The 5 Element Ninjas 五遁忍術

The 5 Element Ninjas vs The Five Element NinjasFilmark International Ltd. vs Shaw Brothers Studios The Super Ninja 忍無可忍 · Killer Ninja · Killers InvincibleWhen a formula is created that can supposedly cure cocaine addiction, every criminal in town wants a piece of the action. Luckily the professor responsible for this amazing discovery has a protector in the form of his son-in-law, John (Lo Rei) who is a strictly by-the-book police officer. However, they didn’t count on the mysterious Mr Tong taking an interest and with the help of his gang of Five Element Ninjas he disposes of the competition and goes after his one remaining obstacle: John. Rather than using his own forces though, Mr Tong bribes the police into framing John on fake drug smuggling charges and he is arrested and tortured extensively. Using his Ninja abilities, John is able to endure the physical pain but when his girlfriend is taken hostage it becomes personal! He escapes and heads out to rescue the woman he loves. Another day, another Ninja movie for Alexander Lo Rei. This time around, Lo Rei is a well-trained Ninja who is forced to rediscover his skills after his girlfriend is kidnapped… wait a second! Haven’t we seen this all before? Okay, so the plot of ‘The Super Ninja’ is not that original and is, at times, extremely frustrating thanks to some bizarre racial stereotyping and underdeveloped characters. Luckily though, the action is on hand to make amends. Lo Rei once again proves why he was the Ninja of choice when it came to making films in this genre as he unleashes some impressive bootwork and acrobatics that are worthy of any fight fan’s attention. Each scene is also well choreographed to include a lot of original combinations and techniques, allowing for some highly intense action sequences. Sadly, a lot of it is played back at speeds where it just looks plain ridiculous but it’s still entertaining enough to allow you to look beyond this. ‘The Super Ninja’ comes very close to becoming a highly recommended film on action merits alone, but sadly the infuriating undercranking and total disregard for plot stop me from giving it the complete thumbs up. It’s still a fun little action romp though, and one well worth watching if you’re a fan of Alexander Lo Rei. Before I start writing about the film itself, I’m just going to mention a couple of boring housekeeping things regarding the production and release of The Super Ninja as there’s some misinformation floating around: The version I watched was the UK DVD release (on Dragon DVD) called The Super Ninja. It has also been released (same cut) as Ninja Squad : Killers Invincible (or Ninja Squad : Killers Invisible as it’s misspelled on some discs), neither of which should be confused with Godfrey Ho’s unrelated Richard Harrison film The Ninja Squad. The UK DVD, as far as I can tell, seems to be censored as it only runs for 87 minutes. As far as I can tell, the uncut version was released as Ninja Force in Germany on AVV (one of their super limited edition releases) and was 93 minutes long but I haven’t been able to get hold of this to make comparisons and figure out what the missing 6 minutes are. Many websites credit Robert Tai as the director of this film. Although Tai worked frequently with its star Alexander Lou in the same period, I’m reluctant to believe this. I think the confusion may lie in the fact that, not only was he Lou’s most regular director, but Tai also had a small cameo in Chinese Super Ninjas 2 (aka Challenge Of The Lady Ninja). The original Chinese Super Ninjas is also known as Five Element Ninjas and this film, as well as taking the “Super Ninja” part of the title, features five element ninjas of its own. I think something has got garbled along the way, leading people to believe Tai made this. Being blunt, Tai was a more competent director and Super Ninja feels too rough around the edges for him. On the box art, the credits and IMDB, Wu Kuo-Ren is listed as the director. The production values and rough style are similar to his other films with Lou like Ninja Condors and Wu Tang vs Ninja and I can’t find any convincing case against his having directed the film. To make matters worse, it says “A Tomas Tang Film” at the very beginning but this, as far as I can tell, is just a credit added because Filmark (his company) were the distributors. If I find anything else out or score the uncut version, I’ll update this post accordingly! SO… with all that out the way, what’s the movie like? Pretty terrible in a lot of ways but decent trashy fun if you’re in the right mood. The always-enjoyable Alexander Lou plays John, a maverick cop in New York who’s also a ninja. The film opens with an Enter The Ninja style training exercise in the woods and then cuts to the police station where John (Lou) and his black partner Spencer (Eugene Thomas – dressed in full Axel Foley drag) are being abused by their racist commanding officer for not understanding how the law works in America. Before long, John is framed for drug possession and thrown in jail. He escapes and soon unravels an international conspiracy that revolves around his girlfriend Nancy and her scientist father, who’s created a secret formula. Anyone who’s watched enough of these movies will know there’s nothing ninjas love more than a secret formula. This time, the Five Element Ninjas (Metal, Fire, Wood, Water, Earth) led by a corrupt Tiger Ninja (sadly not in a tiger-striped ninja suit but just a black suit with a giant tiger face on the back) are on the trail and only John and Spencer can stop them. The film has two almost totally separate halves which makes me wonder if maybe Tomas Tang’s involvement meant there was some of his usual splicing together of footage from different unfinished projects into one. Either that or it’s just a really jumbled script. For much of the first half, we see John dressed up like Rambo taking his revenge on the absurdly corrupt and unpleasant NYPD officers who framed him and put him in prison. It shamelessly riffs on First Blood, with Alexander Lou running through the forests with his top off, headband on, bow-and-arrow in hand, setting traps, knifing, shooting and killing all and sundry. Once he finishes off his reasonably public cop disposal, he flies to Hong Kong (without anyone trying to stop him leaving the country) to stop the aforementioned evil ninjas getting the secret formula. The fact that the two stories don’t relate is waved away by the implication that cops were on the ninjas’ payroll. In HK, John’s old master tries to explain that the Five Elements are invincible. He tells him, “You don’t stand a chance” but then helpfully mentions that there is maybe one way to beat them: “Draw strengths from your future and past and see beyond the illusion of this world”. John, along with the viewer, just replies with a slightly baffled “Hmm” and we smash-cut to the next scene. The editing of this film is a big problem. It’s pretty lousy. The fights are all very choppy with a lot of speeding-up tricks, close-ups and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cutaways, which is a shame since Lou’s a talented martial artist and usually worth watching in action. Even outside the fights, The Super Ninja is loaded with awkward moments, bad camera angles and bizarre directorial choices – the weirdest of which is the 5+ minute sex scene between Lou and Chung-Erh Lung that feels like forever (it goes on so long that the stock saxophone music finishes and is replaced half way through by a jaunty synth tune). There are lots of close-ups on their hair and shoulders and some unintentionally hilarious drawn-out foreplay demonstrating the erotic qualities of tracksuit trousers… I have a very high tolerance for exploitation movies and perhaps this would’ve been more enjoyable if I’d seen the full uncut version as I felt Super Ninja didn’t quite go far enough into the crazy zone for me to overlook its many, many faults. It’s fun and sincere and there enough moments to make it worth your time but it’s far from Lou’s best work. The Fire ninja is the stand-out highlight. Unlike the ones in Chang Cheh’s Five Element Ninjas, this one actually sets his hands on fire and fights with flaming fists which is an incredible stunt that must be seen to be believed. Other than that, this is just an entertaining diversion; second-tier ninjing that’s probably best watched with a few drinks to smooth out the roughness. However, we do finally get an answer to the age-old mystery of what a ninja wears underneath his suit, when one of the burrowing Earth ninjas accidentally gets his costume torn as he pops out of the ground… Look away now if you blush easily. Five Elements NinjasFive Elements Ninjas (Chinese title: 五遁忍術) is a 1982 Hong Kong martial arts film directed by Chang Cheh. The film is about a Chinese martial arts school that finds itself outclassed by their rivals, so they hire an elite ninja from Japan to destroy the school. The lone survivor of the massacre learns the secrets of ninjutsu and seeks revenge against the ninja. Although only starring one member of the famed Venom Mob in Lo Mang, the film very much is in the spirit of director Cheh's later Venom Mob films. Plot In ancient China, during around the Yuan Dynasty, Chief Hong challenges his rival, Yuan Zeng, for the title of martial arts master. Their students face off against each other, and when his students are easily defeated, Hong calls in a samurai to fight on his behalf. Zeng's students are initially dismissive of a Japanese martial artist, but he defeats his opponent, whom he goads into committing suicide. Zeng's student Liang Zhi Sheng defeats the samurai, but before the samurai commits suicide, he warns that an allied ninja clan will seek revenge for his death. He tosses his ring at Zeng, who is poisoned when he catches it. As Zeng recuperates, he receives a challenge from the Five-Element Ninjas. Suspecting a trap, he keeps two of his best students, Sheng and Tian Hao, at the school to guard it against an invasion and sends ten others to do battle. As Sheng and Hao help to reinforce the school's defenses and set traps, the ninjas use trickery and guerrilla warfare to defeat their opponents. Hong is overjoyed, but the leader of the ninja, Cheng Yun Mudou, advises that they push their advantage to destroy Zeng's school. Hong agrees, and Mudou sends a female spy, Senji, to infiltrate the school. Sheng convinces a reluctant Hao to take her in after they save her from being beaten. Senji secretly makes a map as she takes various jobs around the school. Distrustful of her, Hao accuses her of hiding his weapon when she cleans his bedroom and demands to taste-test the soup that she has poisoned before letting her serve it to Zeng; to maintain her cover, she intentionally drops it. Once Senji completes her map, she smuggles it to Mudou. That night, Senji offers herself to Sheng, who refuses to take advantage of her, though he agrees that she may play a song for him on her flute. Under the cover of her flute-playing, Mudou's ninja attack the camp, killing many of the students before they are aware of the assault. Senji reveals herself as a spy and mortally wounds Sheng before he can rush to Hao's aid. Mudou kills Sheng and Zeng; Hao, who Senji requests they take prisoner, is the only survivor. Remembering basic ninja training that he received in the past, Hao escapes from his bonds and takes Senji hostage when she comes to tell him that she has fallen in love with him. Hao escapes the ninja and returns to his old ninja master to complete his training. He joins three other students, who help him in his quest for revenge. Meanwhile, Mudou kills Hong and takes his place as martial arts master. Hao delivers a challenge to Mudou, who sends Senji to spy on Hao and report who his new master is; he also sends four ninjas to spy on Senji herself. Hao easily detects her, but when he also sees the ninjas, he accuses Senji of trying to trap him and kills her. After killing the ninjas, Hao and his fellow martial arts students proceed to fight each of the Five-Element Ninjas. Now well-trained in ninjutsu and aware of the ninjas' trickery, Hao and his fellow martial arts students easily defeat the Japanese ninjas and destroy their symbols. Mudou, however, proves to be a difficult foe. As the four Chinese ninjas face off against him, he sneaks leg shackles onto Hao. Hao uses a mysterious key his master gave to him to unlock them, and makes many unsuccessful attempts to put them on Mudou. Finally, channeling his rage over the deaths of Senji, Sheng, and Zeng, he shackles Mudou's legs and pulls him down and while his 3 fellow martial arts students spear him, Hao tears Mudou in half. Hao himself is mortally wounded in the process. As his fellow martial arts students enquire as to why he put himself in front of Muduo's spiked feet, he dies. His brothers destroy the final symbol. Cast Cheng Tien Chi as Tian HaoLo Mang as Liang Zhi ShengMichael Chan as Cheng Yun Mudou (Kenbuchi Mudou)Chen Pei-Hsi as SenjiChan Shen as Chief HongKwan Fung as Yuan Zeng Release Five Element Ninjas was released in Hong Kong on April 21, 1982.[1] Reception 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."[2] 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."[2] Michael Brooke (Sight & Sound) wrote that the films that contain the word "ninja" in the title are generally "bargain-basement dreck" but that Five Element Ninjas was "a blissfully entertaining exception".[3] The review noted that Five Element Ninjas "lacks the emotional intensity of Chang's earlier films", but stated that "its delirious verve and invention more than compensate. The body count is enormous even by Chang's notoriously gore-drenched standards, though the cartoonishly unrealistic blood-spurts and a disembowelled fighter meeting his doom after slipping on his own dangling entrails smacks more of a Monty Python Peckinpah tribute than anything especially disturbing."[3] James Mudge of Beyond Hollywood wrote that "it has pretty much everything that discerning fans could ever want". Five Element Ninjas / Five Elements Ninja / The Super Ninjas / Chinese Super Ninjas /Ren Zhe Wu Di (1981/1982) *** I had always thought of 1980’s ninja mania as strictly a Western phenomenon. Sure, I knew that the Japanese made ninja movies as part of the broader chambara genre of period action melodramas, and I figured it stood to reason that a ninja might crop up as the villain in a Chinese kung fu movie here and there, but I couldn’t imagine people for whom the Asian martial arts were an indigenous cultural feature getting as hysterically worked up over ninjutsu as we round-eyes did in those days. Consequently, I don’t quite know what to make of Five Element Ninjas. This latter-day Shaw Brothers production, although nominally sitting at the intersection of wuxia and kung fu, not only makes ninjas the bad guys, but portrays them in a manner even more absurdly over the top than the wildest Cannon Group take on the subject. To my astonishment, it goes so far as to make ninjutsu a threat that not even the most powerful kung fu can counter. To defeat these ninjas, the boxers must absorb the deepest secrets of a foreign martial art! Five Element Ninjas gets off to an unassuming start, with a tournament between a kung fu school known as the Alliance and the bandit mob led by Chief Hong (Chan Shen, from Bastard Swordsman and Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold). There are to be ten bouts, at the end of which either Hong’s bandits will cease their depredations on the local peasantry or the Alliance will give up trying to stop them, depending on whose fighters emerge victorious. For the most part, the brigands lose and lose badly, but in the tenth bout, Hong sends forth an unusual ally— a renegade samurai called Kuwada (Wong Wai Tong, of Her Vengeance and Shaolin Intruders). Kuwada not only defeats his Alliance opponent, but follows up by shaming him into committing ritual suicide after the Japanese fashion. That instantly turns the tournament personal, and after a bit of squabbling among the remaining Alliance warriors, the right to avenge the fallen man’s honor is claimed by Liang Zhi Sheng (Lo Meng, from Five Deadly Venoms and Hex After Hex), the Alliance’s mightiest boxer. So sure of himself is Liang that he pits his bare fists against Kuwada’s katana— and when Liang wins, he wastes no time in reminding Kuwada of his earlier opinion of what honor demands under the circumstances. Kuwada does indeed commit seppuku, but before he does so, he promises Yuan Zheng, leader of the Alliance (Kwan Fung, of Bloodthirsty Dead and Monkey Kung Fu), a blood feud against his relatives back home. Then with his dying breath, Kuwada tosses Yuan a spiky iron ring. Some indication of the treachery the Alliance will face going forward emerges when Yuan catches the samurai’s bauble; the spikes are treated with a slow-acting poison! Kuwada’s envenomed ring is little threat to a kung fu master of Yuan’s caliber, but fighting off the poison’s effects will keep all of the Alliance leader’s chi occupied for at least three months. Until Yuan’s recovery is complete, he’ll have no lifeforce to spare for taking on human opponents. It’s rather inconvenient, then, that the Alliance quickly receives a letter of challenge from someone calling himself Kembuchi Mudou, King of Ninjas (Michael Chan Wai Man, of Ghost Festival and The Deadly Breaking Sword). That would be Kuwada’s brother. Kembuchi announces that he’s sending an elite force called the Five Elements Formation to take up positions within the territory claimed by the Alliance, and even goes so far as to specify where those positions will be. If Master Yuan accepts Kembuchi’s challenge, he will send champions to face each of the Five Elements. And if not, well, Kembuchi will just have to come and destroy the Alliance the hard way. This “Five Elements Formation” is a new one on Yuan. Hell, ninjutsu itself is largely a new one on him; all he knows is that it’s a Japanese martial art, and that it seems to lack the other arts’ focus on honorable conduct. Consequently, the Alliance leader suspects that the challenge of the Five Elements may simply be a ruse to draw the organization’s most capable fighters off on a wild goose chase, leaving the defense of the headquarters compromised. Nevertheless, Yuan fears that he can’t afford not to take Kembuchi’s letter at a minimum of face value— whatever other skullduggery is afoot, he and his followers have to assume that the Five Elements are a genuine threat. Yuan detaches eight of his most skilled disciples, led by his lieutenant, Lei Ben (Lung Tien Hsiang, from Cripple Lee Becomes Immortal and Ghosts Galore), to meet the Five Elements Formation at the locations spelled out by Kembuchi, holding just two of the Alliance’s top-ranked fighters in reserve to lead and coordinate the defense of the headquarters. Not one of those valiant warriors returns alive, and only Lei Ben himself is able to take even a single one of the Five Element Ninjas with him when he goes. Obviously this struggle between Kembuchi and the Alliance is of interest to the Hong clan, the chief of which undertakes to host the King of Ninjas and his retinue in his own palace. Such comfortable accommodations are doubly welcome because the next phase of Kembuchi’s plan is going to take a while. Among the ninjas is a beautiful yet devious girl named Junko (Chan Pui Sai), with whom Kembuchi hopes to infiltrate the very headquarters of the Alliance. Once there, she will act as both spy and assassin, learning the layout of the complex, assessing the remaining strength of the Alliance, and seeking opportunities to slay Yuan Zheng by guile and cunning. It’s child’s play to get Junko under Yuan’s roof, too. After all, the Alliance is an assembly of heroes, and what hero can resist saving a pretty girl from an abusive older man? Certainly not Liang Zhi Sheng. When he witnesses Junko (under the assumed name of Ah Shun) being slapped around in the street outside Alliance HQ by a man she identifies as her uncle, Liang falls gallantly into Kembuchi’s trap. Only one man among the Alliance suspects that Ah Shun isn’t on the level— a headstrong young brawler named Xiao Tian Hao (Ricky Cheng Tien Chi, from The Nine Demons and Attack of the Joyful Goddess). Xiao has enough of Master Yuan’s trust to be Liang’s right hand in organizing the defense of the headquarters, but he lacks the rank to press his misgivings about the girl. It doesn’t help, either, that Liang is as head-over-heels in love with her as his iron discipline will permit. Even so, Alliance security is too tight to afford Junko much chance to act against Yuan. She does, however, sneak a map of the compound out to Kembuchi, and when the moment appointed for the ninja army’s attack arrives, she comes this close to eliminating Liang. In his wounded condition, Liang is unable to rally the Alliance or to protect Yuan from Kembuchi’s personal attack. Junko errs, however, when she intervenes to save the life of Xiao, for whom she’s developed the hots despite (or maybe because of?) his adversarial attitude toward her. Xiao escapes thanks to a rope-untying trick he learned years ago from an eccentric hermit, with the result that there’s still one man left alive from the Alliance once the dust settles and the smoke clears. Naturally that means it’s Xiao’s job now to avenge his brothers in arms, but how to do it in the face of such powerful opposition? I mean, Kembuchi didn’t even need to bring the Five Elements Formation when he launched his attack on Alliance headquarters! Well, what about that old hermit? If he knows the secrets of Japanese rope bondage, maybe he knows the secrets of ninjutsu, too. Fortunately, Yang Tung Fei (Chow Siu Loi, from The 14 Amazons and The 36th Chamber of Shaolin) is still right where he was the last time he and Xiao met— and better still, he’s already got three promising students learning some manner of chopsocky from him. Yang agrees to take Xiao under his wing, and to reorient the training of his other pupils so as to forge the four men into a unit capable of besting the Five Elements Formation. Not only does that mean instruction in ninjutsu, but it also entails issuing the students special weapons that rival even Talon’s famous Swiss Army magic sword for pileup of special features. But while that’s going on, Kembuchi further consolidates his position by betraying and subjugating the Hong clan, making himself unrivaled master of the Martial World. I don’t fully understand what that means, to be perfectly honest with you, but I’m certain that it’s really bad. Director Chang Cheh was one of the giants of Asian martial arts cinema during its late-60’s-to-mid-80’s glory years. He was one of the driving forces behind parallel revolutions in wuxia and kung fu movies, transforming them into something capable of taking global pop culture by storm with the right vector of transmission. Explaining the full scope of Chang’s influence is a bit beyond my current competency in the subject, so we’ll have to put that off for another time. Right now, suffice it to say that anyone who has both The One-Armed Swordsman and Five Deadly Venoms on his resumé deserves to be taken seriously indeed. Five Element Ninjas came near the end of Chang’s long association with the Shaw Brothers studio, following a string of projects on which he reunited the stars of Five Deadly Venoms to varying degrees of success. It seems to be highly regarded by chopsocky fans, and although I’m in no position to evaluate it against the rest of Chang’s work, I can say that it left me wanting plenty more. To begin with, the action in Five Element Ninjas is extraordinary. There are often whole bunches of people fighting at once, all with the balletic choreography that marks top-notch Hong Kong action direction. The titular ninja teams each have their own memorable gimmick: Gold Team’s ninjas all wear reflective metal sugegasa hats that double as shields and triple as knife-launchers, Wood Team ambushes the unwary from the insides of tree trunks, Water Team has a variety of tricks involving snorkels and floatation devices, Fire Team uses pyrotechnics as both weapons and a misdirection tactic, and Earth Team attacks from under the ground with a dastardly nad-stabbing technique. In general, Five Element Ninjas features a lot more armed fighting than I’m used to, encompassing something close to the entire historical arsenal of Chinese and Japanese melee weapons, plus a few obviously fanciful things like the hand-held buzzsaw blades wielded by the first Hong Clan fighter in the opening tournament scene. And as you might guess with all those swords, spears, and whatnot swinging around, the battles get remarkably gory— although the gore effects are so crude that it can be difficult to tell what you’re supposed to be looking at. For instance, I never could make up my mind whether the camera keeps cutting to a closeup on the bloody legs of the first fighter to take on Earth Team merely to establish that he’s been stabbed in the femoral artery, or because that thing flapping around among the remains of his pants is supposed to be a loop of his guts. Since he gets killed only after he trips over the thing, I prefer to believe it’s the latter. Five Element Ninjas’ other virtues are subtler, but from what I’ve read, they might actually be more important for reckoning this movie’s place within the broader context of Chang Cheh’s career. It’s a rare director who can make so nigh-complete a sausage-fest of a movie this compelling, especially when the only woman with a speaking part exists solely to wreak havoc with her feminine wiles. Junko’s whole involvement in the film could easily have come across as hateful and reactionary. I’m not entirely sure what stops it from doing so, either, unless maybe it’s that the Alliance seems so subliminally queer that it would be unfair to ding them for wanting as little to do with women as possible. That latent homoeroticism works to Five Element Ninjas’ advantage in another way, too, by making the Alliance feel less dour than other fictional (or fictionalized) kung fu schools I could name. I’m sure Master Yuan’s discipline is as exacting as the next sifu’s, but the overwhelming impression I get from his followers is one of camaraderie and mutual devotion. Honor and duty and codes of behavior are all well and good, but the Alliance’s greatest strength is that these men clearly love each other, and that makes them an unusually appealing bunch. It’s sad to see them getting wiped out, even when we barely know most of them. There are some things I wish Chang had handled differently, however. I’m beginning now to get used to the very different understanding of story structure that one often encounters in Hong Kong cinema, but Five Element Ninjas puts itself in a difficult position by annihilating the Alliance with more than half an hour (but only that) still on the clock. There quite simply isn’t time to introduce an entire new supporting cast of good guys. And indeed Yang Tung Fei and his three students never come into anything like focus as characters. That isn’t too big a problem with Yang, since anyone watching Five Element Ninjas is likely already conversant with the trope of the gruff old martial arts master who subjects his pupils to a torturous routine of training bearing no obvious relation to the advanced fighting techniques they’re supposed to be learning. But it seriously weakens the showdown against Kembuchi and the Five Elements Formation when Xiao enters the fray at the head of his own squad of soulless mooks. I would also have preferred a more memorable exit for Junko, given her central role in both the Alliance’s defeat and the Kembuchi ninja army’s undoing. The presence of a female ninja on the Fire Team proves that Chang was prepared to accept women as credible fighters, so shouldn’t it be a little harder for Xiao to be rid of Junko?

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