CinePhillyist Reviews... Shinobi: Heart Under Blade

Before you even start, no, this has nothing to do with Philadelphia. But when somebody offers to send me a DVD about ninjas with the word "Shinobi" in the title, how am I supposed to say no?? So here I am, reviewing Shinobi: Heart Under Blade, a 2005 Japanese film released to disc in the States last month.

So what's it all about? It's sort of Romeo and Juliet, but here R & J are super-powered ninjas from opposing clans of super-powered ninjas, and most of the movie takes the form of a series of ninja fights during a road trip. It plays out sort of like a video game, or a comic book, or a comic book of a video game. And despite all that, I didn't really like it all that much.

But back to the story: the clans are opposed to each other essentially in the way Burger King and McDonalds are opposed to each other, except that instead of selling burgers, these guys sell killing. As the movie opens, they're in the midst of an uneasy truce, and the Empire is generally at peace. But that doesn't mean there's not unrest, and the Emperor's advisors tell him the moment somebody hires ninjas from one clan, the other one will go berserk, all hell will break loose, and everything will fall apart. So they suggest a plan to eliminate both clans for good: tell them to pit their five best warriors against each other in a deadly tournament. While their best warriors are killing each other off (bit of a spoiler here), the Emperor's soldiers will be taking care of the rest of the clan. Nasty!

Of course, while this is all being plotted out, the two best warriors from each clan, whose eyes fatefully met one day as they crossed paths by a stream, are busy falling in love with each other (mostly off-screen, which is probably for the best). When they're each picked as part of their clan's team of five, they're understandably pissed. The man (Gennosuke) decides to take his team to the Imperial Palace, where he will demand to know why the clans are being forced to fight each other. But the woman (Oboro) feels bound by duty, and sets off after his team to do battle.

As in a comic book or a video game, each of the ninja characters has his own set of ridiculous super powers. There's the bestial man with claws, the really weird-looking dude who can teleport and shape-change, the dude who can kill you with his really long sleeves (?!), and the woman raised on poisons, who can now breathe them out as a deadly gas, or kill you with a kiss. And then of course Oboro and Gennosuke have powers, too; Oboro can make you explode from the inside just by looking at you, and Gennosuke can turn the movie into The Matrix. Well sort of; he can essentially put the world around him into bullet-time for a short period.

Gennosuke's is probably the coolest power, and makes for some awesome fight scenes. But many of these characters and their abilities are so ridiculous, it's a little hard to watch them without raising an eyebrow or even laughing out right. Sure, there ends up being a pretty good amount of action, and the action is pretty fun, but it doesn't even get started in earnest until about halfway through, and it's not as great and there's not as much of it as one might expect from a movie about warring ninjas. Plus, the special effects aren't as good as they could be, which takes away even more from the believability of the film as a whole.

As for the story, it ends up being your typical incredibly melodramatic, over-the-top Asian love tragedy, which I've never been a big fan of. Another part of the tragedy is the passing away of the way of life of these noble ninja clans, about which it's hard to get too choked up, as they are villages full of people training to become killing machines for hire. I give the dialogue the benefit of the doubt in foreign films, because who knows if the translation is accurate, but even with that consideration in mind, this stuff is pretty damn corny. It didn't help that the subtitles were poorly done and disappear off the screen far too quickly; I often had to back up and pause so I could read a lengthy speech which had for some reason flashed on and off in less than a second.

So overall, I have to say I was pretty disappointed in Shinobi. Visually it's wonderful - full of color and beauty, with lots of lovely countryside in the background. And yes, it does have super-ninjas fighting each other, which makes for some very fun scenes. But those things don't make up for the fact that this is a very familiar, simple, and overdone story rather poorly told.

Image Credit: Movies Online