Wrath of the Ninja: The Yotoden Movie (1989)

the leading man is my tpye

A Disappointing Continuation

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

After having spent a lot of my youth watching such movies, I found this one very easy to follow in both the unedited and cut versions, (Although the story has much more to hold it together in the unedited version. Unlike Ninja Scroll this movie hit a much more serious note and i think that's where it hit me. The animation while grainy is very original, and I just love the way artists in that year stressed shadows to show different emotions. I think the story is perfect. The beginning of the movie really hits hard and as the movie progresses you get the feeling that you're going along in this adventure with the characters. As they meet, become allies and find out the their greatest strengths, a lot of heart was put into this.

The Yotoden feature isn't really a film. Well, it's not how Yotoden was ever intended to be seen, anyway. In the UK Yotoden has been released in it's original OAV format, in 3 one hour parts. In the US however, aforementioned series was bought up, edited down to 90 minutes, removing most of the story segments in favour for the series' admittedly brilliant battle sequences. What story was left was turned into gibberish by an unintelligible dub, and the rest is history.Yotoden is one of the better Anime series to make it over here during the 80s. Bubblegum Crisis it ain't, but when you think that BGC aside, the era it's from was typified by Robotech and Fist of the North Star, even the American feature version looks quite solid. The story is reasonably strong, never over-egging itself too much but keeping dramatic tension high regardless, and the character design and animation is inventive. Many reviewers have commented on it's similarity to the better known Ninja Scroll, and this is a fair comment, but the extra restraint Yotoden shows makes it a more subtle and satisfying watch than Ninja Scroll.Still, it has it's down points. The ending is both anticlimactic and slightly annoying, the main character actually gets to do very little despite apparently being 'the only one who can stop this disaster' etc etc, and the movie is showing its age much worse than some of its peers, perhaps because of its rigid attachment to the constraints of the ninja genre. If it mixed it up a bit more, Yotoden would come out of enjoyable and into great, but it just doesn't manage it. Also, the American voice actors don't really fit too well with their characters, and the story in the half-length version is butchered so badly as to make the series incomprehensible.If you can track a full unedited version down, add two points to the above score, and check it out. However, as it stands, there's not enough going for the US version of Yotoden to really recommend it over other more coherent films like Ninja Scroll or Shadow Skill. Yotoden in it's original form is a great sleeper hit from the 80s, but getting your mitts on it will be very tricky.

After reading more than my fair share of reviews for a vast number of different movies I have noticed a certain trend, people judge to harshly on what the expected to see. I figure if you go into a movie open-minded not expecting anything certain than you will have better feelings towards it then if you try and watch but have pre-created standards you want it to reach.Since I try not to be hypocritical I watched this movie with a very clean slate and open-mind, and was very much pleased. Since it is not a mainstream title or award winning for that matter I did not know quite what to expect, but in all truth I enjoyed it a good deal more than Ninja Scroll. Lovely animation, deep story, and the always joyful ninja hack-n-slashing combined extremely well to one of my personal favorite animes ever made.I am not promising that you will enjoy it, but just give it a chance and you may come out with a pleasant surprise."Before speaking, be sure of what you will say will be more beautiful than the silence" - Chinese proverb

This movie stinks majorly. The only reason I gave it a 3 was because the graphics were semi charming. It's total disregard for a plot and the lack of even insubstantial surface character development made it seem like just a bunch of nice drawings. This is by far THE worse anime that came out of Japan. I can't believe they actually put their names on this garbage. What a rip off selling this thing for $20. If you haven't seen this don't bother. If you have, I pity you.