Its obvious these movies are only enjoyable for what they are. You have to go into these movies knowing they are low budget, weak plotted movies with weak dialog The movie has action, and fighting scenes. And a cute girl. And an annoying kid. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Mainly for the cute girl, and mindless action. I have seen far worse martial arts movies.There's some hilariously bad scenes. The villain is just damn funny, for example. Enjoy it for what it is, or if you can't don't watch it. It's funny how bad this is rated, when you consider the plot is no stupider than Bloodsport. Admittedly the fighting is not as good, but it's funnier. I also love all the differently colored "ninjas". Like there's special ninja types determined by the uniforms

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!

This movie has no connections with any of the previous four American Ninja movies. David Bradley plays a new character here. As bad as this sequel is, it's not even the worst sequel in the series. That dubious honor goes to American Ninja IV. Everything is just shoddily thrown together here, but what do you expect with something that is done by the now obsolete production company, Cannon? Everything just screams cheap here, from the tacky villains, the setting, it's all truly terrible. James Lew (The main henchman for the big villain Clement Von Franckenstein ) looked like a Power Ranger villain, with his ridiculous red & black silk cape, and a pendant hanging around his neck, and retractable spikes coming out of his hand like Wolverine. It was extremely cartoonish. He also conjures up ninjas out of nowhere to fight David Bradley. Sound familiar? The fight scenes themselves are rather bland. David Bradley is obviously a skilled martial artist, but there is nothing out of the ordinary, move wise with him. He's also an extremely wooden actor, despite a little bit of natural charisma. He's more in the Chuck Norris School of acting in my opinion. Adding a kid in this movie, was a terrible choice. Lee Reyes (Hiro the kid) was a complete and utter nuisance. He is given far too much screen time, and never shuts up. He seems to be skilled in martial arts, and knows how to cry on cue. That's about the only compliments I can give him. Anne DuPont (Lisa) couldn't act her way out of a paper bag as the love interest. Stars like Norman Burton & Pat Morita look embarrassed to be here. Morita's role is a glorified cameo, and it's weird to see him speak almost perfect English. The film shoddily tries to add emotional impact by revealing family issues at the end to fuel the good guys, but it failed miserably. Final Thoughts: This is a bad movie. I cannot recommend this to anybody, but at least it's not as bad as American Ninja IV. This movie is obscure for a reason, despite a DVD release. Don't waste any money on it!3/10

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.