cable TV stations with this title) but the title was changed to American Ninja V before release. This explains why star David Bradley plays Joe, a different character than the Sean Davidson character he played in American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt and American Ninja 4: The Annihilation.

Quotes:

Viper: Now you shall taste my poison!

Movie Connections:

Follows American Ninja 4: The Annihilation (1990)

A lame way to end the series

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.