Five Elements Ninjas

For the very first absurd movie breakdown I’ve chosen a low budget film from 1982 called Five Elements Ninjas. And good god does it live up to that very awkward to pronounce title.

Before we start just a few quick disclaimers.

1: I was heavily drinking while watching this and wrote this entire thing a day later from memory while also heavily drinking so my recollection of events may be less than perfect on a few or, more probably, many points.

2: Throughout the course of this entire movie I never learned a single person’s name

3: This movie is fucking BONKERS

Let’s begin!

Once upon a time in China, this grand tale of ninjas starts off with two of what I’m guessing are feudal lords sitting across a large room from each other, both surrounded by warriors.

On one side, everyone is dressed all in white with matching white capes. The leader looks just like the old, cranky karate master from Kill Bill whose name I can’t be bothered to look up. Their sideburn game is incredible.

On the other side, sadly, there are no matching outfits to be had. Everyone is just kind of wearing whatever so they could really stand to get their shit together in that regard. Their leader is old, and his beard is clearly glued on. In fact, everyone facial hair is clearly glued on.

It doesn’t take long to find out that this is a karate tournament, the stakes of which are never specified.

A single warrior from each side dramatically steps forward to face off. White clothes side wins easily. These one on one matches repeat a few times. At around the fifth fight two brothers step up from the white clothes side and a make a point that they only fight together. They again win easily against dual opposition.

The very next fight one of the brother’s takes on another guy by himself instantly breaking their only fight together rule. So much for that, I suppose.

Anyways, white clothes side continues to win match after match.

Plain clothes lord is discouraged and sends off for his secret weapon. A samurai appears. He stomps the shit out of the next white clothes guy.

The samurai then says something to the effect of, “The samurai way says if you lose you die.”

The white clothes guy that just lost can dig it and slits his own throat with his ax.

Plain clothes leader is pleased.

Another white clothes guy steps up and is all like “I’ll take a shot at the samurai.”

He fights the samurai barehanded and defeats him. A few of the white clothes warriors remind the samurai that if you lose you die.

He agrees and scurries off only to quickly return with a piece of paper which he hands to plain clothes leader, and tells him to give it to a ninja master he knows. He then cuts open his own stomach. Before he dies, he takes off a pointy ring he was wearing and throws it to the white clothes leader who catches it. It makes his palm bleed.

The samurai tells him next time he sees a ring like that it will be his death. Also, seppuku doesn’t appear to be very painful if you were to judge solely on this movie.

Karate tournament over.

The movie then cuts to the white clothes people back at their place. They’re sitting around a large, flat rock. A note with Chinese characters and a pointy ring is on top of it.

White clothes leader reveals that the ring poisoned him, so he can’t fight for three months. Other than that, he seems perfectly fine.

The focus goes back to the note.

Is it a Ninja challenge, the more astute of you may be wondering? Fuck yes, it’s a ninja challenge.

They must face the five elements!

Ninja challenge stage one

The first element is gold.

A pair of white clothes warriors enter what I’m guessing is supposed to be the mountains. The back drops to this movie are all very small and very cheap looking but get the general point across.

Four ninjas dressed all in gold with matching shiny gold hats appear. Again, there are only two white clothes guys, so I guess the moral of the story is never expect fairness in a ninja challenge.

They face off. At some point the word “copper” appears on screen.

The ninjas use their shiny hats to blind the white clothes guys and shoot knifes from said hats for the kill. The blood in this movie is a lovely shade of reddish orange.

Ninja challenge stage two

Next up is wood element. Wood, you may be asking yourself? Yes, wood.

Anywhoozle, two white clothes fellows enter what’s supposed to be a forest with about four trees. Surprise! The trees are actually filled with ninjas that fuck you up when you get close. White clothes guys learn this the hard way. Also, something about a silver knuckle punch is mentioned, I think.

The ninjas tree disguises have all the believability of props in an elementary school play and after fucking with the white clothes guys for a bit the wood ninjas majestically leap out from the tops of them for two easy kills.

Ninja challenge stage three

Water element. This is the first element in the movie that could be used to summon Captain Planet.

Two white clothes guys stand on a tiny island in the middle of a tiny lake with two tiny bridges that leads to the main land.

Four ninjas dressed in blue float up on tiny rafts. The white clothes guys try to attack but are pulled in the water and murdered.

Oh, at some point, the ninjas use very conspicuous giant reeds to breath underwater undetected because the white clothes guys are blind morons.

Ninja challenge stage four

Fire element.

The fire ninjas are dressed in red and have dynamite and red smoke to conceal themselves with. White clothes guys never stood a chance.

Final ninja challenge

Earth element.

There’s only one white clothes guy this time but he’s a fucking badass.

The ninjas are hiding underground and stab upwards into white clothes guys’ junk a few times. A lesser man would give up at this point. But not this hero. He takes on all of them, severed dick be damned.

At one point he stabs one of the ninjas who pulls an obi wan and leaves nothing but his clothes behind. You never see a naked ninja appear at any point after so he either had a change of clothes ready or dickless landed the first ninja kill of the movie.

The ninja leader then appears, ready to fight. He’s not dressed like a ninja, but his sideburns rival any of the white clothes guys. He also has a fan with the word sword on it in Chinese characters. I know this because every time you see him open this fan for the rest of the movie the word sword appears on the bottom of the screen.

I forgot to mention this earlier but yes, this movie is poorly dubbed into English in the most cliché way.

And ninja leader wins.

End of ninja challenge

The movie cuts to ninja leader sitting with plain clothes leader. They want to finish the job and kill white clothes leader.

Plain clothes leader asks, “how are you going to get into their well-guarded castle?”

Ninja leader’s response is to clack a couple of pieces of wood in his hand and ninjas comes out from everywhere as a demonstration of the skills. Boom. Ninjas go where they want, bitch. That’s how.

During that sequence the entire movie goes completely silent and in all realness I thought that was a nice artistic touch.

They now only need one thing to execute their plan and that’s the white clothes peoples castle layout. But fear not, the ninjas have a secret weapon to get that very thing.

Enter female ninja.

The movie cuts to white clothes people’s castle. And I’m being very generous with the word castle. All the dead bodies of those who lost the ninja challenge are lined up in the courtyard.

A woman runs out nearby. She’s screaming and getting smacked around by an old guy.

Two of the white clothes guys see it. One says he wants to help. The other is like, ‘whatevs’. These are the first two white clothes guys that become recognizable characters.

The one that wants to help, helps and chases the old man away. Yes, you guessed correctly; the woman is the female ninja. She tells nice white clothes guy that she’s an orphan and that was her uncle beating her and he’s been forcing her to be a prostitute. If she goes back, he’ll mess her up big time.

Nice white clothes guy tells her she can be his servant or something. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention at this part, but her ninja ruse apparently works and she’s in the door.

Cut to her in nice white clothes guy’s room. She cleans it. Nice white clothes guy approves. His friend, asshole white clothes guy, is an asshole about it and accuses her of being a Japanese spy because she hid his spear. He also says something about flowers being stupid. Who fucking knows at this point? She cries. Nice white clothes guy holds her.

Next, female ninja is in the kitchen and puts poison into a bowl of soup to bring to white clothes leader.

Asshole white clothes guy stops her as she’s walking up to white clothes leaders room and says he wants to taste it first because he doesn’t trust her. She drops it “by accident” then steps over it to block the fact that it is literally fizzing on the ground. It couldn’t be more obvious that it’s poisoned.

Asshole white clothes guy is an asshole some more.

She then leaves to get more soup and puts more poison in the next bowl. No attention is ever paid to the clearly toxic bowel of spilled soup she left behind. It’s literally like 3 feet away to where both the white clothes guys are standing guard and it’s sizzling.

Anyhoo. this time she comes back and says she’ll bringing it in herself. Asshole white clothes guy says ok with none of his previous suspicion. He knocks on the door. She is let in and gives it to white clothes leader.

The fact that his bowl was poisoned never comes up and he remains totally fine so I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it was the same poison as on the ring from earlier and another 3 months of not being able to fight has been added on. It’s a very weirdly specific poison.

The movie then cuts to female ninja in a garden doing gardenly things. She’s wearing one of those sweet wicker hats. Asshole white clothes guy comes up and acts like an asshole some more.

I have a brief text conversation.

When I start paying attention again, he’s gone. Her hat is on the ground. She has the layout of the castle in front of her, drawn on a piece of paper in red. She wraps it around an arrow and then with literally the tiniest bow I’ve ever seen, shoots it, I shit you not, like 10 feet away to where a ninja awaits in a tree. It’s hilarious how pointless it is. A gentle toss would have accomplished the same thing. But ninjas be ninjas.

The ninja jumps down and grabs the arrow and castle layout and off he goes.

I also think a lot of time was supposed to have passed since she first arrived undercover to this point but the movie does a very bad job of conveying that.

The movie cuts back to plain clothes leader and ninja leader sitting together. He has the castle layout.

They strike tonight!

Cut to nice white clothes guy walking towards his bed. Female ninja is in it waiting, wearing only black fishnets over a skin-toned modesty bodysuit. Not to dash your hopes judging from what you initially see from afar but no titties appear in this movie.

Female ninja tells him she wants to get it on as repayment for his kindness.

He says somethings about being a soldier with honor and doesn’t want to take advance of her if she doesn’t really want it. He wants her to think about it more and if she actually likes him, they can get married.

Foiled by his niceness, she turns to distraction plan B, which is playing her flute for him instead.

That, he’s down with.

And plays she does. It sounds like every Asian flute song you’ve ever heard. 4 out of 5 stars.

The ninjas are now outside. They have rope ladders and all kinds of ninja shit.

The white clothes people have strings of bells on their rooftops and pillars in front of their main door that are secretly broken and designed to fall and cause a commotion if ninjas try to squeeze between them. The ninjas are not fooled. They are quiet and stealthy and bypass all those traps until about ten seconds later when they alert the guards by being neither of those things.

A brawl ensues. A few ninjas on the roof set off the roof bells. Nice white clothes guy hears them over the flute. He gets up ready for action.

Female ninjas flute is also a blow gun with a knife in the bottom. She shoots it into his shoulder. He’s all like what the fuck?!

She grabs some flowers and acts all tee hee with them before stabbing him in the stomach with a sword hidden within. I’m not positive but I think the words ‘flower sword’ appear on screens as she does it.

She runs out.

He tears off a piece of his white clothes and wraps his stomach wound.

Outside, the ninjas have built a web above the courtyard. And when I say above, I mean maybe four feet above the ground. Short, pointless rope ladders dangle from the web. Ninjas fight while hanging on them about an inch from the ground. It’s so goddamn dumb looking and it’s working.

Asshole white clothes guys is still alive. He’s taking on like ten ninjas single handedly. Nice white clothes guy is suddenly back in the fray too.

Ninja leader decides he is no longer fucking around. He leads the ninja horde to white clothes leaders chamber. They can’t get in. White clothes leader has a twisty lock thing on his door that makes it impenetrable.

No matter. He also has a lattice window around the corner and no way out. The ninjas have flaming arrows. Guess which one wins.

You’re right! Great job.

Wait, let me back up. Before white clothes leader dies a fiery death, nice white clothes guy does a decent job of fighting the ninjas off before ninja leader impales him with his sword to white clothes leaders impenetrable door.

So, now he’s dead.

As for asshole white clothes guy, he gets caught with ninja ropes, but just before they kill him, female ninja appears and tells them to stop and tie him up instead. She has unfinished business with him.

If at this point you assume that her unfinished business would be revenge for all his asshole-ness now that she’s no longer undercover and playing helpless, that’s understandable. I assumed the same thing. But alas, not to be the bearer of bad news but you and I were completely wrong, and this side plot is about to get insane.

Where was I?

Oh yeah. Asshole white clothes guy is tied up in a room with no guards.

FLASHBACK!

A younger asshole white clothes guy is walking down the road. Suddenly he gets caught in a rope trap and is hanging by his limbs. An old guy walks up to him. Young asshole white clothes guy tells him to let him down, he’s trying to get to his master.

The old guy tells him that he needs to learn ninja to get out or he will never see his master.

And that’s that. Apparently learning ninja works on the sink or swim principle.

END OF FLASHBACK

We’re back in modern day with a tied-up asshole white clothes guy. He must have learned so much ninja way back when because he manages to undo the most easily untie-able knots in the history of knots in literal minutes. And now he’s free.

He hears someone coming.

It’s female ninja.

In seconds he RETIES HIMSELF EXACTLY HOW HE WAS INCLUDING ALL THE SHITTY KNOTS.

She comes in all seductive like. She tells him nice white clothes guy was a good guy, but she’s in love with him. She’s still wearing full body fishnets. She goes in for the kiss. He’s instantly free of his bindings. How’d he free himself so quickly you may be asking yourself? And where did he get a knife from all the sudden? Fuck you for asking either of those questions.

He puts the knife to her throat and walks her outside.

I continue my text conversation for a few minutes.

Back at plain clothes leader’s place, ninja leader tells female ninja she gets six months hard labor for letting asshole white clothes guy get away.

Plain clothes leader is all like, “Well, I guess it’s time for you to leave, ninjas. Mission accomplished.”

Ninja leader is all like, “Oh, hell no. I’m not going anywhere. I want your spot.”

A ninja with a stack, and when I say stack, I mean a fucking STACK, of throwing stars in the palm of his hand is around the corner just waiting for his time to shine.

Ninja leader clacks the wood in his hand again. Ninja star guy lights plain clothes leader the fuck up with the full stack of ninja stars. The rest of the ninjas then come out nowhere and kill the rest of his men.

Ninja leader takes his place in a chair that honestly looks very uncomfortable. He’s in charge now.

Next: surprise twist! Asshole white clothes guy is the main good guy of this movie. He goes in search of the old guy from his flashback. He finds the same road and dodges the same trap that captured him the first time. Then immediately gets captured by a second trap of ropes. The old guy approaches. I’m pretty sure he’s holding a huge pipe. He’s says, “You again?”

Asshole white clothes guy, who from here on out to be referred to as hero guy, says something to the effect of, “My master is dead. Teach me ninja.”

“With gusto,” replies the old guy. But first he introduces hero guy to his other three students. What happens next is my favorite scene from any movie I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

Ready? Well you better be, cause here goes: The first student chases down a rooster and for no reason what-so-ever throws it like thirty feet in the air. Another guy jumps off a roof top out of nowhere, grabs the rooster, cradles said rooster against his chest while doing multiple sideways flips, lands, and puts the rooster down gently. For what reason? Someone with the heart of a true ninja warrior would never dare ask such a thing and I’m very ashamed of you right now for doing so.

Again, all this was watched and recollected in a drunken blur for me so if I am misremembering this scene is any way, please do not ruin it by correcting me.

Oh, and the third student is sweeping with a large broom, I think.

Next: The good ninja master hands his four students sticks shaped like crosses. They blindfold themselves followed by a montage of blindfolded ninja training. A voice over by their ninja master explains that the skill of the ninja was originally developed in China. Then the Japanese stole it or something.

And with that, ninja training finished. They’re ready.

Good guy ninja master hands hero guy a key that he says he got from another ninja master in Japan a long time ago. He doesn’t know what it goes to. I absolutely cannot wait to tell you the answer to that but all in due time.

The movie cuts to Ninja leader in the castle he just took over. Hero guy arrives and hands him a piece of paper with Chinese characters on it.

You know what that means! Ninja motherfucking challenge number two!

Female ninja girl is in the kitchen cleaning the floor. She looks out and sees hero guy. She swoons.

Ninja leader accepts the ninja challenge. Hero guy leaves. Ninja leader tells Female ninja to follow him and if she fails (at following him?) she dies. He throws her a katana, and she runs out.

He then tells four other ninjas to follow her.

Cut to hero guy leaning against a rock. It’s night. Female ninja is in a bush like five feet away. Hero guys throws a rock at her to let her know he knows she’s there. His ninja detection skills are at their peak.

She comes out and tells him she still loves him, and that by letting him live she got put on six months hard labor, and why doesn’t he care about all the pain he’s put her though?! Do I need to remind you that because of her all his friends and master are dead? Well I just did, so suck it.

He can trust her, she promises. He decides to give love a chance, puts his sword down, and gets all 'bring that sexy ass over here' like.

He starts undoing her shirt. Suddenly, he notices all the ninjas that were following her, grabs his sword, and stabs her in the back. They, as well, were in the bushes about five feet away. I swear that is not an exaggeration.

She wants to know why he stabbed her. He tells her because she brought her ninja friends with her. She says she had nothing to do with it and her love for him is real.

Hero guy fights and kills the ninjas. He then looks down at female ninja, who’s now dead.

He smiles and says out loud that he made the right decision killing her, then briefly wonders: or did I? Those two seconds before the scene ends are the only thought he’ll ever give to it or her again.

Second ninja challenge stage one

For the sake of brevity, I’ll just go ahead and say that all the challenges are in the same locations and in the same order as the first time around, bringing us to the gold element stage in the mountains.

The gold ninjas appear once again to take on hero guy and his three good ninjas friends. The good ninjas all have axes. The fighting begins but this time when the gold ninjas try to use their shiny gold hats to blind the good ninjas, the good ninjas close their eyes. Thank god for that montage earlier. The gold ninjas then try to shoot knives from their hats, but the good ninjas form a reverse pyramid and block the knifes with there axes before killing the shit out of them.

Second ninja challenge stage two

Wood element.

Hero guy and the good ninjas pull moon shaped blades from their axes and connect them to their ax poles chains. They then throw the moon blades through the fake trees cutting all the trees ninjas in half.

This is almost too easy.

Second ninja challenge stage three

Water element.

This time around the good ninjas see the water ninjas reeds poking up. They pull out nets. As the water ninjas jump from the water, they strike, catching the water ninjas in their nets before stabbing the absolute shit out of them.

Second ninja challenge stage four

Fire element.

I honestly don’t remember anything about this part.

Second ninja challenge stage five

Earth element.

Hero guy and the good ninjas have two poles each that they use as stilts. The stilts all have knives on the bottom of them. The underground ninjas attempt to stab the good ninjas dicks, but their dicks are too far out of reach. Instead, it only reveals their locations. The good ninjas used their bladed stilts to kill the underground ninjas.

Evil ninja leader emerges. He has no shirt and is covered in a bunch of seriously rad tattoos. Its four on one. Ninja leader jumps underground, then reaches up and puts handcuff like things on hero guys legs, trapping them to his stilts. Evil ninja leader resumes the fight against the other three.

Hero guy looks down and sees a keyhole on the cuffs.

I’m very ecstatic to tell you that that’s absolutely what the key his ninja master gave him goes to.

Again, a random mysterious key his ninja master received many years ago from someone in a completely different country…

A key that goes to one specific pair of hands cuffs whose specialty is to cuff someone’s legs to ninja stilts…

Ninja stilts that were just recently created with the sole purpose of helping win the previously unwinnable earth element stage of a five elements ninja challenge…

Hero guy looks for the key on his person but can’t find it. Fear not. One of his ninja friends comes up and says, “I have the key right here. You dropped it earlier.”

Coolio. They used the key to free hero guy. The four proceed to overwhelm evil ninja leader. Hero guy gets fatally wounded in the process. He says something about the evil ninja leader losing his head. I think it was supposed to be a joke.

To be fair I was looking a Facebook for a few minutes while this fight ended so I probably missed something and that joke was actually both amazing and relevant.

Then, with his dying breath, hero guy points at a big rock with the word earth on it in Chinese characters. 

What comes next is one hundred percent, no bullshit, how this movie ends: as hero guy dies, his three ninja friends run and throw themselves into said earth rock with absolutely no grace, smashing it to pieces. The scene pauses mid rock smash.

The words ‘the end’ appears on the screen.

And phew! That was a real rollercoaster ride of emotions.