Wrath Of The Ninja |
 | Summary:Graphcially violent anime actioneer takes place in feudal Japan amidst the corruption of futile samurai powers. While it's vibrant effects and fast-paced swordplay pleases mainstream viewers, It's uneven animation, bromidic characters darken action fans' appeal expecting less etiolated storyline. |
| Title Aka: | Yotoden: The Motion Picture |
| Company/Distributors: | Central Park Media;U.S. Manga Corps |
| Year: | 1989 |
| Length: | 90 Minutes |
| Rating: |   |
| Genres: | Fantasy, Action |
| Format: | Feature Film |
| Content Level: |
|
| Comments: | N/A |
|
Synopsis:
In the year 1580, the unholy armies of "Lord Oda Nobunago" rule over a powerful demonic ninja clan who terrorize villages and homes of the Kasumi clan. Ayame is a female ninja, last of the Kasumi clan. She possesses one of three legendary and mystical blades, weapons which hold the key to destroying the evil forces of Nobunago. She is joined by Sakon and Ryoma, who possess the other two of the mystical blades; the sword and the spear. These three legendary and powerful warriors now join forces with one another to form the "Prophesy Of The Enchanted Swords". Their power will bring stop to the demonic forces of Nobunago and his evil ninja clan. Nobunago tries to open the gates of hell into a new realm in order to fullfill his sinister intentions, unless the three warriors defeat his evil forces first; or die trying. "Wrath Of The Ninja" is a full length movie based upon the original "Yotoden" t.v. series. The story of Ayame, a young ninja who tries to fullfill her destiny to stop the evil of the unholy ninja armies; using the mystical dagger she possesses.
Review:
This film was recently re-released by U.S. Manga Corps, though it was actually produced nearly a decade earlier. The movie is your typical ninja anime movie, with your basic fantasy-ninja-samurai themes. The film is in fact very much comparable with movies like "Ninja Scroll". I actually found the story to be highly promising, the film opens with some pretty interesting characters, art and story. However, there are more than just enough flaws in this film to make it nothing really close to great in my book. The film's opening actually starts out pretty good, but just seems to go downhill from there. "Wrath Of The Ninja" contains so many unnecessary plot elements and holes, that it seems amazing to me how these guys ever came to produce a film like this in the first place. The story doesn't at all seem to connect well, and lacks greatly in all around good story content. It's full of unexplained aspects, holes, and a large lack of character development. Although sometimes the lack of explanation within a story gives anime series and movies a sense of mystery and depth, this particullar film tries too hard to accomplish this all too fast. The result is a film which seems like patchwork from the original "Yotoden Series", rather than a well-made adaption. Much of the story seems rushed and overlooked, and the viewer gets a sense that he/she has missed something important involving the story; which is in fact uninteresting and very non-original. But this film's problem does not end with a poorly composed story-line. What is left to examine is the characters and script. I was disappointed. Extremely poorly written and developed. Character designs are rather dated, lacking much detail and appear at times to be highly unfitting for this film's production style (Which is actually better suited for something produced a few years later). Character interactions are highly lacking for the flick, it seemed extremely episodic and withdrawn from the main storyline. I felt almost as if the animators wanted the characters to finish their lines and get on with the rest of the plot. Because of the film's nature, it does contain some deaths. When a character dies and one mourns for the other, we hardly even care. The audience does not get a chance to know the characters and story well enough (let alone the characters themselves) for us to even care at all (Or realize what the heck is going on). This aspect leaves this film with an overall low-quality feel. Which made "Wrath Of The NInja" in my opinion, just another rip-off of animes like "Ninja Scroll" (Despite the fact of course, that "Ninja Scroll" is actually more recent than this film). The animation for the flick is at best average quality. Nothing too terrible, but nothing really eye-poping. I could tell they were trying very hard to obtain an "eye-poping" feel, since the movie contains a surprisingly high amount of effects. However, these failed to impress but instead just left me with a sense worthlessness for the flick (Boy was a lot of time wasted on this). In the end I found most of the movie to be very boring. Perhaps instead of concentrating so much on the film's technical side, they could have at least put in some extra effort into making the fight-scenes much better. I felt they were poorly concieved, executed and animated. Most of the time the fight sequences in WOTN are done using mostly scenes of endless stock-footage. This is highly unecessary, since much frame-rate was wasted on the effects. The film tends to seem overly violent, emphasizing the use of 'gore' as an excuse for the absence of high-quality action seen in films like "Ninja Scroll" (Which contain high-frame rates and well-choreographed action). Towards the middle and throughout the end, music in the movie was rather interesting and contained some original tracks. But by then it's too late to save this movie.
|
