Fat Ninja

I picked up this movie the other day and Marco and I watched it last night. Taking a few queues from Romeo & Juliet, Shinobi tells the story of Oboro and Gennosuke, two star-crossed lovers from rival ninja clans, Iga and Kouga. As weapons of war, the shinobi (i.e. ninja) of these two clans are unmatched. Through the use of secret techniques they are able to crush their foes. However, under the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan is at peace and has little use for such weapons. It is amidst this peace that Oboro and Gennosuke meet and fall in love. However, when the Shogunate becomes fearful of the clans’ potential for fracturing the fragile peace of a united Japan, the tentative truce between the two clans is repealed in the hope that they will wipe one another out.

Marco and I stumbled upon this gem of a flick at the store the other night when I went to pick up Pathfinder. The boxart was eye-catching, and the synopsis sounded promising. The endorsement of the Toronto Film Festival didn’t hurt either. While Shinobi ended up being a very different experience than I expected, it also exceeded those expectations in a lot of ways. The cinematography and fight choreography reminded me heavily of films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero, albeit with a distinctly Japanese sense of aesthetics. All in all, I think if you’re a fan of martial arts epics, Shinobi is definitely worth your time.

Here’s a clip from an early battle sequence that will give you a feel for the film’s style. Just so you know, it might be considered spoiler-ish:

After some additional research and confirming with Michael, it appears that Shinobi is actually a live-action adaptation of the manga/animé series called Basilisk.

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