Ninja Scroll (1995)
Country: Japan
Director: Yoshiaki Kawajiri
Producer: Masamichi Fujiwara
Writer: Yoshiaki Kawajiri
Cast: Kôichi Yamadera
Running Time: 94 Min
Plot: A Journeyman ninja by name of Jubei stumbles upon a plague, an evil clan of demons, a national crisis, and a beautiful ninja girl.
See, the thing is, if you want to watch ninjas fight, there are dozens of better-made movies from Japan and Hong Kong both that will show you that. Because otherwise, this movie is incoherent, boring, and bad.
But for whatever reason, Ninja Scroll took off big here in the United States, right at the crux of the big anime boom. Anime became almost like mainstream entertainment in the U.S., and Ninja Scroll was at the head of the pack.
It’s just not an original movie. It certainly has a lot of formulas down pat, though: it’s got the “hard-edged hero with a shady past” down pat. It’s got the “female supporting character who gets felt up by every bad guy before the hero rescues her” down pat. It’s also got the “female supporting character gets poisoned and is going to die but the hero kisses her anyway” formula in there, too. And then it’s got the “five elemental ninjas, each with different skills and powers to match their element” borrowed straight out of a Chang Cheh movie from the 70s or something. And finally, it’s got the “super-hard-boiled, everybody dies” formula down pat, too.
So if you like a rehash of all that, the only difference being that it is very slowly and awkwardly animated, see Ninja Scroll. For the rest of us, we’ll have to dig up some of the live action originals this movie apes so poorly.
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