Five Element Ninjas

There is a reckoning between two schools. The rival side brings in help from outside: Japanese ninja. The ninja are divided into five groups and each works to an element. The gold group blinds with light, the wood group hides in logs, the water group comes up from under water, the fire group uses smoke and the earth group comes from below ground. The school is attacked and almost everyone is killed. One student survives. He finds a master and learns the answer to each of the five elements. Then he comes back with three others. Chang Cheh directs. Ricky Cheng Tien-Chi, Lung Tien-hsiang, Lo Meng and Michael Chan Wai-Man are in the cast. It is a Hong Kong production, made at the Shaw Brothers studio. The narrative is built on the fights; the story passages are kept short and each leads to a confrontation. The fights were shot on studio sets and the places are deliberately artificial. The film is known for its bloody scenes; the violence is exaggerated and realism is not the aim. Chang Cheh is among the most prolific directors of Hong Kong martial arts cinema and this belongs to his late work. The matter it treats is technique; there is a method against every attack and the film builds that like a puzzle. The weapon designs matter inside the narrative; each element has its own device. The film became a cult later and is often named among lovers of the genre. Its limit is the narrative; the story is weak, the characters thin, and the ending is one long fight. Who it is for: viewers who like Shaw Brothers martial arts films. Who it is not for: it is bloody, the story weak, and the acting conventional.