Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 2 - Kizuna

Unleashing a devastating surprise attack, flying ninjas from the Land of Sky are seeking revenge against their old enemy Konohagakure. Despite his eagerness to join the fight, Naruto Uzumaki is held up by Shinnou, a mysterious doctor who requires his assistance to save an injured person. While delivering the wounded man to the hospital, Naruto has an unexpected encounter with Amaru—a stormy youngster from a neighboring village desperately looking for Shinnou's help.

Meanwhile, as the invaders withdraw to restore their forces, Tsunade seizes the opportunity to dispatch a small team including Sai, Shikamaru Nara, and Kakashi Hatake to strike down their base. Simultaneously, she commissions Naruto, Sakura Haruno, and Hinata Hyuuga to accompany Shinnou and Amaru on their journey. During this time, however, Orochimaru has his own schemes: he orders Sasuke Uchiha to bring him the doctor who specializes in the reincarnation technique.

As the escort group accidentally uncovers the sinister truth behind the attacks, tumultuous plans are set in motion. But even when confronted with an unforeseen reunion, Naruto does not waver in his endeavor to end the warfare and its disastrous effects.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Uzumaki, Naruto Main

Takeuchi, Junko Japanese

Hatake, Kakashi Main

Inoue, Kazuhiko Japanese

Haruno, Sakura Main

Nakamura, Chie Japanese

Amaru Main

Kumai, Motoko Japanese

Shinnou Main

Ishizuka, Unshou Japanese

Uchiha, Sasuke Supporting

Sugiyama, Noriaki Japanese

Nara, Shikamaru Supporting

Morikubo, Shoutarou Japanese

Jiraiya Supporting

Ootsuka, Houchuu Japanese

Hyuuga, Hinata Supporting

Mizuki, Nana Japanese

Hyuuga, Neji Supporting

Toochika, Kouichi Japanese

Simone, Jamie Producer, Casting Director

Matsui, Shouji Producer

Kamegaki, Hajime Director

Ebina, Yasunori Sound Director

Reviews

Aug 6, 2008

aranelcharis

Recommended

[Note: this is a not-so-serious review, because really, the movie doesn't take itself very seriously.]

I went to the theater to see Naruto with very low expectations, in part because I've seen all the Naruto movies so far, and in part because the average age of the audience in the movie theater was 10 years old. Yes, in Japan Naruto caters to the "tween" audience, and I felt like an old lady sitting in the theater, waiting for the movie to start. I expected the movie to be "The Sasuke Movie" but...actually...I'm surprised to say, Naruto was the cool one in this movie. This instantly made ... it the top Naruto movie, in my humble opinion, and had the best fights of any Naruto movie so far. (I'm pretty sure next summer we'll be treated to another one.)

Story --Naruto movies are not known for their great scripts, but this one actually had some nice twists to it. Since one of the first scenes was of a smoldering Sasuke with no shirt on, I expected most of the action to be from him, but lo and behold, Naruto came through pulled some great moves during the course of the story. As there isn't much plot that the summary left out, I'll leave it at that.

Art --Also standard Naruto film style, some 3D, but not as out of place as the last movie (I thought). Mostly done on the ships, and the villain's hideout, which I hereby dub "The Castle in the Sky." The leaf ninja village seemed like it was trying to be Renaissance Italy for some reason though...

Sound --Nothing very impressive, but not at all bad. The voice acting of the movie-only characters was well done, as I normally get annoyed with the movie-only character voices.

Character --Ah, characters. Let's see, we have Sasuke as a less emo version of himself (yay), Sakura and Hinata as the still-useless-in-fights Naruto backups/fanservice objects, cameos by Kakashi, playing the role of a voice-over explanatory narrator, and Orochimaru, playing the bedridden grandmother (Sai, Neji, Shino, and Shikamaru play cameos of themselves). There's also the movie-only character Doctor and his apprentice Amaru, who gets to be the one befriended by Naruto (poor Amaru). Then then there's Naruto, slightly more mature than usual, still getting slapped around as usual, and showing tantalizing hints of becoming more hentai with each passing day...

Enjoyment --This could be high because my expectations were so low, but actually, I maintain that the awesomeness of this anime comes from when Naruto has to face, and/or use, the chakra of the nine-tails. And use it he does in this movie. It was like the Sasuke rescue-arc battle at the waterfall redone, which to me was the high point of the series. Sadly, there was also the Sasuke lipsticked-winged-monstrosity to be seen (I won't even mention the villain's cheesy "released" [to borrow a Bleach term] form), but I could take that when Naruto's busting out multiple rasengan from his clones and destroying everything in sight.

Overall, a good movie--by Naruto standards.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Oct 30, 2011

artist-retired

Mixed Feelings

As being hyped up as the movie where Naruto and Sasuke team up once again to fight a villain, it's rather played down more than you think it would be, and is just another plot messy Naruto movie.

STORY: The leaf village is under attack! ...Again... I swear, it's like everyone despises the leaf village in every filler or non-filler arc, and this movie is just another example of that. The plot of this movie is exactly this: Just make up as we go along, because nothing is fleshed out well, events and fights literally come out of no where, and only Naruto does anything of ... importance to the plot.
But I'll try my best to draw lines to the imaginary dots, the movie starts out with made up movie village, the sky village, attacking the leaf village by air (Which... They came from the sea) with chakra powered gliders and kunai firing machine guns that may as well have been stolen from the kunai firing train from the first Naruto movie (Or may as well have been actual bullet firing guns, but the technology in the Naruto universe never made any sense in the first place).
And during the weird onslaught, Naruto comes across a little girl and a doctor, who importance to the plot is never made clear until the unexplained events occur. Afterwards, two random groups of the main cast go on to do something, one group goes to escort the girl and doctor to somewhere, and the other goes to where the sky ninjas retreated, which is the sea by the way.
First random group consists of Naruto, Sakura, and Hinata (Which, spoiler, she does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in this movie) while the other group is Kakashi (He does next to nothing in this movie), Shikamaru, and Sai (Who does a lot, but his efforts come up to nothing), and Shino who does the most in this movie next to Naruto, but who's efforts comes up to nothing as well.

Now, I can say without a doubt, if the story isn't why you're watching the movie, then more power to you because the action scenes are great, the animation is a grade up from the tv series, and it has Sasuke, who doesn't really do much and the reason why he's there and his motives is a bit lazy, but fans are definitely going to appreciate his inclusion to the movie.
The humor of the movie is classic Naruto filler slapstick routines, from Naruto being a dumbass to him and the movie character arguing.

But, compared to the other movies, the story is very weak, and events and plot points literally do come out of no where, like if you would to guess what this movie is actually about, you would think it's about something happening to the leaf village that requires Naruto and Sasuke to team up, but no, it's about as deep as saying it's about people fighting each other.
Which is good enough of a reason to watch anyway, if you want to see Naruto tearing shit up then you're in luck, because he tears up a whole castle with several rasengans and the usual movie named rasengans.
But, when compared to the other movies, the plot is very messy or at least, lazy. The movie characters are fleshed out a good bit, but they have no purpose to the overall plot, except when the plot pulls something from out of no where (Like the confrontation with the zero tailed beast, but the plot isn't really about that, I think, the plot never really assures you of it).

It doesn't fall into EVERY trappings of the other movies at the very least, like the cast having to fight the main villains minions before the boss himself, that doesn't happen here, but the whole Naruto gets the shit beaten out of him by a super beefed up super saiyan-este villain who boasts about his new awesome power happens, and then Naruto precedes to the do the same still happens, though this time Sasuke comes in to help for his own reasons, but my guess would be that he was pretty bored just wanted to kill time. And Naruto and the movie character relationship improves as the plot goes along, which happens in every Naruto movie, so there's no real point to get invested in it when it's never going to be canon to the series.

The plot is about as cliched as it gets, but hey like I said earlier if you only want to watch the movie for it's fights, then you won't be totally disappointed.

ANIMATION: It's a grade up from the tv series, but nothing awe inspiring. the fights are cool, but the movie characters look a bit silly.

SOUND: Both English and Japanese voice overs are fine, and the background music is more stock Naruto music, it's as if you're watching a very short filler arc.

OVERALL:
The Good:
+ Cool fights for the naruto fans.
+ Animation is a step up from the tv series.

The Mixed:
+/- Sasuke is in a Naruto movie/ Sasuke doesn't really do anything.

The Bad:
- Messy and cliched plot with everything not as fleshed out as it should have been and everything being made up as it goes along.
- Side characters from the tv series do even less than what they normally do.

As a time waster for Naruto fans, it's a decent action romp at least, but you can do much better and if you missed Sasuke being in the movies, then you'll be almost satisfied with that department this movie.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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May 8, 2020

silvrskies

Not Recommended

I went into this expecting it to be bad. And wow did this movie far exceed my expectations of how bad it could be.

*Minor spoilers ahead*

Storywise, the whole thing makes no sense. What was even the purpose of the ninja subordinates from Land of the Sky? There was no depth, not even 1 good fight scene. I laughed at so many scenes because it literally was ridiculous. Like they're all highly trained shinobi but are useless for more than 3/4 of the move? Nothing about the writing moved me and felt very cheesy and subpar most of the time.

Characters are terrible and fall ... back on meaningless and flat tropes. All of them are skilled shinobi but they rarely show that they are useful in battle at all. The women were there for nothing other than to be Naruto's love interests and all they do is get punched once, get knocked out, kidnapped, or cry. The characters have no depth and show no character development throughout the whole movie. Truly quite sad to see the characters reduced to such shallow figures of themselves.

The art was decent but I feel like the studio ran out of their budget mid-way through because the art was getting pretty lazy by the end.

The sound was probably a more palatable aspect of the movie. I liked the soundtrack but often it would enter abruptly and didn't feel consistent.

The only reason I gave this a 2 was because I got a good laugh out of the movie. And because I was entertained for all the wrong reasons, this gets a 2.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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	Poll: Naruto Shippuuden: Gekijouban Naruto Shippuuden: Kizuna Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Naruleach - Apr 21, 2009	121 replies	by Ricky16 »» Feb 13, 9:40 AM
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