Shinobi is a beautifully executed tale of two Ninja tribes hidden deep within the 16th century mountains of Japanese mythology. It is a gorgeous feast to the eyes with breathtakingly amazing locations and eye-poppingly stunning visual effects that leave you breathless and gasping for more. It is as delicate as it is intense, and as passionate as it is cold.

The film focuses around the two hidden Ninja tribes, Iga clan matriarch and the powerful Koga clan. Both villages have existed for 400 years, training new Shinobi warriors for use of the Lord of Lords in war. Unfortunately, they do not get along. However, this is now a time of peace not war and several members clans have used this time to adapt and hone their skills to superhuman reaches.
One fateful day Oboro, the granddaughter of Ogen (leader of the Iga clan) meets Gennosuke, the son of Danjo Koga (leader of Koga clan). They fall deeply in love, a love that is so forbidden both villages could be destroyed by it if anyone found out. What follows is a sort of Japanese Romeo and Juilet as Gennosuke and Oboro struggle with their star-crossed love as the Lord of Lords orders for an unknown reason the five best warriors from both clans to fight, to the death. Gennosuke refuses to fight and takes his warriors to see the Lord of Lords to seek truth behind the way their lives are lead and thrown away without reason, and Oboro leads her warriors to do the same.
From there the movie is an utterly fantastic, passionate tale of death, honor, and the ways of the Shinobi.

The best way i can explain Shinobi to the lovers of Anime or this sort of genre out there is basically this: It is a live-action Ninja Scroll. Their powers are amazingly portrayed, and belivably real. One of the warriors was fed posion her whole life and now can kill with the slightest touch of her lips. Another has lived for 300 years and has adapted parasites within his body to heal him when hurt. Gennosuke can see everything in a Matrix-like bullet time which is seen from both his viewpoint and from the enemies, so battles are simultaniously incredibly fast and wonderfully slow.

The story is firely and passionate with many twists you don't see coming. It leaves you to contemplate human nature, love, and what lies beyond simple feeling.

Main Site
I strongly urge you to check the site, it is mostly in Japanese but there are many many amazing screenshots and things so it's worth figuring it out.

Trailer

IMDB


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Sorry for the BMP attachments, i don't have JPEG on this bloody computer. I'll correct that later. Anyway, they're screenshots.

Gotta love this stuff. It is definately not the same old thing we usually get.

One of the most fantastic things about Japanese movies in general is how passionate and emotional the scenes are. Some may consider them drawn out, but through my eyes the scenes of intense emotion are so beautifully created simply through the music, acting and location, it's utterly epic every time. I had tears welling up constantly during the more memorable scenes of tragedy.
Hollywood movies don't focus on that, they don't put emotion into their movies like the Japanese do.

Agreed. this film looks incredible!

It really is. One of the best acted, choreographed and beautifully shot movies i've ever seen, not to mention the CG is extremely well done.

Think Crouching Tiger meets Ninja Scroll, if you're seen both.

And, naturally, it's also the movie adaptation of the hugely popular videogame and comic series, and it does not dissapoint.

It really does look good. I'm gonna have to check this out, for sure.

I've played the first game for PS2, too. It's pretty good. I didn't know there was a anime and comic series on it, though.

The film takes a more realistic approach to the way of the Shinobi Ninja than the comics or games do. There's no white-ninja garb or anything like that, such a thing is generally the work of 20th century imagination. There's also no Kill Bill style arteries gushing blood, this isn't a gore flick, although there's a far share of unfortunate deaths that's for sure.

It's also, as far as i'm aware, only in Japanese with subtitles, so if you're not very good at or simply dislike having to read subtitles to understand the plot and what's going on, it's perhaps not for you. Looking past that though, it's simply an amazing piece of cinema that those passing it up will be missing out on highly.

Subtitles are the only way to go when watching a foreign movie!

Looks intresting, though the trailer not having subtitles was a little confusing to watch. When does this movie come out? I checked out the IMDB page and it said it was out in 05 so is it coming out in theatres here soon?

I remember playing a Shinobi game on Sega GameGear alooong time. Goodgame!

Movie looks and sounds awesome. This is the next movie I'm looking for.

I believe it was out in Cinema in Japan around October last year. Don't expect to find it in NA Cinema's well, ever. Or if you do, it'll probably be in a year or so once all the voice-overs are done and everything. You're not gonna find it in HMV either. I've seen it, i picked it up at the local Chinatown Bootleg DVD store, there's about 10 within a 5-block radius of me which is pretty sweet. I suggest you have a look around for any stores like that in your area.

First Shinobi game i played was on the NES around about 1989. Fantastic side-scroller.

You have a Chinatown Bootleg DVD store? LUCKY!

Do yourself a favor and pick up Jet Li's Fist of Legend, possibly the greatest martial arts film of all time.

Shinobi is in the process of putting itself on my computer. I'll watch it tonight or tomorrow.

Lucky ain't the half of it. I brought King Kong and Chronicles of Narnia a month ago. Perfect, cinema DVD quality, it just happens the boxes have a bunch of Japanese/Chinese all over them that's all.

It's been my hobby as of late because they're so dirt cheap to pick up. Got Battle Royale a few days ago, one of the best flicks of all time. Oh yeah, i bought Advent Children there too, 5 bucks.

Fist of Legend is an easy find, since it's quite mainstream. Fantastic movie.

Easy find my ass. The only place I've ever seen it in was at Fry's Electronics, the ULTIMATE electronics store. It's huge. When I say they have everything....I mean EVERYTHING. It's like 5 Besty Buys and 12 Circuit Cities combined. They had the movie there for 8 bucks, but I bought Ong Bak instead. If you haven't seen that, HIGHLY reccomended movie.

Of course i've seen it. Ong Bak 2 looks to blow it out of the water, it's simply superb.

Easy find for me means walking into one of the several Asian film stores around here that sell DVD's normal store wouldn't hold.

Th-th-theres an Ong Bak TWO?!?!!? When the hell did this happen and where can I find it?!?!? Why isn't it in theaters? Why didn't I know about this?

Argh! So many questions!

Damnnn i wanna see Battle Royale. Your lucky Burns as far as I know we dont have any bootlegging places around here. Though..maybe I should look in our Chinatown a little more..there is alot of weird alleys with strange stores that I havent checked out.

It's the same here Boff. Until i actually moved to the area i was unaware what quaint little shops were hidden away with some amazing suprises.

Shake, i'll find the trailer for you, hold up.

Sorry, Burns. You must be mistaken. Although confirmed, Ong Bak 2 is not scheduled to even start production until this fall.

This news was released yesterday. http://www.comingsoon.net/news.php?id=13814

Having abit of difficulty finding the trailer now. My friend showed it to me a few days ago. It was only actually announced to the public this month, so we wont actually be seeing it anytime soon. probably by the end of the year it'll be in my bootleg store.
Sorry if my post was missleading, i've only seen the trailer not the actual movie since it hasn't been finished yet.

Ah, you beat me.
I watched the trailer for it about 3 weeks ago, it's very rough and obviously not official, as i was saying the actual movie is not finished yet, although i can garantee you the trailer is out there, while the news of it is relatively new to the net it's been in production for awhile and was actually picked up sometime last fall.

I can't view this right now (work), but try this link i think it might have the trailer.
http://digg.com/movies/Ong_Bak_2

Wow...that trailer was fantastically amazing. But that's actually a different movie, called Tom Yum-Goong. There are many people online that have evidently been mistaking it to be Ong Bak 2, so the news about OB2 starting production in the fall is true. Notice that the guy who played Hum Lai (sp) is in it, and he's a cop; his character died in OB. Also, the trailer I viewed was a theatricl one and looked very finished, so this movie should be out soon. I can't wait.

Indeed, i see that the site i linked linked to the main Tom Yum-Goong site. Since the movie has alot of familiar characters, evidently when i and my friend viewed the trailer we missinterpreted the same way alot of people on the net have. Since, well, it's really easy to missinterpret when all you have to go on is Japanese writing lol.

Thanks for clearing that up for me though. I guess that means we'll be seeing alot more of Tony Jaa in the near future.

Yes. Tony Jaa is simply an amazing martial artist, and the next biggest one out there.

I just ordered the Tom Yum-Goong DVD from redsundvd.com for 20 bucks. There's also a 2 disk edition of it that just features a long Making Of...thing that has no subtitles. It's also more expensive. It should be here in a few days. I'm so damn excited for it!

Shinobi is about 75% done.

So did it download okay? Did you watch it?

It downloaded fine. I haven't watched it yet, but I will tonight. I checked it out, the quality is very good, as is the sound. Must be a direct DVD rip.

Very nice. I look forward to hearing your view of it.

Please bear in mind that like most Japanese movies the movie itself is more about the lifestyle of the characters than straight-out action. It's a little slow to start for the first 15 mins or so and alot of scenes are drawn-out to maximize the full emotional impact. But the action when it comes is truely fantastic.

Yeah, I know what it will be like. I've checked out people's reviews on IMDb. I know it's not going to have tons of action, but I heard the story is played out really well.

How about now?

Lol, nope. I watched Domino last night, instead. If you haven't seen it, DON'T. Total waste of 2 hours . It's very boring.

I'll let you know when I watch it.

Yeah i know, from the very first second i'd heard about it i wasn't even remotely interested in watching it. *shrugs*

I thought it was going to be an action movie that looked good. But the only scene that could be considered action was a little 5 minute segment at the end. The story was boring and extremely confusing.

Burns hit another one on the head.

***spoiler***




Even though it did have a feel of "House of Flying Daggers" to it with the forbidden love and hidden clans with mad skills.

Favorite weapon, the flying discs.

It did have a lot of emotion within it. I felt soo horrible when he screamed come at him and he didn't block...just... wow.

Kind of wish the night fight scene would have had more light in it though. There was some good kills in there and you couldn't see parts.

Oh... and Hotarubi Made the movie just a bit better by showing up. But they killed her half way.