NINJA SCROLL may be considered be many to be one of the greats in Anime, but I personally can't stand this movie. To me it's a bafflingly overrated, repulsively violent, misogynistic, unpleasant, and altogether uninteresting bloodfest that seems more tailor-made for fans of this kind of slice-and-dice/raunchy material. In order for a movie to truly entertain, there has to be substance behind the violence. Well, the biggest problem I have with NINJA SCROLL is that the story itself isn't very good at all. It does have its points of interest at times, and ironically, as disgusting as the opening ten minutes are (in which a group of ninjas are literally cut in half, another has his arms ripped off, and a girl is ripped), it's actually the strongest part of the movie. By the second half I was just losing interest in the characters and not even caring about the resolution one way or another.
The worst part of the movie isn't even the sickening violence. It's the "love story", or whatever you want to call it. It's weakly defined and lacking in heart and emotional resonance. The leads aren't particularly likable, or frankly, all that interesting either; he's a lone ninja who just goes around killing and saving while chastising others, she's a woman whose schtick is poisoning anyone who dares to mess with her. The latter could have actually provided for an interesting role, but the problem is, despite her seeming toughness, her role is reduced to damsel in distress from monsters who want to rape her. This was a problem I had with director Yoshiaki Kawajiri's similarly reprehensible WICKED CITY, but here it's worse: the woman's change of heart feels very tacked on, and she's bumped off without given a proper opportunity to really complete her arc. The resolution to the love story also plain does not work. If your characters are not likable, then whatever attempts there are at creating a "romance" is simply not going to work.
With nary a sympathetic character, a lack of a compelling story, and a heavy dose of bloodletting, why does NINJA SCROLL not get my lowest rating?
Because the film is, to its credit, meticulously staged and well animated. I may have misgivings about Kawajiri's choice of presenting content, but he has a very stylish way of directing his movies. His action scenes are handled as skillfully as any live-action movie, with lots of dramatic cutting and well choreographed fight scenes. The animation lacks the colorful oomph of a Ghibli movie, but frankly, the film is still quite impressively detailed and lovely to look at. On that level it's easy to appreciate NINJA SCROLL as a technically apt production for a 1993 film.
And the dub, while not by any means great, is not too awful either. It does have occasionally stilted-sounding dialogue, but the voices are well matched to their roles and the acting is, for the most part, very good, with Dean Elliot and Wendee Lee both turning in solid performances as Jubei and Kagero.
But even these qualities are not enough to elevate NINJA SCROLL into classic status for me as a viewer. It ended up leaving me with a sick stomach and underwhelmed. Kawajiri IS talented (for me his best movie is VAMPIRE HUNTER D: BLOODLUST, mainly because it's his LEAST gory movie), but it's too bad his skills were wasted on this joyless film and WICKED CITY. As such, I cannot recommend NINJA SCROLL. It gets ** out of *****.
I'm aware that I am going to cause controversy for this review, but I sincerely dislike this movie. If anyone else disagrees, fine. All the more power to you. But I just can't watch this movie without wincing. |