Our Friend, Power 5

aka 우리들의 친구 파워 5 aka Wurideul-ui Chingu Pawo 5

1989
Written by ???
Directed by Park Ho-Jin

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is one of the headlining franchises of my youth, and while I never got involved with the toys, the comics, cartoons, and video games were a constant presence. And years ago, I heard about a Korean bootleg Ninja Turtles movie, but thanks to the shifting sands of the internet it was years and years until I got a copy. Then I sat on it for a few years, but now it is time to actually finish jobs, and it’s time for Our Friend Power 5 to get its due on TarsTarkas.NET!

Our Friend Power 5 isn’t just a bootleg Ninja Turtles, it is in fact selling its own bootleg Ninja Turtle toys, complete with their own giant robot bootlegged from another toy line! It is part of literally hundreds of Korean children’s films pumped out with ridiculous costumes, terrible acting and overacting, and lots of rubber suits and animation of giant robots and spaceships mixed in. It forms a delirious genre of cinema that few people outside Korea have heard of, and fewer people have seen multiple entries. Fortunately for you (but unfortunately for us!), TarsTarkas.NET is one of those locations that is very familiar with this genre. Be it Alien Lightning Dragon, Hwarang-V Trio, Robotstar Jjanga, Super Batman & Mazinger V, or Korean Terminator, this ridiculous films are a constant presence. They will be so in the future as well, because you better believe I’m sitting on a whole slew more of them!!! That’s a threat, buddy!

But we must talk about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles here. First of all, there are FIVE of them! And one is a princess, in fact she’s the Princess of their race, and in turtle mode she has pink ventral shell. The ventral shells (the chests for those of you who aren’t biologists) are how you tell these characters apart, each one has a different color there – Pink, Black, Yellow, Brown, and Purple. Their masks are molded so they permanently have the Ninja Turtles grimace, and there are obvious eye holes (and other holes in the suits, either so the actors don’t sweat to death or so the suits are easier to maneuver and don’t fill with air and get weird shaped!) Their bandanas are all red and only the Princess seems to have any custom weapon, her wand. One of the turtles shoots what looks like metal wire out of his wrist to snag a villain out of a tree, but that’s the only complicated things the turtles do. Even with the many holes in the costume, it’s obvious the actors inside are barely able to see and most of the choreography involving them is weird and slow like they are underwater. Usually they default to the child actors for the action scenes to attack the villains. Outside of the princess, the other four don’t really have much of a personality, they are just there, and during the climax I’m not even 100% sure where two of them go.

When your wire salesman demonstration goes totally wrong!

The villains are a bunch of rat men, so yes, it looks like Splinter is hunting down his own family! Despite the villains being rats, their leader is named Shark and has taken a human face disguise (outside of an obviously terrible beard) The rats are all the same rubber mold, but they made their leader more grey and gave him blue eyes instead of red. They stomp around and carry laser guns but must have gotten their training at the Imperial Stormtrooper Academy as they can’t hit the broad side of a turtle barn.

This film is basically a commercial for their bootleg toys, as the entire climactic sequence involves the toy robot piloted by the Turtles (and some kids, it’s more dumb than complicated but let’s just continue) smashing the crap out of the villain’s fleet and his own robot. The Comentor Robot also drives the plot, it’s the plans the Princess is carrying that the villain wants to get his hands on. A space princess with some plans a villain wants, huh? The name Comentor Robot comes from a translation of the plot, I’m not sure if it is supposed to be like Cometor as that sounds more spacey, or if this robot spends its down time arguing that fluoride is mind control below Yahoo News articles. The robot itself is ganked from the Go-Bots Powersuits Power Warrior so it’s like two bootlegs combined into one! Synergy, baby!

Thankfully whoever ripped this tape left all the production logos on it, including the SKC company ad for their video tapes, floppy discs, and their brand new CD technology! CDs, it’s the FUTURE!!! As this is a rare film, we will give our patented incredibly thorough description of what is going on so you too can follow along at home, along with a side of snark. And like every single one of these Korean Children’s films, there are no subtitles, but at TarsTarkas.NET, we don’t need no stinking subtitles!

Hyuk (???) – Our hero is just some rando kid who happens to be the son of the famous astronomer Dr. Yang. Thanks to his irresponsibility he is granted phenomenal powers that he uses to fight evil Ratmen from space while befriending refugee turtles. Bow Tie (???) – The required by Korean Kiddie Movie Law comic relief, Bow Tie here is a huge wimp who hangs around with children while failing to ask out Tae Kwon repeatedly (and later Princess Turtle repeatedly) Tae Kwon (???) – The tough daughter of Dr. Yang who has the power of knowing tae kwon do, something alien ratmen armed with laser guns are helpless against! Dr. Yang (???) – Brilliant scientist who is far too busy building weird telescopes and letting his children run wild to go see a dermatologist about that weird growth on his head. Helps build a fleet of attack ships for the Earth and helps the Turtles create their robot. Princess Turtle (???) – – The Princess of the turtle world who leads the survivors of her conquered race in a desperate attempt to escape the evil Shark and his army of Ratmen. Has the plans for the powerful Comentor Robot that Shark wants. The Princess is armed with a magic wand that she’s pretty irresponsible with, and is also a brilliant tactician as shown later in the film where she commands a space attack. She transforms into…. Pink Turtle (???) – The lead turtle with the power of pink. All other turtles obey her orders. Outside of the Princess, none of the other turtles seem to have names (and even if they did, there ain’t no subtitles!) we will refer to them by their underbelly colors, as that is the only difference between the characters. They all use the same Michealangelo-base mold, which is seen by the “M” on all their belts. None of them really have personalities. Black Turtle (???) – The turtle I got the least clear shots off in screencaps! Our made up biography reveals he is obsessed with football, but was never able to go pro due to a knee injury in college. Only the destruction of his homeworld prevented him from getting a job selling women’s shoes. Yellow Turtle (???) – The Yellow Turtle is yellow. Shocking, I know! Despite that, he isn’t a coward. Congrats! Our made up biography reveals Yellow Turtle is a brilliant florist but lost last year’s rose competition due to internal politics. Luckily every other turtle florist is now dead, so he is a shoo-in to win this year! Brown Turtle (???) – Our made up biography of Brown Turtle is that he was initially another color but he never bathes, thus giving his belly the brown color by which he got his new name. His original color was lost over time, even he doesn’t know what color he is supposed to be. Purple Turtle (???) – This turtle is usually flying the Turtle spaceship but outside of that doesn’t do much interesting. Our made up biography indicates he is very into stamp collecting, to the point where he has taken out multiple mortgages to afford those stamps where the plane is upside down. Shark (???) – Leader of the evil Ratmen who commits genocides on Tuesdays and wants the Comentor Robot to further his genocidal ambitions. Judging by how the transformed Ratmen look in the film, Shark has taken human form and is just another Ratman. Ratmen (???) – The Ratmen are the disposable flunky troops of Shark. The leader is more grey and has blue eyes, while all the rest are more brown with red eyes. None of them are Splinter, unless this is the Mirror Universe! Wait a minute, maybe it is….

In space the Turtles are flying their spaceship and being attacked by a enemy fighters. Their own ship is a blueish rocket design that can change it’s shape, while the villain’s fleet is commanded by a large vessel that sort of looks like a shark if you are very drunk, while it produces an endless stream of red fighters to harass the fleeing heroes.

There are at least 5 turtles on this ship and also what looks like a life size turtle statue in the corner, I was never sure if this was supposed to be another Turtle guy or not, but it is notable Shark’s ship also has a statue of one of the Ratmen on it, except that statue is entirely in white and obviously supposed to be a statue. I’m sure this makes some sort of sense to someone, somewhere. I’m just sad no one died because they were crushed to death by a falling statue as their ship was exploding. That’s the type of ironic death that would be cool had anyone cared about this film in any faction beyond selling toys.

Eat cartoon lasers!

The evil Shark looks like a wizard skunk man complete with the weirdest beard/whiskers combo I’ve seen. He has a stunning huge pink cape and a matching head band that makes him look like a wrestler about to explain to Mean Gene why Hulk Hogan is going to go down at Wrestlemania. He has the same molded rubbery hair grey rat body his ratman henchmen have, and judging by the internal logic of the film (what little their is), he is probably a rat form himself but has transformed his face into a human one for reasons that are probably evil. His Ratmen bumble around and take orders from their lord.

If you are wondering if Our Friend Power 5 has their own theme song like all good anime/tokusatsu, yes they do!

Now for the worst part of all these Korean movies, meeting the human cast. Per usual, it is like a live-action comic book so some of the characters will have weird hair or giant bandages to make them more stylized, and no one seems to think it is weird. But the real worst part is all the “funny” characters, usually performed by a cowardly male character who we are all supposed to enjoy as he bumbles around and complains and not get incredibly annoyed and enraged at. Yes there is one here, we meet him wearing a bow tie and nice jacket at he is trying to impress the daughter of the famous astronomer Dr. Yang. Romance isn’t exactly the thing on her mind, as she’s in the backyard practicing her tae kwon do moves and manages to convince Bow Tie to be her sparring partner. This obviously results in her repeatedly beating up Bow Tie, which automatically makes Tae Kwon Do Lady the best character to ever appear in a Korean children’s movie. Obviously this is genderswapped Casey Jones and April O’Neal. Yeah, that’s the ticket! Bow Tie is friends with five young children, three boys and two girls, because obviously this guy isn’t going to have any friends his own age. Two of the boys bully the third, which makes us instantly hate two of the major characters of the movie. The third boy is Hyuk, who is Tae Kwon’s younger brother, which makes why Bow Tie is hanging around with them make a little sense, but not enough. The two girls don’t do anything the whole movie except be around occasionally and barely have any lines.

Dr. Yang himself is hanging at the observatory along with the other scientists, including another one named Dr. Gong who somehow was important enough in the synopsis to get a name, and yet most of the characters who are in more than two scenes did not. Obviously whoever wrote the synopsis is a big proponent of science and scientists, and as a scientist I will give them a coveted thumbs up for their effort! Dr. Yang has an obviously fake bandage on his head while Dr. Gong has a beard with a weird grey streak in it obviously stylized to look cartoonish. They debate about Dr. Yang’s new invention, the thing from Howard the Duck that lets you bring random crap from around the galaxy to Earth. I think you can see where the plot is going…

The kids break into said observatory because that’s what kids and their mysterious older friend do. I am just going to note for the record that Bow Tie has such little influence that he can’t even tell small children not to do bad things. Hyuk is bold enough to play his his father’s machine and gets zapped by cosmic radiation and is taken to the hospital, where a doctor reacts to hearing weird sounds inside of the kid. Bow Tie is punished by Dr. Yang by being forced to hold a bowl of water above his head and keep a ping pong paddle in his mouth with a glass of water set on it as well (and also there are fart jokes, bleh!)

Hyuk has recovered from the hospital and can now make animated flowers bloom and books go onto shelves by telekinesis. He’s become either Damien or Trumpy, and both of those options spell bad news for the good people of Earth! Dr. Yang turns on his machine, which manages to collect the wreckage of the ship the Ninja Turtles are on just as it is exploded by the villainous Shark’s fleet. Why he blew up the ship that had the plans he wanted on it I don’t know, that seems like an overreaction. Obviously he should have disabled the ship, boarded it, and executed the Ninja Turtles one by one until they gave him what he wanted, and then left the rest to rot on a ruined ship. But I’m not the evil mastermind, I’m just a guy with a website!

The Ninja Turtles (note: I’m still going to mostly call them Ninja Tutles instead of Power 5 because that’s the way I want to write it, buddy!) pop up in the middle of the forest. They are soon followed by an animated ship full of ratmen who also land and start skulking around the forest with big guns. The villains somehow figured out the Turtles were tractor beamed to Earth and almost exactly where they landed, which is pretty impressive considering this is pretty ridiculous. I guess they must like Howard the Duck enough to have researched the technology in case they ever run into it in the real world, which also begs the question what other weird movie technology are they familiar with?

Don’t worry, there are now dozens of kids in the woods as part of some exercise outdoor program (every kid is numbered!), including our main kids, Bow Tie, Tae Kwan, and Dr. Yang. Bow Tie dresses up as a hopping vampire in order to scare people, including Tae Kwan. This might not be the best of ideas considering how violent the people he wants to prank are…

Blue Turtle pops up and Tae Kwon instantly kicks him in the head and he falls into the creek, lol! First contact with an alien species, people! It’s so funny I gotta love it. The Turtles then see Bow Tie hopping around and use the Princess’s magic wand to morph into similar forms, so now there are 4 extra hopping vampires bouncing around! Bow Tie faints when he sees them, but Tae Kwon and Hyuk see the vampires and their immediate thought is to beat them up, and proceeded to do so! The Turtles run and then Hyuk and Tae Kwon beat up Bow Tie until they realize who he is. I tried to tell you, Bow Tie!

Hyuk, Tae Kwon, and Bow Tie witness the Ninja Turtles being ambushed by laser-packing Ratmen, and Hyuk can’t just stand by while innocent Turtles are bullied, so he uses his phenomenal cosmic powers to zap the rats! Instant friends! The Turtles tell them their story, their peaceful world was attacked by Shark who wanted their energy research, which came in Comentor Robot plans form for some reason. Wow, energy derived from harnessing the power of internet commenters, the hate posted on Facebook alone could make the universe energy independent for millennia! The back story shows their world razed, so probably millions of innocent Turtles died. And their peaceful world was called “Battlestar” according to the plot translation, so maybe they weren’t that peaceful. Princess Turtle’s dad, a turtle who has an old human head (and a flower crown???) gave her the plans and the magic wand. So the sixth turtle is an old guy who is probably dead, got it! The Princess then turns into a hot human lady Princess that makes Bow Tie feel all awkward.

Ratmen try to steal a pig but teleport away when a farmer yells at them, despite the fact they have big guns and things could have ended way different. Tae Kwon teaches the Turtles how to fight.

So I guess they are Teenage Alien Tae Kwon Do Turtles!

Ambush! The rat pack attacks again, Hyuk and Tae Kwan do far more damage to the Ratmen goons than the Turtles manage, though this is the first time they show some basic competence in attacking the Ratmen. Princess then turns the other Turtles into actual turtles so they can hang out at the Yang house without being spotted. This doesn’t work 100% as the Ratmen spot them and sneak into the house at night and steal the Princess’s wand! This turns the Turtles back to normal size, causing mass parent fainting. You’d think everyone was now doomed, but the ratmen are going to do what everyone would do if you had a magic wand, use it to goof off and troll people!

The two Ratmen use the wand to turn human (with ridiculous beards!) and run around being comically mean in the human town as a song plays. I’m not sure what the song is about, but judging from the gruff singer it’s probably about how cool doing bad things is. The local children hear about two guys with beards making trouble in the city and begin to harass every random person with a beard they see, trying to expose them as aliens! This is a shocking display of mob mentality and innocent people being hurt by the actions of those with more brawn than brains, yet it is played for laughs. If there wasn’t mass bombings of civilians in this movie, this would be the worst thing about it!

Meanwhile Bow Tie, Princess, and the Turtles hit the town and the Turtles are tearing up the dance floor at the club, while Bow Tie continues to not ask the Princess to dance despite obviously wanting to do so. Everyone at the club loves the Turtles! The squad then goes home to dance some more, at which point they are followed by the rat humans. But the Turtles beat them up and gank the wand back! What the heck, the Ninja Turtles have learned the power of actually winning fights?

At this point Shark has had enough of this nonsense and just launches a fighter raid on Earth. Luckily Earth also has a squadron of cartoon spaceships to defend it, ships that look like old American jets and are probably “borrowed” from another production. Lots of ships explode so enjoy the carnage, kids! For some reason the scientists are coordinating the defense of Earth. I guess when we weren’t looking they build a fleet of spaceships and trained pilots to fly them. Luckily the human scientists have also been building the Comentor Robot to defend Earth as well. Holy crap they are funding these scientists well!

If you guessed that the Comentor Robot would be piloted by the Turtles, you are wrong, buster! Only two of the four arms and legs are piloted by Turtles, the other two are Hyuk and the smaller bully boy from earlier in the film. Yes, the scientists who are defending Earth sent small children to pilot massive machines of war, which is horrific even if one of those children is the kind of special-powered children that come directly from Twilight Zone episodes. The arms and legs are the Go-Bots Powersuits and the robot is their combined form, Power Warrior, but once the robot is in hand drawn animation form they look completely different.

Big fans of visors these guys are!

They must have also rebuilt the Turtles’ spaceship as that is also back (this is largely so they can reuse the animation from the beginning of the movie!) The villains pull out their last stop, their own giant robot! It has a big M on its head, M for Shark! Wait a minute…. Don’t fear, there is now a second good guy giant robot that came from who knows where to help, and both the heroic robots smash the crap out of the evil robot, murder all the Ratmen, and make the galaxy safe for giant robot-based energy plans, all to the tune of the Power 5 theme song!

The Turtles leave Earth to go home, our heroes are sad, but because the show is about to end, we must shout….one last time…..Power 5!!!

Despite this being horrible and bad, it was always not as horrible and bad as it could have been. I credit that to the film just giving up trying to make logical sense and accomplishing large portions of the plot off camera for ease of transition to the giant battle-filled climax. But as a toy commercial, it needed more shots of their giant robot transforming around. It did split apart and recombine a few times, but we never really had the transformation porn scenes that you can often find in the types of shows that are showing off new toy products. Power 5 spent much of their time playing second fiddle to largely more competent humans, and one thing you don’t want is your new toys to appear weak. so we got some fundamental rules being broken, which makes this a weaker commercial as a whole. The warp on a familiar franchise does help give Our Friend Power 5 an edge of fun nonsense, which makes some of the more annoying portions more palatable. Even the annoying human characters were noticeably less annoying than usual in this film. The biggest issues are the children acting as mindless violent mobs and the large scale deaths from orbital assaults. The mob thing isn’t even addressed, while most of the deaths are either glossed over (the Turtle planet) or not even shown (we see no destruction on Earth despite the large-scale attack!), which makes the stakes low. You want the heroes to defy the odds but also never be seen as weak. The opposite was done, so children could feel that even they were powerful enough to help their friends pilot a giant robot to destroy evil invaders. And maybe it worked? You’d have to ask someone who was there. All we can do is look back and wonder and make lame jokes.

Since this was all about selling the toys, here are some photos of the toys!:

Rated 5/10 (Z-zap!, bonus kid and Garfield, bonus kid, bonus bully who gets a big role, bonus bully)

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