Shinobi
Screener submitted by Shochiku Films
Again Bifff 2006 will be a highlight for every fan of fantastic film and I’m pretty sure that shochiku films will have one of their movies amongst the many screenings in the Passage 44 in march. My guess is that “Shinobi” will be the one, as it topped the box office in Japan last fall.The story of “Shinobi”, is more or less a Japanese samurai version of the classic Romeo & Julia tale we all know. The year is 1614 and the great Shogun Ieyasu finally unites Japan. The land has come to peace, yet in two remote and hidden villages an ancient race of warriors still urge to fight. The Iga Ninja & the Koga Ninja were born and raised to fight each other. These dark warriors with arcane skills and strange powers are called the Shinobi.
To keep the peace in the country the first Hatori Hanzo (the chief ninja directly under the Shogun), made a pact with the 2 villages forbidding them to put their skills to use on each other. While both leaders of the villages are sworn enemies, their heirs are not. Oboro from the Iga family has secretly met Gennosuke of the Koga and has fallen in love with this mighty warrior. Everything seems peaceful, but Ieyasu, the first shogun feels his days have come and the time is near for a new shogun to be named.
Ieyasu, orders his right hand Tenkai to lift the pact between the two families. Tenkai summons both the Iga & Koga to battle each other till dead. Five warriors of both families have to fight each other and the winner will name the new shogun.
For the first time Oboro & Gennosuke meet each other in public, only this time as enemies. But not everything is really as it seems? Are Ieyasu’s intentions true or does he have a hidden agenda. And why is Ieyasu’s army attacking the now defenceless villages of both the Iga & the Koga?
This Japanese adaptation of the classic tale is one that I watched with lots of pleasure. The mix of romance and action adventure is set against the beautiful scenery of Japan and spiced up with state of the art visual FX. Japans top CG creators who also worked on movies like “Cashern” or “Dragon Head” digitally created the impressive sets seen in this movie, like “the Sumpu Castle” or the “Ninja villages”. However it is the state of the art technology like Motion Capture that makes this movie even more interesting. The Motion Capture technique is a way to portray actions and movements from an angle that are normally impossible to create with a common camera. This so called Motion Capture technique is actually a digitised combination of a dozen of pictures that are merged together to create a full image that can’t be taken by any camera. The film runs for about 100 minutes and never bores, yet it doesn’t leave much room to introduce the characters properly. Fortunately for me I did get a nice poster, including an overview of the characters and all their special skills. That comes in handy as some of these ninja’s do have very special abilities. Oboro for instance is born with the eyes of destruction and a fierce look from her can kill you instantly, Kagero on the other part is a girl you definitely avoid kissing. The touch of her lips is enough to let you drop stone dead. The most special one is without doubt Yashamaru who is best described as a spider-man. But don’t be mistaken this is not the Fantastic Four or Justice League America. With a clear balance between romance & chopping action scenes, this is a well-edited movie that I enjoyed very much. The ninja action isn’t exaggerated and although we all know that things like these are impossible the special crafts and powers they use never become laughable.
Amongst the actors we recognize some established names known for their appearances on movies like “Ichi The Killer” (Houko Kinoshita), “Hypnossis”, “Ring 0: Birthday” (TV drama queen Yukie Nakama), “Dragon Head” (Minori Terrada) or “Vital” (Lily). Director Shimoyama Ten isn’t a newcomer either. He did a handful of movies and TV work of which the horror movie “Otogiriso (2001) was one. “Shinobi” is based on a novel by Futaro Yamada, who started writing books in the sixties. The novel is reworked into a film script by Kenya Hirata. The same novel had already been adapted a couple of times for animated versions or manga strips and if I’m not mistaken there is a game inspired by this novel, as well. With such a background and knowing the box-office success last year in Japan, it is to no ones surprise that this movie might be picked up for an American remake, although I fear that the ninja theme and legend based background will vanish into some wooden American urban tale stripped down to some superheroes with supernatural powers.
If your interested is sparked, then start watching this trailer or go directly to the well made shinobi site
more info on :
http://www.shochikufilms.com/
http://www.bifff.org