Can you imagine my joy when my copy of Ninja Scroll arrived on my doorstep, fresh from the bowels of eBay, clasped in a plastic carrying case? If you answered no, then perhaps you should acquaint yourself with one of the finest anime movies to gain widespread release in the United States.
Jubei is a mercenary swordsman with a mean ethical streak. On his way back from helping a small clan regain a precious sword, he finds beautiful ninja girl Kagero being rather disgustingly manhandled by a giant man. This man, whose skin can turn to stone at will, has just wiped out Kagero's entire squad of ninjas. Of course, Jubei must fight this giant and rescue the girl. But he gets more than just the girl -- he finds that the giant is one of the eight devils of Kimon who are working for a mysterious stranger in a conspiracy against the Tokugawa shogunate. A mysterious government spy gathers both Jubei and Kagero to stop them.
Sounds simple, no? What I haven't told you are all the intricate relationships between the characters, the internal politics of the eight devils of Kimon, and the spectacular clashes that occur along the way. On the surface, Ninja Scroll is about a mysterious stranger and his band of bad mofos trying to stop the bad guys, but Ninja Scroll avoids a cliched delivery by being almost completely character driven. The characters are almost all detailed and expressive, especially Jubei, Kagero, and that damned spy. The devils of Kimon, while some don't get the screen time that I'd like, are all interesting both visually and conceptually.
Let's talk about these devil, shall we? They aren't actually fire and brimstone devils, more like powerful users of ninja magic. Those familiar with the hyperbolic abilities that Hong Kong cinema can ascribe to kung fu masters will have a sense of what they are. But these abilities often take physical forms, like the stone skinned giant or the dwarf whose back is a hive of deadly bees. Each is unique and creatively executed, making for spectacular battles.
These battles are some of the most elegant, brutal, and enthralling set pieces put to celluloid. A large part of the violence is implicative, cutting from a shot of a blade's trail past an enemy to a shot of that enemy's would splitting and erupting with blood. In fact, some scenes achieve a bloody sort of beauty, a balletic artistry that American movies are only recently catching on to. One scene in particular comes to mind: the stone-skinned giant is massacring the band of ninjas with his double-bladed throwing sword. There is a distant whirring sound, a slash of light, and then the ninjas' torsos split in the middle to float suspended briefly before falling from the trees. Cut to a shot of several severed limbs and bodies drifting to the ground, horrified still faces settling into the grass below to be sprinkled with fine raindrops of blood. Startlingly haunting stuff, that.
These action set pieces, like the one in the trees mentioned above, are rendered with such styling beauty, such breathtaking fluidity as to lock you into the movie like a boot on a fading dunn Chevy Nova. From a duel in a bamboo forest with a blind swordsman to a moment of drawn tension in a shadowed house where one of the devils hides, these scenes almost uniformly provide both beautiful shots and ferocious action. It's breathtaking to behold.
The animation is, as I've said, marvelously fluid and detailed. But, in addition, Ninja Scroll duplicates some cinematic techniques in animation to provide a more "movie-like" experience. For example, one scene, they perform a rack focus; that is, they focus the "camera" on an object in the foreground, then quickly shift focus to something in the background. When you notice it, you realize that there is no "camera" in the usual sense, just drawings photographed in succession. To pull off shifts in focus like this requires some amount of ingenuity and cinematic tap dancing.
Ninja Scroll comes in both subbed and dubbed flavors. My version is subtitled, which I would recommend intensely. The subs are clearly visible throughout the movie and never sound like a Chinese take out menu. Besides, the original voice acting is intense and thankfully lacks the ridiculous voices that most anime dubs seem to be fond of including. Why is that anyway? Because they are animated, do Americans feel they need to have cartoonish voices? Check out the dub of Akira if you want an example, especially in the government round table, where several of the men there sound like they are voiced by women trying to voice men.
You want to see what anime can do? Rent Ninja Scroll. I will warn you that there is a good bit of graphic violence and some sexual situations, including a disgusting rape (which the film allows the victim to have a moment of horror over the act). But if you can stomach a little bit o' that, this is where to begin consuming the catalogue of anime brought to America.
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