Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 3 - Hi no Ishi wo Tsugu Mono

After being sent to investigate the alarming disappearance of four bloodline limit-wielding ninjas from different countries, Kakashi Hatake, Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno, and Sai successfully discover their whereabouts and inform the Hokage. Unexpectedly, Tsunade's further arrangements fall apart when Hiruko—the mastermind behind the incident and also a former Konohagakure ninja obsessed with power—appears to announce that he has absorbed the missing ninjas' unique abilities. On the verge of becoming invincible, he seeks one more bloodline limit before starting an all-out war to take over the world.

As Konohagakure's past connections with Hiruko raise suspicions among the nations about its involvement in the affair, Tsunade receives an ultimatum to solve the crisis. Left with no other choice, she decides to follow Kakashi's lead after he presents a daring yet salutary scheme—a proposal that could send him to certain death. However, Naruto opposes such a plan! Despite the Hokage's decision, he is determined to save his teacher's life, even if it means fighting friend and foe alike.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Uzumaki, Naruto Main

Takeuchi, Junko Japanese

Hatake, Kakashi Main

Inoue, Kazuhiko Japanese

Hiruko Main

Hoshi, Souichirou Japanese

Nara, Shikamaru Supporting

Morikubo, Shoutarou Japanese

Jiraiya Supporting

Ootsuka, Houchuu Japanese

Gaara Supporting

Ishida, Akira Japanese

Hyuuga, Hinata Supporting

Mizuki, Nana Japanese

Uchiha, Obito Supporting

Komori, Sousuke Japanese

Lee, Rock Supporting

Masukawa, Yoichi Japanese

Haruno, Sakura Supporting

Nakamura, Chie Japanese

Simone, Jamie Producer, Casting Director

Azuma, Fukashi Producer

Murata, Masahiko Director, Storyboard, Key Animation

Takuno, Seiki Episode Director

Reviews

Aug 17, 2022

Justykanna

Recommended

I haven't been a huge fan of many of the Naruto movies. I find the missions have felt pretty pointless, even though most of them deliver with regards to flashy fights and don't take forever to finish. Naruto Shippuuden 3: Inheritors of Will of Fire feels like the first good Naruto movie, which would be their sixth attempt at doing so.

Story: Naruto Shippuuden 3: Inheritors of Will of Fire would see Hiruko, an Ex-Hidden Leaf ninja, who was essentially exiled due to the experiments he was performing in order to create the perfect body - which should sound familiar to some older Naruto ... fans. In order to do so, he found that he could attain a desirable body by absorbing the bodies of five ninjas with Bloodline Limits, also known as Kekkei Genkai. When they were younger, Hiruko put a curse on Kakashi that would forcibly draw him to Haruko's location. He finally decides to use this to try and obtain Kakashi's Sharingan, which would complete his fifth Kekkei Genkai. Kakashi gives into this curse, but Naruto can't believe his ears when he gets word of this. This is due to the belif that Kakashi instilling in him years ago: Those who abandon their teammates are worse than scum. So Naruto tries to drag Kakashi back to the Hidden Leaf, even though his opinion in doing so sit in the minority.

The story itself is pretty straight forward, but I need to be honest, much of the fun in this movie is the fact that you get to see basically Naruto's entire gang engage the enemy at the same time. There are multiple villains, even though the early ones kind of only act as a body in the way. The storytelling from Kakashi's viewpoint was well told though, and there were points that involved his old friend Obito Uchiha. This gave the story more meaning.

It wasn't flawless though. There were story elements surrounding Hiruko that causes the Hidden Leaf and Sand Villages to almost engage in a large scale fight, and I really thought the entire thing was completely overblown. It's not terribly laid out to us, and it almost feels like it was done just to give certain characters more screen time. They could have done away with the entire thing and audiences wouldn't have felt like anything was missing. It just feels overdramatic. (7/10)

Characters: They really do push Naruto's belief's in this movie, supporting that he cares about his friends so much. Many of the other chuunin from his year also get brought into this ordeal, and Naruto acts as the beacon of hope when some of them don't believe in what he does. Hiruko is a fine character, but will likely remind audiences of Orochimaru a little too much. Regardless, I loved the abilities they introduced into this character, and that's one of the key reasons I enjoyed this movie - they're just so much fun to watch. His followers Ichi, Ni and San don't have any background story to them so it would have been nice if they both they gave them more story, and involvement into what was going on here. I liked their abilities in general, but considering how much thought gets put into other villains in the series, I would have liked to see more from them, and with slightly longer fights. (7/10)

Art: Naruto Shippuuden has a long history of very lazy animations, especially late in the long series. That shows up much less here, which is good to see. Fights in the series are always really fun to watch and match some of the best in history, if you can ignore the fact that some of them drag on forever. The movie obviously doesn't have this limitation, and the result is one reason I liked this movie so much, especially when Hiruko gets involved. It's not stunning, top of the line animation, no, but there's something that makes me love these fights that make them special. (9/10)

Sound: The OST has typical Naruto music, though the ED, Dareka Ga by Puffy wasn't one to my liking. I have had problems with the casting for Naruto for years, but that's obviously not something meant for this review. Instead, somehow, they got all of Todd Haberkorn (Hiruko), Patrick Seitz (Ichi), Laura Bailey (Ni) and Matthew Mercer (San) voicing the villains. All four of these are top notch VOs with long histories of outstanding performances. It's just a shame that the latter three didn't have a ton of voice lines. (9/10)

Overall Enjoyment: Despite some weird things going on with the story in the middle, Naruto Shippuuden 3: Inheritors of Will of Fire is a ton of fun to watch. I'll be honest, much of my enjoyment comes from the fights in this movie, and that brings it above the previous movies, for me. You won't find any deep storytelling here, but fans of the series should give this a try. (8/10)

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Sep 20, 2021

joyrrhea

Mixed Feelings

First of all, watch this after Naruto Shippuden episode 120-Kakashi Chronicles at least.
hmm I preferred the previous movies[as of when I'm writing this review, I haven't watched the movies after this one]. I just couldn't get into this, as I kept pausing and doing other things. It was boring and i think the story was shallow. Like what's up with a sudden new childhood friend of the Legendary Sannin randomly appearing that has a stupid inferiority complex wtf
Loved the message and stuff though. Naruto obviously went after Kakashi and Shikamaru kinda pissed me off

I LOVED THAT PART AT THE END THO JKDSHKDJDJH-
***SPOILERS AHEAD I ... GUESS***
.
.
.
.
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I LOVED THAT PART AT THE END THO JKDSHKDJDJH
Kakashi was all like "you're just like him(obito)" to naruto and all of their reactions LMAO
Hinata: "How scandalous of you. I didn't know you were into that, Kakashi-sensei"
Sai, with his books: "Sometimes after experiencing the same excitement, love can blossom, it says. But nothing between two men..."
Neji looking kinda hot. smiling behind him
Lee: "Guy sensei told me. That's also part of youth!"
Naruto running off cringing after that "YADAAA"
It was like the best part of this movie for me

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Nov 4, 2019

mouthpiece

Not Recommended

This is the sixth Naruto movie, made around the time Pain invaded Konoha and the Ninja War was close to beginning. At this point the whole show turned to a slow ass war drama with overblown tragedy that had no consistency in power levels. The movie tries to build on that by keep mentioning all the people who have died so far in the show. In theory that is good for reminding us of all the cool stuff that have happened so far and the various sacrifices that were made for the sake of maintaining peace. Unfortunately the story in this movie is doing a ... crappy job about it. In fact, it has by far the most uninspired scenario in all the current movies, since despite the world shaking events it’s supposed to include, it happens in a most simple and dried up way.

So there is this Orochimaru/Pain hybrid villain who hypnotizes powerful people and intends to turn to a god by stealing their powers. Kakashi is the last on his list and Konoha feels that they should sacrifice him in order to use some weird technique which when used will kill both him and the villain. Naruto disagrees and against all attempts to stop him, he just storms in to save Kakashi. As simple as this sounds, there are many things that make the movie to feel like it’s the end of the world when it otherwise feels like just a minor skirmish.

A unique feature of this movie is how there is no movie-only emo kid that Naruto feels obligated to help. It is just Kakashi and the rest of the usual gang having some issues regarding honor and respect; so in a way the whole film was mostly a civil war. Other than that though, there is absolutely no twist or anything else to look forward to. Half of the film is an uneventful build up where Kakashi reminds everyone of all those who died so far before deciding to do the same for Konoha. The other half is mostly wasted on the characters fighting amongst each other because of that. So just expect to see things you have already seen before everything ends with Naruto using a Rasengan... as always.

I must say that the whole film felt like it was full of pointless action.
- The Suna village is ordered to attack Konoha just because the villain Hiruko was once part of it. Without any proof of them being allies they are ready to fight one another while the villain is calmly fulfilling his devious plan. That felt completely uncalled for and too forced to accept. Why not just teaming up against him? And as you can guess, that is exactly what Naruto does to save the day.
- The characters are fighting amongst each other, something which results to nothing other than proving what a thickhead Naruto is.
- There were the usual cardboard evil henchmen that needed to be defeated but they might as well not be there at all since the villain was powerful enough not to need any help and the heroes were busy fighting each other instead of the bad guys.
- And what exactly is this friendship and teamwork they keep talking about if Naruto does everything alone? It sounds like a contradiction. Ok, they are working together in order to defeat the underlings but those were completely useless to the plot and winning or losing had no effect on the Big Bad’s plans.
- Naruto pretty much wins by being a stubborn traitor who uses a hax power which for some unexplained reason can’t be absorbed by the enemy. That felt cheap and anti-climactic.
- The villain in his dying breath has a change of heart. Which is pointless again since no time was invested on getting to like the guy. He remains as nothing more that an Orochimaru wannabe. Heck, we never even understand why he looks like a kid half the time.

So as you understand, apart from the rather good production values the whole film was boring, uneventful, and full of events that made no sense. It is once again a very bad addition to the franchise.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	Poll: Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 3 - Hi no Ishi wo Tsugu Mono Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) PBnJamz - Apr 22, 2010	120 replies	by Ricky16 »» Feb 14, 9:37 AM
	Speculating "Hi no Ishi wo Tsugu Mono" Yankowich - Jun 9, 2009	8 replies	by HornyCorny »» Jul 24, 2011 6:49 PM
	Who will sub this in 1080p TheRealNeji - Apr 23, 2010	2 replies	by Georesa »» May 15, 2010 7:34 PM
	When will this be subbed? RustiX - Feb 18, 2010	17 replies	by aksdldew3 »» Apr 22, 2010 9:49 AM