GazerRise Fantastic!

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Harriet Deltubbo When a scientist's 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. The characters in this film have a lot of depth, and that makes all the difference. In the end, the audience gets a casserole of film elements and little of the satisfaction that comes from watching these types of movies. The film is dark, brooding, intense and most of all violent. It's meant to be goofy, then there are fisticuffs back and forth with those who claim to work for justice. That said, the main plot of the film was constantly being interrupted!

Comeuppance Reviews Did you know there is an American Ninja FIVE? Apparently there is, even though it was meant to be something called American Dragons and perhaps they didn't want to confuse it with the other, better movie of the same name.In this anti-climactic ending to the American Ninja franchise, David Bradley plays Joe Kastle (not Armstrong as in prior A.N. films), a guy who lives on a boat and likes to work out. One day, Master Tetsu (Morita) pawns off his "grand-nephew" Hiro (Reyes) on Joe and leaves to go to Greece for a vacation. While Joe is learning to cope with babysitting this annoying brat, it turns out that his new girlfriend Lisa (Dupont) is kidnapped by the evil Viper (Lew) and his gang of ninjas. Viper works for the nefarious Glock (von Franckenstein), a man who is using scientists to develop an insecticide named ZB-12. Lisa's father is a scientist but refuses to work on the potentially dangerous project. So Joe and Hiro must go through a bunch of travails in Venezuela to rescue Lisa who is kidnapped there. Along the way, Joe and Hiro forge a friendship based on the ways of the ninja.Rather than be loyal to the fans that have followed the series through the years, Cannon pawns this juvenile, watered-down, PG-13 rated dreck on the audience like Pat Morita does his bratty relative onto David Bradley in this patience-testing exercise.Bradley is likable enough and he looks like a young Craig Ferguson, although he is your classic action movie dumb-dumb. His young foil is another matter. Hiro is a precocious 12 year old whose presence in this movie is not needed. He says "whoa!" while Bradley fights the baddies, who are purple, green, and white ninjas, as if this was a video game. Speaking of which, Hiro's Game Gear plays a surprisingly big role in this film. Hiro has a matching Miami Dolphins baseball cap/coat and, sadly, brings this movie into the current "ADD generation".The movie as a whole could have been better, even if it was aiming more for the family market, but this Hiro kid gets on your nerves. Plus the whole daughter/scientist father aspect was already done in American Ninja 2 (1987). Couldn't they come up with something new? It's director Leonard's only movie to date and you think he would be familiar with past entries in the series, but maybe he never watched them. That's certainly what it seems like; he didn't try to impress with his knowledge of past A.N.'s, that's for sure...which seems odd. Having American Ninja 5 be the only movie on your resume is indeed a bizarre way to enter movie history. The whole Karate Kid aspect of the film is even further enhanced by the presence of Pat Morita. Did any kid ever see this movie...ever? The baddies are more interesting, as Glock strongly resembles Bernie Madoff and James Lew's entrances and exits are by far the best part of this movie. It's here that this film becomes utterly absurd. They should have gone in that direction more, if you see the movie you'll know what we mean.The jaunty flute music enhances the mild nature of the proceedings, and it's unfortunate that the mighty American Ninja franchise fell victim to the old sitcom trick of "Addakid", that is, when all the sitcom kids grow up and aren't cute anymore, to simply add a newer, younger, cuter kid regardless of whether it makes sense plotwise. It's an ignominious way for this beloved series to go.Even though this movie came out in 1993, it looks and seems older, but maybe that's because it's pretty lame and impotent, not to mention way overlong.You'd have to be a die-hard fan of the American Ninja films or any of the actors involved to sit through this insult to people who followed the original four films in this series.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

sveknu 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.

Staack117 The American Ninja series was a screaming roller coaster, starting high and rocketing straight down into darkness. And just when you think you've hit rock bottom, someone puts dog poo down there to further insult the series. This is an abomination, even compared to American Ninja 4 and 3. Is it trying to be a kids movie, akin to the MUCH better Surf Ninjas or TMNT? Is it trying to be an action packed movie, featuring a good stunt actor James Lew? Is this the triumphant return of Pat Morita? I don't know, and I bet the crew didn't either. This is an embarrassment to ALL involved with horrible action, horrible dialogue, a horrible plot, and again... HORRIBLE ACTION. James Lew deserves better.