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Shinobi: Hunter Under Blade is a Japanese ninjutsu-romance movie directed by Ten Shimoyama and written by Kenya Hirata. It is based on a novel called, Kouga Ninja Scrolls by Futaro Yamada, which depicts the clash of two ninja clans, Iga and Kouga and the love story of two lovers coming from the opposite clans.
Two ninja clans, Iga and Kouga are fighting for a long time. Until one day, peace came into these clans by signing an agreement and they are not fighting since then.
One day, Gennosuke (Joe Odagiri) of Kouga met Oboro (Yukie Nakama) of Iga on a river. The two met, fell in-love but that will all change when Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate, thinking that these clans are quite a threat due to their powerful ninjutsu. Decided to stir up a feud between the two clans by their heads, letting them pick five of their best warriors to fight to the death, and those warriors for both clan includes Gennosuke and Oboro.
One day, Gennosuke (Joe Odagiri) of Kouga met Oboro (Yukie Nakama) of Iga on a river. The two met, fell in-love but that will all change when Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate, thinking that these clans are quite a threat due to their powerful ninjutsu. Decided to stir up a feud between the two clans by their heads, letting them pick five of their best warriors to fight to the death, and those warriors for both clan includes Gennosuke and Oboro.
The two of course, didn’t want to fight, but their teammates want to too. Will Gennosuke and Oboro fight even if they don’t want too? Can they stop their fellow teammates to fight and know the reason behind their fighting? That is for you to find out.
On to the review, the reason I got interested in watching Shinobi is that it one of Joe Odagiri’s post Kamen Rider roles. And I was surprised when I saw how brilliant the special effects were considering that tokusatsu translates to the art of special effects… and Joe accordingly, doesn’t want to get involved in it! Seriously, you can say that its effects can be comparable to Hollywood special effects!
But along with the SFX, one of the things that I liked about the film is the fight scenes. Most of the fight scenes reminded me of those Chinese kung-fu films except that the movements are harder and not dance-like those Chinese films.
Since the film deals with ninjutsu and if you don’t have the slightest idea on what is it, it means ninja techniques. In short, put them together, the film can beat Naruto in terms of how awesome the ninjutsu were. Heck, Gennosuke’s move reminded me of the Uchiha Clan’s Sharingan!
Speaking more about ninjas, since it has two fighting clans with star-crossed lovers, it reminded me of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, only set in a different time period with ninjas with powerful techniques and not pampered Italians.
I’ll now focus on one of the themes of the film, destiny. Since they were young, they were trained to be ninjas living in hidden villages to fight someday in orders of their Lord. Now that the time has come for them to fight, it felt like finally, their destiny has been fulfilled! But, there are two people who are fighting against their fate, Gennosuke and Oboro.
Gennosuke tries to convince the other four not to fight the opposite clan and start living differently, but he can’t convince them. I mean, they are trained to fight and you convince them not to fight, what will they do to their life? I agree on what Koushirou, the weapons specialist said, “If you take away our fighting, what we will do?” For their entire life, they never mastered any craft except their own specific ninjutsu art. It’s their destiny to be on the battlefield, and it is their destiny to fight on the battlefield and die on there.
One thing that I loved about this film is that, this is one of the few instances that love never conquers all. The love story between Gennosuke and Oboro is tragic, so tragic that unlike Romeo and Juliet who died together, Gennosuke and Oboro is destined to fight each other at the very end. Their battle was one of the strong parts of the film. It was very emotional, it was something were you have a hard time deciding on what will you do. Will you fight as a shinobi or fight as lover?
Overall, the film was one of the few films that gave me a good impression on ninjas aside from the endless Naruto. The ninjutsus are fantastic along with the fight scenes from the film. The story was a tragic love story set on the Tokugawa Shogunate and something on par with the greatest love story ever told, Romeo and Juliet.
Because of this, I want to try watching the anime version, which was based on the same source like that of Shinobi, entitled, Basilisk. I have scanned some pages of the manga and the artwork looks good. If I have spot a copy of the original novel, I might even read it.