It is the year 1614 and the Tsubagakure of the Iga, and Manjidani of Kouga are two Shinobi clans who have 400 years of hostility between them. The Shinobi are people who have superhuman powers, like the mutants in the
X-Men. The main female character Oboro, played by actress
Yukie Nakama, possesses what's termed as a "piercing eyes" technique, the main male character Kouga Gennosuke seems to have some super speed or ability to slow down time ability, not sure which. Other Shinobi fighters include the ability to breath poison, another is a beast-like Shinobi character, yet another is a seemingly immortal Shinobi character who keeps coming back to life after being killed, and many other interesting characters. At some point in time, the fighting ceases with a pact between the two clans. Tokugawa Ieyasu who is shogun of Japan starts seeing the Shinobi with their superabilities as a threat to his power. In Machiavellian fashion, Ieyasu ends the peace pact between the two Shinobi clans and holds a contest where the best 5 fighters from each of the two Shinobi clans will fight each other to the death, until only one fighter remains. Blinded by their centuries old mutual animosity, the two clans anxiously start the battle amongst themselves. Only Gennosuke and Oboro, the two young star crossed lovers seem to maintain enough reason to question the underlying intentions of Ieyasu's contest. The movie is based on 1950's novel
Kouga Ninja Scrolls authored by Futaro Yamada. That novel seems to have inspired a series of animation as well including the animation series
Basilisk. The gullibility of the Shinobi characters seems far fetched but the action scenes which are numerous are pretty well done. The movie's setting is breathtakingly beautiful and overall movie wasn't bad, but the star crossed lovers plot is getting a bit old.
