• Aug 23
• ROGUE NINJA: DVD review
• Posted by Deljhp - 23/08/11 at 04:42 PM

Director: Seiji Chiba. Review: Adam Wing.

Seiji Chiba sure loves his ninja movies. The Kunoichi: Ninja Girl, Alien vs. Ninja, Evil Ninja - its safe to assume that he’s comfortable within the action genre. Fans on these shores are likely to be familiar with Alien vs. Ninja, an action spoof that was little more than a sixty-minute fight sequence. There was enough mutilation and mayhem to keep you from reaching for the remote control though, even if it lacked the invention of some of its siblings.

Rogue Ninja lacks anything approaching comedy aliens, with Chiba instead choosing to take his latest foray incredibly seriously. It's the 16th Century, a period of civil war in Japan, and stuck right in the middle are the Iga ninja. Rather than stand firm against the Nobunaga Oda and the Koga ninja that have joined forces, the Iga turn on themselves, dispensing with each other and saving enemy clans the trouble. Its all part of a power struggle between the Iga high leaders and the Iga lesser leaders, a power struggle ninja Ukagami (Mika Hijii) is all too familiar with.

Being somewhat easy on the eye, she gains the attention of the lesser ninja’s leader. He’s bored of the women in his life, but then, how many ways can a woman please a man if she’s bound and gagged in his quarters? We know he’s evil by the way he treats his women, killing them before telling his comrades to rape them before they get too cold. Nice. Now he wants Ukagami, and he's willing to do anything he can to possess her, including killing her and I’m guessing, passing her dead body around like a tube of Pringles at a house party...Continue review here.

Rogue Ninja official site