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( Oboro (Yukie Nakama), a granddaughter of Ogen (Riri), is the matriarch of the Iga clan. She meets and falls in love with Gennosuke, the son of Danjo Koga (Minoru Terada), the leader of the Koga clan. Living in the remote mountains, these two clans have, over the centuries, perfected the arts of ninjutsu (known as "Shinobi"), which is far beyond the reach of mere mortals. They are also ancestral rivals and, under the order of Hanzo Hattori (Yutaka Matsushige), chief ninja to Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, are forbidden to exchange secret techniques.
Seeking to consolidate Tokugawa rule and seeing the two clans as a threat to it, a powerful Tendai priest and Tokugawa adviser, Nankobo Tenkai (Renji Ishibashi), schemes to set them against each other. He commands the two clans to each choose five champions who will battle to the death. The survivor will be elevated in rank and power.
Both Oboro and Gennosuke are selected as champions, but neither are aware, at least initially, of each other's position. Also, Gennosuke doubts the shogunate's good intentions and refuses to take part in the contest. But when his comrades begin to fall, he is forced into action. He cannot, however, bring himself to battle at least one Iga warrior: Oboro...
Average rating (8 reviews)
Good.... but unmemoriable
Bloodlocust | 28/06/2008 | See all Bloodlocust's reviews (5) »
There is nothing special about this film. It has some interesting character designs and abilities but they are all directly ripped from anime, manga and videogames.
Buy it for a boozy night with mates, nothing more. If you want everything this film tries to be, then check out "A Chinese Ghost Story" aka "Sien nui yau wan", which is an amazing example of a classic. Don't forget to check out the sequels!
However, Shinobi is like a plastic novelty turd in comparison. It looks flashy but delivers nothing more than a videogame would. Its also let down (IMHO) by a typical self-sacrifical ending. You will probably have a laugh if you're with friends, but not one to watch on your own.
A 'one watch'
muddyfunksta | 16/03/2008 | See all muddyfunksta's reviews (13) »
The film wasn't that bad, but I was hoping for a massive ninja clan deathmatch sort of film, being two major clans that had been feuding for 300 years, which didn't really happen. The actors and characters were all decent. There are some 'Mighty Morphin Power Ranger' bits which ruined it a tad. I know it's meant to have a bit or wizardy myth about it, but I wanted to see more sword play. I got a little bored near the end and ffw some talking, maybe it was signifficant, but once all the action was over, and I just wanted the film to end.
Not bad, but only worth viewing once in my opinion.
Not a five star, but worthy of a four.
Great Film with Interesting characters
kirisute | 26/02/2008 | See all kirisute's reviews (2) »
this is an interesting fiulm..mixing historical figures with outright fantasy ones...but also paying homage to several similar characters from other manga and anime.
for instance Kagero the female ninja is obviously a direct copy from Ninja Scroll....also one of the other ninja appears to posses the kessen-chu blood worms seen so obviously in the Blade of the Immortal manga with the character Manji.
Other than those direct correlations the film is well scripted and has some superb CGI...as well as physical stunts.
Its nice to see a ninja film created with modern techniques and with passion for the material as well as the history of the regions involved. Whilst not of the cinematic quality of Flying Daggers this is still a must have to any collection for those that enjoy the genre.
Yukie Nakama, Jo Odagiri, Tomoka Kurotani, Erika Sawajiri, Kippei Shiina, Takeshi Masu, Mitsuki Koga, Tak Sakaguchi, Houka Kinoshita, Minoru Terada, Yutaka Matsushige, Riri, Renji Ishibashi & Kazuo Kitamura | |
15 years and over | |
2005 | |
Japanese | |
English | |
Region 2 - Will only play on European Region 2 or multi-region DVD players. |
