Product Details

• Actors: David Bradley, Lee Reyes, Anne Dupont, Pat Morita, James Lew
• Directors: Bobby Gene Leonard
• Writers: George Saunders, Greg Latter, John Bryant Hedberg
• Producers: Caupolican Ovalles, Jonathan Tzachor, Ovidio G. Assonitis, Sam Perlmutter
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: May 14, 1996
• Run Time: 102 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6303568238
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #365,659 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Is this American Ninja or is this Disney?, September 18, 2005

By 

Lunar Strain "Thrash, don't mind if I do" (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: American Ninja 5 (DVD)

I will state right off the bat that I have always been a fan of the American Ninja series. Yes I know they aren't art but I enjoy the cheesball action and performances. After viewing American Ninja 4, which was rather entertaining in its own B-grade way, I was looking forward to viewing American Ninja 5.

The hookey cover art through me for a loop at first. It's just a lame picture of the characters in the film in stupid poses and mist added in to make it look "mystic". I was hoping the movie would be more entertaining than the cover art led on. Sadly it wasn't.

Here we get the "PG-13/Karate Kid wanna-be" version of American Ninja. David Bradley (American Ninja 3 & 4) returns but this time he plays a different character. He plays Joe Castle and not Sean Davidson from American Ninja 3 & 4. I found that to be a little strange, but oh well. One of his friends (the guy from the Karate Kid series no less) drops off his grandson (named Hiro) for Bradley to look after. Bradley reluntantly agrees and even takes the kid on a date he has that night. His date gets kidnapped by, take a wild guess, a bunch of ninja and he and the annoying Hiro kid go off to South America to rescue her. This is where the story rips-off American Ninja 2. The Ninja are using Bradley's 'girlfriend' (even though he only new her for a day) as blackmail so her father will create a deadly gas. Snore, been there, done that, and better.

Another bummer is that now the great fight sequences are gone. The fights from the previous Ninja enstallments are more tamed down, kid friendly battle scenes with Hiro making stupid comments every now and then. It's as if the filmmakers were targeting fans of the Karate Kid series instead of fans the violent R-Rated American Ninja franchise. Mistake.

To top it off, the music is some of the worst I have ever heard and belongs more to a made for cable Disney movie than a martial arts film.

If you can't tell, this is the Disney version of an American Ninja film. Hell I thought any minute I would see Herbie the Love Bug driving down the street to great our heros. Only buy this DVD if your a completest. Otherwise your better off buying American Samurai, which would have been a far better American Ninja sequel than this tame junk.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't be fooled by the title, American Ninja 5 does not exist., April 30, 2007

By 

Erbac "Cool as the other side of the pillow." - See all my reviews

This review is from: American Ninja 5 (DVD)

When I heard of American Ninja 5 for the first time a few years ago, I thought to myself, I loved the first 4, I got to find this one. Well it's a good thing I didn't since I saw it one late night on Spike TV. Apparently it's a kiddie martial arts movie much more similar to 3 Ninjas than American Ninja. What made the people who made this movie decide to deceive people into thinking that this kid friendly ninja movie is a sequel to the rated R action of American Ninja 1-4? I suppose they wanted to capatalize on the success on 3 Ninjas and slap on the title of American Ninja at the same time actually thinking they would make more money or something.

It's not rated R, and David Bradley doesn't even play Sean Davidson this time. Maybe Michael Dudikoff wasn't available this time again like in part 3 and they thought, everyone wants to see a kid friendly movie instead of the 2 American ninjas teaming up again. What a joke. Instead they team up Bradley as a new character with a 10 year old who, although good at martial arts, but c'mon, he's 10. And if I remember correctly, there was actually ninja on rollerskates in this movie. Oh yeah, and the leader ninja actually wears a cape. Ninja don't wear capes. He looked more like an Asian Dr. Strange then a ninja.

I had heard the original title for this was actually American Dragons. It even had that title when it was on Spike TV. It must have done so bad that before they shipped it to stores they probably changed the title to grab fans of the American Ninja films. Luckily, I was not sucked in, I didn't buy this dvd, I wouldn't even buy it for a dollar. I might take it for free just to sell it to someone I hate. Actually, I wouldn't subject anybody to see this and would use it as a coaster instead.

I wish I could give this 0 stars because it makes me so upset. Please, I do recommend the first 4 American Ninjas which I have on dvd, but don't get this. Just look at the ridiculous cover and know it's terrible. There's a reason I only mention American Ninja 1-4 to anybody and never mention this. Because this is not a sequel! This has nothing to do with the first 4 films! Remember that! Actually don't! Pretend this doesn't exist like I do.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a far fetched sequel, August 26, 2004

By 

Fernando Perez Iglesias - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: American Ninja 5 [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Too right, American Ninja 5 is clearly aimed at kids, with scarce violence, hiperactive martial moves and "mystical" ninjas flying around. Special effects are terrible, martial arts coreography is quite good (for a person who enjoys martial arts) and acting is very B, even Z, I'd say. Not a bad movie if you're 12 years old or really into martial arts. David Bradley is not that bad acting, I've seen worse martial arts actors, and I wreckon the kid who played Hiro sucked a little more. Ninjitsu aspect of the movie just goes to far fetched: ninjas of all colours, bad special effects, an invincible David Bradley, who finds all weapons effective and little-realistic blows. Lacks the magic of the first movies but still good for kick and punch fans.